Foxy just repeated the gossip... well it's common.

Peter Dutton has shown the same courage as Harry Potter in ending the conspiracy of forty years of desert silence on immigration since the Hawke era. You can't control what people say or what they see, but you do what is right in spite of it. Hopefully over time your example will be your legacy, beyond your physical body. We should all ask ourselves. "What is our legacy?" This is our immortality! Or our legend of hope... dared not to be spoken of in the infinite dark cavernous prison of our captors... a spark in the darkness, a keyhole, a doorway, a flood, ... burning the darkness to light. Cycles of darkness and light, fear and thought, the seasons of history in the infinite, our European people stretching back 1 thousand, 10 thousand, more millions of years.

Infinite space and time, the big within the small. Greater omnipotence than the individual atomic grains, but containing our spirit just the same

Hi Foxy,

I can assure you Labor has some very competent people on their side as well. I have known Matt Thistlethwaite, member for Kingsford Smith, my old stamping ground for many years. Having had several personal conversations on issues with Matt, I can truly say; "Matt's no dummy".

There are a lot of half progressive people in both the Labor and Liberal parties, but they so often seem impeded by internal party politics, reluctantly toeing the party line.

Dear Paul,

Toeing the party line is pretty much the way politics
works I guess. Yet, as you point out - we do have people
who've been brave enough to cross the line on important
issues. It's a matter of sifting the sheep from the goats.
Policies do matter to most of us - not so much party
loyalties.

As for the accusations of my "spreading gossip?"

I prefer evidence-based data to gossip. It's an occupational
habit.

Anyhoo, Each to our preferences. Some go for outmoded
tactics and then can't understand why they don't have much
success. The next election will show us all what voters will
or will not tolerate. Lessons to be learnt - for sure.

BTW: HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! To all you dads and grandfathers
out there.

Enjoy your day!

.

Dear ttbn,

.

You wrote :

« … When you start deriding people for the looks you are well and truly finished. »

You sure hit the nail on the head, ttbn. That’s exactly the sort of peremptory judgment I was referring to. Most of us, consciously or unconsciously, tend to make peremptory judgments about people’s “looks”.

Take, for example, the "looks" of the participants in the "LGBT pride parades".

We are all sensitive to the physical appearance of others and influenced by it. Numerous studies have shown that looks affect people’s perception of an individual’s personality traits. They also suggest that, inversely, moral behaviour continuously affects physical looks.

People tend to think that individuals with “good looks” possess more positive personality traits and better moral qualities, such as sincerity, kindness, and trustworthiness. Several studies indicate that people’s moral judgments of individuals are affected by their “looks”.

It is a fact of life that people with “good looks” have a better chance than others of being hired and promoted in the employment market.

Researchers emphasize the importance of affective processes in people’s determination of their moral judgments. It has been argued that moral judgments are not caused by reasoning but by rapid, affectively based intuitions, and that moral behaviour co-varies with emotion more than with reasoning.

Both behavioural and brain imaging evidence have confirmed the role of emotion in moral judgment. Social-emotional processes and cognitive processes are two essential elements of moral judgments. Multiple neuroscientific findings have shown that the brain areas activated during moral judgments involve both areas related to emotion and areas related to cognitive processes, and these two elements have considerable effects on moral judgments.

As for Peter Dutton, he, himself, admitted that he is “not very handsome”, and Malcolm Turnbull, when pressed by reporters, described him as a “thug”.

If we were to combine the two, it would not be too difficult to imagine that someone seeing him on TV or an election poster might get the impression that he is a thug – and vote for somebody else.

.

Talking about leaving a legacy?

Our legacy is much more than material assets. It's about
the way we impact those around us. The way we make others
feel and how we care for people. The decisions we make today
impact our tomorrow and leave an imprint for generations to
come.

Let's ask ourselves - how do we want to be remembered?

Hopefully, the lessons I learned from my parents I did manage
to pass onto my children and they will pass onto theirs.

Dear Banjo,

Judging people by appearances is probably an ingrained
human trait. We all do it. But it's important to
clarify that when we do make snap judgements based on
appearances, this does not excuse or justify discrimination,
or rude or unkind behaviour.

Watching the Para-Olympics is truly an education.