Author: Richard McDonough

The only people who get the quote-unquote whistleblower title are the people who advance the political interests of the US media and the Democrat Party which is the same thing. … [T]he media is an arm of the Democrat Party.  I never used to believe that but since 2015 its impossible to deny that.
Glen Greenwald, Unfiltered with Dan Bongino, Oct. 1, 2022
Since national events are complex it may be useful to have a summary of the essential non-stop “Mainstream news media” political coverage for the past two years.
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It is because of the “news” media’s behavior over the past several years that nearly 60% of Americans, including 87% of Trump voters and even 33% of Biden-voters, see the greatest threat to US democracy, not as Trump or the Republicans but as the “news” media. 
Note: Glen Greenwald, one of the co-founders of The Intercept in 2014 and the original editor, resigned from his position claiming that he was prevented, in violation of his contract, from publishing an article on Hunter Biden’s laptop unless he “remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.”  Ironically, The Intercept was originally founded to “hold the most powerful governmental and corporate factions accountable”. 

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Michael Moore, the left-wing propagandist film-maker, could not control his excitementwhen he appeared on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” on Sept. 23, 2022 because, in contrast tomost of pundits and polls, including some Democrats, he expects a massive “blue wave …landslide” in the Nov. 2022 elections. Specifically, he thinks the Democrats are going to keep theHouse and add 2 to 5 Democrat senators. Moore hasn’t “felt this optimistic” in quite a while.
His reasoning, apart from the fact that he lives in the mid-west, is that, first, he thanks theSupreme Court for “reminding women that they are … second-class citizens” by overturning ofRoe v. Wade and reminding people that Kansas, a red state, voted earlier this year in favour ofpeople’s right to choose to have an abortion. Second, he thinks the people are going to rise up inrighteous indignation against “the traitors, especially the 147 Republicans who just hours afterthe insurrection voted to not certify the elected president of the United States, Joe Biden, …”
Although it is true that the Republicans might not do as well as some predict, there is nochance, unless something massive changes, for a Democrat landslide in November. Mooreapparently thinks the American people like inflation the worst in 40 years and the gas pricedouble what it was when Biden took office, a massive crime surge and homicides under Biden,with police officers quitting because leftist mayors and DA’s don’t have their back, withunprecedented numbers of illegal aliens and massive amounts of Fentanyl and other deadly drugsflooding across the southern border killing Americans while Joe Biden, Karin Jean-Pierre, andAlejandro Mayorkas, none of whom apparently have functioning eyeballs, insult theirintelligence by telling them the border is secure, with parents finding out that their children arebeing indoctrinated with disturbing sexual material and being told they have no role in theirchildren’s education, some parents even being arrested for complaining about his daughter’s rapein school in a girls bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt, with 13 dead military people, a hundredmore Americans injured, and people falling to their death from airplanes as they take trying toescape Afghanistan after Biden’s disastrous pull-out for which he callously and cluelessly“makes no apology,” with tens of thousands of civilians dead in a Russian war in Ukraine afterBiden carelessly announced that he might not mind if Putin only made a minor incursion, withChina humiliating Biden’s Secretary of State Blinken on US soil, with Russia’s president, for thefirst time in a generation, threatening nuclear war, with Joe trying to shake hands with peoplewho aren’t there, unable to read his teleprompter or not knowing where he is and why he is there,perhaps with his wife leading him around by the hand like a baby.
Yes of course the voters are going to vote for much more of that. There is nothing morethan the American people love more than watching people set up tent cities in theirneighbourhood, defecate on the sidewalk, and throw their needles on the street as theycontemplate the possibility of nuclear war with North Korea or Russia caused by the buffoonsrunning our country.
It would seem that Moore is either smoking some very good stuff or he is making hispredictions by reading cracked turtle shells.
In fact, the overturning of Roe vs. Wade did not make women second class citizens in theUnited States. Moore does not grasp that his point about people in Kansas voting to protectabortion rights refutes his claim that SCOTUS’ overturning Roe vs. Wade in “red”(conservative) Kansas made women second class citizens. For what the Kansas vote shows isthat SCOTUS’ overturning Roe vs. Wade actually reaffirmed a woman’s first class right to vote,just like men, on their preference for abortion rights. It’s called “democracy”. Since the Left arealways squealing about “saving democracy” they might want actually to try it sometime.
Perhaps if Moore had managed more than a high school degree, he could have figured this out.In addition, his point about the 147 republican “traitors” who voted not to certify theelection of Joe Biden is equally silly. Unfortunately, Moore did not point out the federal treasonstatute that these Republicans allegedly broke. It also seemed to slip what’s left of his mind thatover the years many Democrat members of congress voted not to certify Republican presidentialwinners as well. In 2000 a dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus and a fewsupporters tried to block the counting of Florida’s 25 electoral votes, claiming that black votershad been disenfranchised. In 2004 Sen. Barbara Boxer and Ohio Rep. Stephanie Tubbs objectedto the electoral count for President Bush. As Politico points out, every single time a Republicanhas been elected President over the past few decades Democrat House members have objected tocertifying the vote. How could he forget? Comrade Moore did not call for these of his belovedDemocrats to be prosecuted for treason. Moore is obviously not a J.D. or professor of law.

