What is our position with questions and answers that push a political viewpoint?

Question

I have seen a couple of answers/questions that raise political viewpoints instead-of / in-addition-to regular Q/A, or try to slide that political view underneath an answer.

This problem happens when the subject is near or touches for example, abortion, vaccines, toy guns, and other subjects.

How should we deal with that content, and what is our position regarding pushing political propaganda on this site?

• Should we edit the content to remove the politically conflitcting parts?
• Should we flag it for review?
• Should we comment (and maybe violate internet rule #14)?
• Should we downvote the content that is pushing the political viewpoint?

It is a very delicate issue, because people with strong beliefs have also a strong confirmation bias, and they are prone to react badly when confronted.

Answer 1

There are a couple of previous discussions that are relevant to this question:

• What is the best strategy to combat soapboxing?
• What should we advise when someone disagrees with the premise of a question?
• Policy for Voting

The key takeaways are:

• If you disagree with a fundamental premise of the question that is a subjective issue, such as a cultural difference, or over an issue of fact that remains controversial in the field that studies it, don't answer, don't comment, and just pass the question by.
• If you disagree with a fundamental premise of the question that is an objective, verifiable fact, use (polite!) comments or edits to fix the error.
• It is never appropriate to post an answer that does not directly answer the question asked.

If you see answers (or questions) that violate these rules, flag for moderator attention and/or downvote. If you feel a topic or specific answer is borderline, post a new question about it here in meta.

• Don't vote if an answer seems safe and sound, but doesn't agree with your parenting style.
• Downvote when you strongly disagree, and add a polite comment explaining so, or even better, provide an alternate answer that describes your perspective.
• Flag offensive contributions (including comments) and let the moderators sort it out.

Answer 2

I agree with Beofett's approach on how to handle these questions, I just want to additionally point out that whether a point of view is "political" or not depends highly on the context. A post advising someone on an individual parenting decision in their own home is apolitical. The same post advising a law be passed that forces that same decision on everyone is political by definition.

For example, whether or not to vaccinate your own child is a parenting decision. Whether or not all public school children should be required to be vaccinated is a political decision. Yes, the arguments overlap, but the intent and context makes a huge difference. The personal parenting advice of someone you disagree with can be ignored. A law you disagree with cannot. The latter merits a much stronger rebuttal than the former.

By all means, downvote answers you strongly disagree with. Correct facts that are wrong. However, the best response to what you consider bad advice is to post your own better answer.