Great post, Lego. Astute, cogent and well argued.
Now watch, Lexi will act as if she hasn't adsorbed a word of it --talk about teflon coated!

Hi SPQR

I have noticed that Lexi does tent to go off at a tangent to what her opponents are saying and she stresses moral arguments when logic and reason fail her.

I think that I just scored a bullseye with my last post and Lexi does not know how to respond. Her position is a humane one, but my position is that as an Australian, her humanitarian ideals are supposed to be directed primarily towards her own people, not everybody else's people. Otherwise, the term "Australian" does not define social inclusion and community, it is just a term for a geographic address.

I think Lexi is a fairly typical leftie. Educated by the long haired men and the short haired women of our state education departments to think that nationalism and patriotism are the ideals of the cretin class, and taught to think that her own culture is manifestly evil, she has become an easy convert to the causes of the western self loathers who hate the society they choose to live in.

Fortunately, we have the glaring example of Europe to display to her the consequences of failing to support her own culture.

I have a funny feeling that she is sitting in a dark corner at the moment, because she is a smart girl and she knows that my argument makes sense. With a bit of luck we might be able to get her to take off her ideological blinkers and start thinking straight.

YoooHooooooo Lexi. Where arrrrrrre Youuuuuuuuu?

Dear LEGO,

My apologies for not responding to you sooner.
I've had computer problems.

A few things need to be clarified here.

Firstly, I come from a Liberal voting family.
My background is a conservative one. And I do not
belong to any political party. I vote on policies
that make sense to me, as I imagine many Australians
do. I also think that Australians are remarkably
diverse. We have voters of all persuasion, city
and country folk, very young and very old, gay and
everything else. We should invite everyone's view
and, within the limits of defamation and good taste,
we should allow them all to be heard.
I don't believe in making our concerns, issues, policies,
and pre-occupations of this country to be divided into
a left/right dogfight.

I don't believe in labelling people simply because their
views don't agree with mine. I think that Australians
are far more complex than those who insist on seeing
all discussions through a fixed ideological viewfinder.

Now back to the topic of asylum seekers.
We are signatories to the UN Refugee Convention which
obligates us to assess applications for asylum from people
seeking it. Compared to other refugee-hosting countries
Australia receives a very small number of asylum
applications and we're in no danger of being "swamped."
We do have set criteria on which asylum claims are
assessed. Most asylum seekers who've come by boat
have in the past been found to be genuine cases.

I've had my say on this topic. I'm not interested in
sweeping statements
and arguments on an emotion level rather than a mature
intelligent one - so I shan't be responding
to you any further.

I shall leave you to continue with your kindred spirits
who have the wisdom to see things your way.

Cheers.

The title of this thread has been niggling me - reminding me of something that I couldn't put my finger on.

But, it just occurred to me.

We've all known someone who regularly utters the phrase "I'm not being nasty, but..." - before launching into something exquisitely "nasty".

Well, "We're not racist.....", has exactly the same psychological intonation.

Just sayin'.......

Dear Lexi

Re your comment about 'professional psychologist' - perhaps you remember a few years ago when 'professional psychologists' dragged up 'repressed memories' and Fathers were accused and prosecuted for 'raping' their daughters fome early childhood until late teens. The daughters could not actually remember the events, but 'profesional psychologists' were able to 'recover' these 'repressed' memories. Luckily for us, that fad from one of the most dangerous professions in existence was consigned to the dustbin of history - but not before several men had their lives utterly ruined. The utterances of 'professional psychologists' are not worthy of being considered more than 'opinions' than the utterances of anyone else, in fact in a lot of cases they should be dismissed as 'hogwash'.

I hope you're wrong Cody, because I hope to be one of those professionals in a few years.I don't recall the topic you're discussing, but I have heard of other "recovered memory" stuff that turned out to be no more than a fevered imagining.

It's important to be able to distinguish between clinical practitioners, counsellors and academics. Just as in any field, those at the coal face are dependent on those in back rooms to provide them with the cognitive tools with which to practice. Unlike most fields though, there is often no clear understanding of mechanisms, just some observational research and rules of thumb. Having spoken to practitioners in the past, very often they are torn in two directions. Firstly they want to make sure they can cover their bums by showing that they used the most current consensus model for the particular problem being treated and secondly, especially relevant to the subject of sexual abuse, they identify strongly with their patients, and have often chosen the field because of some experience of their own or someone close to them.

I suspect that a great deal of what you are talking about comes from the second of those imperatives winning out, with the practitioner becoming a participant in the creation of fantasies. If they had remained at arm's length, as is professionally proper, they would have been more able to critically evaluate what they were hearing against known reality.

My interest isn't in clinical practise (I'm a lousy listener, naturally gifted with strong tongue and jaw muscles and no that's not a chat-up line) but in the academic research and modelling of social interactions. Hopefully some really rigorous and testable understandings will come along within the next few years.

Out of interest, were you aware that Kevin Rudd's wife is a registered psychologist (or at least, she was)? It's not surprising that he seems to be able to play head games so effectively and effortlessly. She's lovely in person, I've met her a couple of times while waiting to vote.