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It is important to remember when one observes people like Moore on television, socialmedia or print media, especially in election years, effusing optimism and making these kinds ofunsupported points, that they are not there to inform the public about the facts. Moore does notappear on Bill Maher’s show to inform the viewers. What Moore, and others like him are doingon these kinds of shows is trying to create a narrative. His exuberant expressions of optimismand bold predictions of a Democrat landslide are meant to convince the viewers not to trust their“lying eyes” that see the massive damage to the country caused by Biden and Democrat policies.Moore is attempting to convince people that there is this great silent majority out that that justloves Fentanyl coming across the border and homeless camps on the sidewalk their children walkto school or in the parks where their children play.
Moore has never been particularly interested in the truth. Joe Scarborough (NBCNEWS,June 26, 2004), describes his reaction to Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11.

I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 Thursday expecting to be entertained … I waswrong.  To say Moore took liberty with the truth would be like saying that Ken Lay tookliberties with Enron's accounting practices.  Fahrenheit 9/11 … obviously figured thatwhen it came to making money, the end justified the means. … [T]he scale of deceit anddeception is breath-taking [but] I'd need four hours to … list all the falsehoodsOne can look forward to checking in with Moore on election night in November to see how wellhis predictions fared. Perhaps he will try to replay his 2019 Trump-Russia collusion hoax when,in fact, it was his beloved Hillary that paid for a Russian dossier to frame Trump and start theMueller investigation that did so much damage to our nation.

