Hi everyone,

Russian chess player and business and politics writer Garry Kasparov wrote a post on Facebook today; here are some short excerpts:

"The center must unite against the extremists, or soon the center too will be gone. ... Please, do not take your democracy for granted."

Perhaps echoing Hillary Clinton's plea for compromise and the prevalence of moderate politics in light of possible looming extremist leadership in Congress, Kasparov seems ready to suggest that Americans should react based on fear and compromise their values and interests to avoid a political disaster.

I respect and admire Kasparov guardedly; I like his pro-Democratic values, his willingness to stand up to Vladimir Putin, and also his ability to succeed at chess. I haven't been as fond of a few comments I read by him in the past about the "stability" of certain people he's criticized, and I don't know if I know enough about him to give him a genuine thumbs up. Of course, I hope he is the real deal and not hiding some evil agenda; it is so hard to tell who is for real in our global society today.

In spite of my guarded respect for Kasparov, I don't think his approach is good for the US--my perspective has to do with some economics ideas but I won't dwell on that right now. In particular, as I argued in a previous post on Usenet, there is no such thing as a "fair sacrifice of someone else's resources and/or turf." You might want to vote for Candidate X in spite of his/her willingness to appease evil interests, reacting out of fear to vote for this candidate in spite of serious ethical "compromises" offered by the candidate to get into power. My position is: That is totally fine if there is no better option, but Americans are very delinquent when we fail to use our hard-won free speech abilities to criticize serious moral deficiencies in candidates that we've voted for, loudly. We don't "weaken" our candidates by blasting their outrageous moral failures; instead, this action of vocal criticism challenges our leaders to get out and let someone better lead, improve and change the game so that the "reformed bad guy candidate" has become the best we can get, or lose and be humiliated for evil deeds. "Tolerance of evil" has not been the American way in the past, and it must not "stick" to our political society, on the individual voter level or on a larger scale. Compromise is OK, but not unethical compromise that unfairly hurts others and robs them of their resources.

I assert, loudly, adamantly, and without apology, that it can be moral for an American citizen to support a candidate who has fought for "evil outcomes," based on pragmatism, compromise, secret sadism, or something else, if and only if the American citizen loudly uses free speech to criticize the failure of the candidate. Any vote for an immoral candidate that is not qualified by "I had to vote for X in spite of Y because ... " is literally very unethical, though not illegal, according to me.

Americans must not fritter away our morality and values, however they may vary from person to person, playing into the hands of evil doers at home and abroad by tolerating evil "compromises" that we know about. Free speech is ours to use; if we refuse to use it when it's important and easy for us (which it always is right now in the USA), we push ourselves off the cliff of democracy into the canyon of national failure and corruption. Do not support candidates who will sacrifice the resources of other people without discussion of the evil deed(s), or you will have "liked" the idea that other citizens will do the exact same thing to you some day; one day, we might all be without many of our rights if this vicious cycle is not stopped. Stand up for your virtuous neighbor that you maybe don't want to socialize with in the long term, or watch as your own remaining neighbors Kitty-Genovese-ify you just as you did it to the good-guy citizen you chose to drop as part of an evil political "compromise" for you and your family and your convenience and comfort.

Kasparov is probably good, but this is a major point of disagreement for me.. We've got the right to stand up for others with words as Americans; we are very remiss when we don't use it en masse, which should be never.

This post wasn't related to professional life as much, but my point could be applied to your workplace as well as to your neighborhood; my post showcases my values well, I think. If you just let your neighbor or colleague be deleted by a metaphorical predator drone by your Congressman because you don't really prioritize him or her, the obvious point is, you're likely close to being next to meet that fate. That's just logic and economics in action.

-Philip White (philipjwhite@yahoo.com)

