As a newcomer, I don't see the problem. There are so many interesting submissions on HN that surely no one has time to read them all (I suppose if you reflexively read them all, then you would have a problem). I appreciate the TSA-related posts as civil liberties are very important to me, but if you don't care, skip them! It's not like they're not clearly labelled.
I have spent a lot of time in the last few weeks reading the site, but I don't regret it at all -- it's been informative and inspiring.