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Think about the irony. It’s the beginning of Hispanic heritage month. [The] border … has not been secure for quite some time. Over 2 million migrants coming through, [and] it took only 50 brown people showing up in one of the most exclusive Democratic enclaves, without leaf blowers [or] mops, for it to be declared a national emergency, and to get the media focused on this.
Gloria Romero, Latina democrat, former Majority Leader California State Senate
There is no need to call out the transparent hypocrisy of “liberals” and their media propagandists like Chuck Todd and Joe Scarborough in their attempt to make excuses for Martha’s Vineyard’s rapid panicked expulsion of a mere 50 illegal aliens (Venezuelans) from their wealthy mostly white utopia to an air force base on the mainland. Further, quite surprisingly the Obama’s did not offer to set aside 4-5 acres of their 12 million-dollar 30-acre beachfront property to set up a nice homeless encampment for their brothers and sisters.  The message is clear:  We “liberals” will virtue-signal and self-glorify to our hearts content but it’s the great unwashed masses that must put up with the consequences of our destructive selfish policies.  We refuse to pay any price.  Do not expect us elites to live under the rules we set up for you!
The present article is, however, not so much directed at the Democrat Party and the socialists because, as the Martha’s Vineyard farce shows, their capacity for self-reflection is so low it is impossible to reach them and they are, accordingly, completely incapable of shame.  The present article is aimed at napping Republicans who may not have grasped what the Martha’s Vineyard farce means for the Republican Party going forward.
Since most of the Democrat and socialist policies are extremely unpopular Democrats, socialists and their propaganda unit (aka the “news” media) do not try to defend them with facts and rational arguments.  The standard “Democrat” or socialist response to a challenge to their policies and views from the “deplorable” patriots is to call their political opponents names, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, white supremacist, NAZI, semi-fascists, etc., or, like many members of the “inclusive” party, to threaten them.  Unfortunately, there are a plethora of weak people in both parties and in what passes for our “news” media who, apparently, do not remember where this kind of political thuggery leads. 
In the first place, there is a name in logic and critical reasoning texts for these kinds of favorite “liberal” and socialist arguments.  They are called ad hominem fallacies (arguments in which one attacks the “man” or the person instead of the issues).  There are two main kinds of ad hominem fallacies, namely, arguments ad hominem abusive and arguments ad hominem circumstantial.  In arguments ad hominem abusive one fallaciously attempts to discredit someone’s view by abusing the person who holds it.  Calling someone a racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, a “climate denier,” etc., are examples of ad hominem abusive fallacies.  An arguments ad hominem circumstantial fallacy does not abuse the person per se but rather argues that because of that person’s circumstances they cannot possible be correct about some issues, e.g., the argument that because someone is white they cannot comment fairly on “black” issues, the argument that because someone is male they cannot understand “women’s” issues, the argument that because someone is “straight” they cannot be right when they object to same-sex marriage, etc., are all examples of ad hominem circumstantial fallacies.  
The reason ad hominem fallacies are so useful to today’s Democrats and socialists is that it takes no intelligence whatsoever to make them.  One does not actually have to know anything about climate to call someone a “climate denier.”  If some hapless undergraduate states that they are against affirmative action one does not have to know anything about the law or about the actual complicated history of racism in the United States to call them a racist.  It is enough that this hapless undergraduate disagrees with the Democrat or socialist cause du jour.  If someone disagrees with allowing “trans-females” to compete in women’s sports, one does not have to know anything whatsoever about male and female biology in order to call them a trans-bigot.  Knowing actual facts and theory about the climate, about the law and the history of racism, or about gender differences is hard.  One actually has to study quite hard for a long time to know enough to form a well-reasoned view on these and other issues.  But that is quite hard and requires a lot of discipline and self-sacrifice and why should one subject oneself to that long hard period of study and self-discipline when it is much easier to become a hero (to the Left) by calling people names?  

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No doubt, this is why these are the favorite kinds of arguments in what remains of our universities, where, apparently, no one takes logic or critical reasoning texts seriously anymore because they are too busy promoting the appearance that they, having achieved enlightenment at a noisy rally in front of the administration building, are saving the world.  To repeat: The favorite kinds of arguments used in our universities and by “liberals” generally are textbook logical fallacies.
The present point is that although Republicans have always been wrong to cave to leftist ad hominem name-calling, there is no longer any excuse for doing so.  The next time a Democrat or socialist calls a Republican or conservative names in an attempt to intimidate them into submitting to some silly leftist view, for example, the Democrat’s indefensible open border policies or their trillion dollar vote-buying bills, Republicans and conservatives need to reply firmly that there will be no more name-calling until Martha’s Vineyard, Joe Biden’s neighborhood, Nancy Pelosi’s neighborhood, Chuck Schumer’s neighborhood, Chuck Todd’s neighborhood, Don Lemon’s neighborhood, Mark Zuckerberg’s neighborhood, Rob Reiner’s neighborhood, etc., “looks like the rest of America,” specifically, until it is 13.8% black, at least 20% Hispanic, not black and Hispanic  doctors, lawyers and professors, but poor minorities including gang members and has several large homeless encampments with the associated defecation on the front lawn beside the discarded needles.  

