There are several. In sci.electronics.basics, most of us hold our tongue quite well - that's the place for basics, and newbies are always welcome, and if anyone flames a newbie on sci.electronics.basics, he will get flamed back tenfold. IOW, it's safe. The s.e.d denizens, however, are the advanced folks who don't pull any punches - and it is a public discussion group, after all, and a lot of the regulars treat it almost like a pub. A place to relate to people and discuss stuff.
There's also a few other NGs in the sci.electronics.* heirarchy, and if you have a real newsreader and a real newsserver, you can go to alt.binaries.schemats.electronic , which is usually fairly politics- free. :-)
Cheers! Rich