When I was in school T-shirts were white. We never dreamed anyone would want to advertise preferences, political or otherwise on clothing.
Discussion is the key to understanding. Listening is as important as speaking. I'm not confident the public gets enough unadulterated information. ...certainly not enough to draw beer bottle throwing type conclusions.
My big gripe with what's going on in Washington is that the real agendas may not be well understood by the public. I suspect the issues are very basic--like oil and military spending, for example. The rest is to drum up public support. Corporate America has a big hand in deciding what the politicians do.
I think the Americans showed the way, demonstrating how important public debate is in making their system work. Let's just hope the checks and balances are working and mistakes are held to a minimum.