There is no more excuse for putting up with the transparent massive hypocrisy and selfishness of leftist elites, no more excuse for letting Democrats and socialists get away by calling conservatives names for refusing to go along with their silly trillion dollar inflationary vote-buying and election rigging schemes (mail in ballots, etc.).   This will, of course, require some backbone from many Republicans who have not shown much capacity for it so far, but after the latest farce at Martha’s Vineyard there is no longer any excuse.  Republicans from coast to coast, from Maine to Alaska and everywhere in between, must be required categorically to shut down the ad hominem thuggery from the Left.  We’re not going to take it anymore.  Since all Republicans have a duty to defend the Party as well as the nation, any alleged “Republican” who is unable, after the pathetic Martha’s Vineyard farce, to shut down Democrat and socialist name-calling and thuggery should be encouraged, after admitting their inadequacies, to resign the Party in disgrace and start their own party.  Perhaps they can call it “the Tinkerbelle Party.”
Richard Michael McDonough, American philosophy educator. Achievements include production of original interpretation of Wittgenstein’s logical-metaphysical system, original application Kantian Copernican Revolution to philosophy of language; significant interdisciplinary work logic, linguistics, psychology & philosophy. Member Australasian Debating Federation (honorary life, adjudicator since 1991), Phi Kappa Phi. Richard is a regular contributor to The Blue State Conservative.

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[T]he drunkest I’ve ever been is still smarter than you [Jill] could ever even comprehend and you’re a … grammar teacher that wouldn’t survive one class in an ivy graduate program. … So go f–k yourself Jill let’s all agree I don’t like you anymore than you like me.
Hunter Biden on step-mother Jill. New York Post, July 2022
In a Sept. 13, 2022 interview with First Lady Jill Biden on NBC’s “Today Show”, Sheinelle Jones alluded to recent parental objections to the sort of books that are appropriate for schools and asked her: “Where’s the line, in your opinion, with how much of a say parents have when it comes to what their kids are learning in school? Is there a balance between, you know, ‘This book should be in the library, this book is under review …’”.  To be more precise, Jones began to ask Mrs. Biden a question but could not finish it because Jill Biden jumped in before Jones finished asking it and said, “All books should be in the library. All books.  This is America. We don’t ban books.”  
One may have noticed that it is one of the privileges of our all-knowing overlords that they don’t even need to let anyone finish the question because they do not even need to think about it and they do not need to think about it because they do not intend to answer it, the clingers to their guns and religion, the “basket of deplorables”, the semi-fascists and the American people generally not deserving a serious answer.  They do not need to think about the question because they already have the platitudes, the clueless remarks or the transparent nonsense that they want to use to promote themselves or their party on that given day already prepared.  For our overlords a journalist’s question is just the occasion for them to inform our “news” media and the peasants and deplorables of their own moral virtues and greatness.
In fact, however, it might have been useful for Jill to let Jones finish the question because her “answer,” that we don’t “ban books” in America, had nothing whatsoever to do with the question.  In case Dr. Jill did not notice, the question was very specific.  It was about the rights of parents to have a “say” in what books their children are given to read in school.  One would have thought that a real Ph.D. would have understood such a simple concept. 
Furthermore, the question had nothing whatsoever to do with banning books.  Dr. Jill appears to have forgotten that there are these things called libraries, bookstores, parents, siblings and friends, where children can obtain the books they are not permitted to read in school.  If little Johnny is not permitted to read “My Boy Princess” at school, he can still find that book at a library or bookstore and read it if he, as opposed to his “woke” overlords,” really wants to read it.  Alternatively, his parents, if they are sufficiently liberal, might even give him the book to read.  If his parents are not liberal enough, his siblings or his friends might make the book available to him.  Dr. Jill might want to evade the question by conjuring the horrors of book banning but the question had nothing whatsoever to do with that. The question was about parental rights – should one still be permitted to ask that question in what remains of our formerly free country.  Perhaps someday Dr. will condescend to acknowledge that there are these things called “parents” that, difficult as this is to admit, believe they have a right to have their questions answered.  Perhaps she will remember this as the November election gets closer.  
Despite Jill Biden’s refusal to answer the question put to her, it is however good news that she is so “liberal” about books and schools that she believes that in America “All books should be in the library.”  Since she believes that “all books” should be included we can look forward to her call for the following books to be included in our school curricula and libraries. 

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She might start out with Peter Schweitzer’s Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich Off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Would send the rest of us to prison or his “Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets”.   Nancy Pelosi will find those two especially interesting.  
She will certainly want to call for Newt Gingrich’s To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine and his Understanding Trump to be found in our schools. 

She will also want to include Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto and his Plunder and Deceit: Big Government’s Exploitation of Young People and the Future. 
Being so broad minded Dr. Jill will want to include Donald Trump’s The America We Deserve, Donald Trump Jr’s Liberal Privilege: Joe Biden and the Democrats’ Defense of the Indefensible and Donald Jr.’s Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us.  

Dr. Jill will definitely call to include Mollie Hemingway’s Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections, Dinesh D’Souza’s 2,000 Mules: They Thought We’d Never Find Out. They Were Wrong, and Miranda Devine’s Laptop from Hell: Hunter Biden, Big Tech, and the Dirty Secrets the President Tried to Hide in our schools.  
She will also want to include Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom, William F. Buckley’s God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of Academic Freedom, and Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as the basis for social policy.  The “Democrats” will find that last one especially interesting. 
Dr. Jill will want to round things out by calling for Rush Limbaugh’s The Way Things ought to be, Tucker Carlson’s The Long Slide: 30 years in American Journalism, and Sean Hannity’s Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism.  Of course, since she cares so much about women, Dr. Jill will definitely want Juanita Broderick’s You’d better put some ice on that – Juanita’s story to find its way into our school libraries.
The above are only a partial list, a first step towards implementing Dr. Jill’s call to introduce “all books” into our schools.  We look forward to her support. 
Perhaps Dr. Jill will object that the above list does not include books by Barak Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore.  However, those books are already in our schools.  Conservatives don’t mind books by “liberals” in our schools so long as our schools can have these things called “free and fair discussions” people used to have in the United States in the “old days” before conservatives were censored, cancelled and harassed for their views.  For example, conservatives only require the right to discuss the fact that even though Obama and Biden promised that Obamacare” would reduce the cost of health care for a typical family by $2,500 a year, the costs of health care has increased substantially since it was passed.  Conservatives only ask to be treated equally – should our overlords still be American enough to permit that.  
Richard Michael McDonough, American philosophy educator. Achievements include production of original interpretation of Wittgenstein’s logical-metaphysical system, original application Kantian Copernican Revolution to philosophy of language; significant interdisciplinary work logic, linguistics, psychology & philosophy. Member Australasian Debating Federation (honorary life, adjudicator since 1991), Phi Kappa Phi. Richard is a regular contributor to The Blue State Conservative.

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“[T]his is an activist court.  We had an established right for almost half a century, … the right of women to make decisions about their own body.”
Kamala Harris, Meet the Press, Sept. 9. 2022
Kamala Harris in her recent statement on the overturning of Roe vs. Wade (The 1973 Supreme Court case that established a woman’s Federal right to abortion) states three theses that are either transparently false or question-begging (just assume what needs proved).  The first is that the current SCOTUS is an activist court.  The second is that women had an established right to an abortion for almost half a century.   The third is that the foetus is part of the woman’s body.  
First, the present SCOTUS is not an activist court.  The 1973 court that established Roe vs. Wade was the activist court that simply conjured an alleged constitutional right to an abortion, under the guise of an alleged right to privacy, that is simply not present in the constitution.   Indeed, Roe was criticized by many constitutional scholars, including the beloved liberal SCOTUS Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, at the time as poorly argued.  Roe was not based on the Constitution but rather reflected the political climate at the time.
Second, the present SCOTUS did not take away a constitutional right that women had for half a century.  Since the present SCOTUS concluded that Roe was wrongly decided in 1973, this means that women never had this right.  Since the present SCOTUS is the ultimate court of appeal for this kind of matter this settles the issue for the time being.  That is what it means to be an ultimate court of appeal.  Defenders of Roe are free to argue in front of some future SCOTUS that Roe should be reinstated.  Perhaps they will be successful.  However, until that happens the highest court of appeal for such matters has settled the issue.  Harris’s claim that women had this right is, therefore, without any legal basis.  
Third, Harris’s claim that the right to an abortion is a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body is either false or question begging.  The central issue in the debate about abortion is whether the developing foetus is part of the woman’s body or a separate human being with separate rights developing inside the woman’s body.   Consider MIT philosophy Professor Judith Jarvis Thomson’s influential 1971 article in Philosophy and Public Affairs!
Although many philosophers, myself included, disagree with some of Thomson’s views, her article is a model of a serious discussion of the abortion issue.  That is, instead of making transparently question-begging claims that support her own personal opinions, Thomson actually formulates the issues and provides real arguments, not bumper stickers, for her conclusion that abortion should be legal with some qualifications.

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Thomson admits for the sake of argument that the foetus (the developing child) has its own prima facia right to life.  The question, therefore, is whether the developing child’s life takes precedence, whether the mother’s life takes precedence or whether some compromising balance must be struck.  Being a serious philosopher rather than a partisan demagogue, she does not just assume with Kamala and other activists that the developing foetus is part of the woman’s body.  Thomson realizes that this is the cardinal issue that must be faced.  
In order to answer this question, Thomson makes a “thought-experiment,” an imaginative hypothetical situation designed to put pressure on one’s legal and moral concepts in order to formulate these with greater precision.  Her example is this:  A woman Sue wakes up in the morning attached by tubes to a famous violinist who has been found to have a fatal kidney disease.  The medical authorities have determined that Sue is the only person in the world whose blood type matches that of the violinist.  In order to save the violinist’s life, they have attached his circulatory system to Sue’s circulatory system while Sue slept so that Sue’s kidneys can purify the violinist’s blood and save his life.  Fortunately, the violinist need not be attached to Sue for the rest of her life because in 9 months he will be fully recovered and can be safely disconnected from Sue.  It is recognized that this is a grave burden for Sue but the very life of the violinist takes precedence over a 9-month burden for Sue.   It was, therefore, judged that, as unfortunate as this is, attaching the violinist’s body to Sue’s body while she slept was justified. 

Thomson’s argument urges an analogy between the foetus dependent on the mother’s body and the violinist that is dependent on Sue’s body.  One can flesh out Thomson’s example out with additional facts to strengthen the analogy.  A woman Pam has consensual sex and takes normal birth control measures but wakes up one morning to find that these failed and she is pregnant, that is, that there is a body attached to hers and dependent on her for its life.  Pam never agreed to this, just as Sue never agreed to letting doctors attach the violinist’s body to hers while she slept.  Thomson uses the example of the violinist attached to Sue’s body against her will to illuminate the problem of the developing foetus attached to Pam’s body.  Resolving Sue’s case should illuminate how one resolves the more normal case of Pam’s unwilling pregnancy.  
Thomson admits that the violinist does have a right to life but that Sue still has a right to detach him from her body because there is still one thing the violinist does not have: the right to use her body to support its life!  Arguing from analogy, she admits that the developing foetus has a right to life but that it does not have the right to use the mother’s body to support its own life.  Thomson concludes that Pam has the right, in these circumstances, to abort the foetus.

Some critics have argued that Thomson’s argument only works in cases where the pregnancy is really unwilling, e.g., rape.  Others argue that there are morally relevant differences between the two cases, e.g., that abortion intentionally kills the foetus while unplugging the violinist merely lets him die of natural causes (the killing vs. letting die objection).  Philosopher Peter Singer argues that there are utilitarian considerations that imply that one is morally obliged to save the life of the violinist and, by analogy, that of the foetus.  Similarly, in 1975, the West German Federal Court, in very liberal Germany, disagreed with Roe vs. Wade on the grounds that abortion in the first three months of pregnancy violates the constitutional rights of the child.  
These debates cannot be settled here.  The present point is that Thomson is a serious thinker who actually addresses the real issue, the prima facie right to life of the foetus (developing child) and produces a serious argument for her position.  Harris, by contrast, as a typical politician, employs deceptive techniques to influence the vote in the 2022 midterms that undermine a serious discussion of the issue and, in addition, divides the country. As a J.D. herself Harris should understand these distinctions and take the more honourable road of rejecting the divisive demagoguery.  
Richard Michael McDonough, American philosophy educator. Achievements include production of original interpretation of Wittgenstein’s logical-metaphysical system, original application Kantian Copernican Revolution to philosophy of language; significant interdisciplinary work logic, linguistics, psychology & philosophy. Member Australasian Debating Federation (honorary life, adjudicator since 1991), Phi Kappa Phi. Richard is a regular contributor to The Blue State Conservative.