On Friday, January 7, 2022 at 8:18:44 PM UTC-5, B.H. wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Russian chess player and business and politics writer Garry Kasparov wrote a post on Facebook today; here are some short excerpts:
>
> "The center must unite against the extremists, or soon the center too will be gone. ... Please, do not take your democracy for granted."
>
> Perhaps echoing Hillary Clinton's plea for compromise and the prevalence of moderate politics in light of possible looming extremist leadership in Congress, Kasparov seems ready to suggest that Americans should react based on fear and compromise their values and interests to avoid a political disaster.
>
> I respect and admire Kasparov guardedly; I like his pro-Democratic values, his willingness to stand up to Vladimir Putin, and also his ability to succeed at chess. I haven't been as fond of a few comments I read by him in the past about the "stability" of certain people he's criticized, and I don't know if I know enough about him to give him a genuine thumbs up. Of course, I hope he is the real deal and not hiding some evil agenda; it is so hard to tell who is for real in our global society today.
>
> In spite of my guarded respect for Kasparov, I don't think his approach is good for the US--my perspective has to do with some economics ideas but I won't dwell on that right now. In particular, as I argued in a previous post on Usenet, there is no such thing as a "fair sacrifice of someone else's resources and/or turf." You might want to vote for Candidate X in spite of his/her willingness to appease evil interests, reacting out of fear to vote for this candidate in spite of serious ethical "compromises" offered by the candidate to get into power. My position is: That is totally fine if there is no better option, but Americans are very delinquent when we fail to use our hard-won free speech abilities to criticize serious moral deficiencies in candidates that we've voted for, loudly. We don't "weaken" our candidates by blasting their outrageous moral failures; instead, this action of vocal criticism challenges our leaders to get out and let someone better lead, improve and change the game so that the "reformed bad guy candidate" has become the best we can get, or lose and be humiliated for evil deeds. "Tolerance of evil" has not been the American way in the past, and it must not "stick" to our political society, on the individual voter level or on a larger scale. Compromise is OK, but not unethical compromise that unfairly hurts others and robs them of their resources.
>
> I assert, loudly, adamantly, and without apology, that it can be moral for an American citizen to support a candidate who has fought for "evil outcomes," based on pragmatism, compromise, secret sadism, or something else, if and only if the American citizen loudly uses free speech to criticize the failure of the candidate. Any vote for an immoral candidate that is not qualified by "I had to vote for X in spite of Y because ... " is literally very unethical, though not illegal, according to me.
>
> Americans must not fritter away our morality and values, however they may vary from person to person, playing into the hands of evil doers at home and abroad by tolerating evil "compromises" that we know about. Free speech is ours to use; if we refuse to use it when it's important and easy for us (which it always is right now in the USA), we push ourselves off the cliff of democracy into the canyon of national failure and corruption. Do not support candidates who will sacrifice the resources of other people without discussion of the evil deed(s), or you will have "liked" the idea that other citizens will do the exact same thing to you some day; one day, we might all be without many of our rights if this vicious cycle is not stopped. Stand up for your virtuous neighbor that you maybe don't want to socialize with in the long term, or watch as your own remaining neighbors Kitty-Genovese-ify you just as you did it to the good-guy citizen you chose to drop as part of an evil political "compromise" for you and your family and your convenience and comfort.
>
> Kasparov is probably good, but this is a major point of disagreement for me. We've got the right to stand up for others with words as Americans; we are very remiss when we don't use it en masse, which should be never.
>
> This post wasn't related to professional life as much, but my point could be applied to your workplace as well as to your neighborhood; my post showcases my values well, I think. If you just let your neighbor or colleague be deleted by a metaphorical predator drone by your Congressman because you don't really prioritize him or her, the obvious point is, you're likely close to being next to meet that fate. That's just logic and economics in action.
>
> -Philip White (philip...@yahoo.com)

(In short: Be scared of evil and deletion of respect for the rule of law in our political system--not the ethical far-left liberals or the ethical far-right conservatives, wherever these people are in our political system. Compromise is fine but not necessary to stop evil; fighting evil, loudly and with words and other legal means, is necessary to stop evil in the USA.)

On Friday, January 7, 2022 at 8:34:14 PM UTC-5, B.H. wrote:
> On Friday, January 7, 2022 at 8:18:44 PM UTC-5, B.H. wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > Russian chess player and business and politics writer Garry Kasparov wrote a post on Facebook today; here are some short excerpts:
> >
> > "The center must unite against the extremists, or soon the center too will be gone. ... Please, do not take your democracy for granted."
> >
> > Perhaps echoing Hillary Clinton's plea for compromise and the prevalence of moderate politics in light of possible looming extremist leadership in Congress, Kasparov seems ready to suggest that Americans should react based on fear and compromise their values and interests to avoid a political disaster.
> >
> > I respect and admire Kasparov guardedly; I like his pro-Democratic values, his willingness to stand up to Vladimir Putin, and also his ability to succeed at chess. I haven't been as fond of a few comments I read by him in the past about the "stability" of certain people he's criticized, and I don't know if I know enough about him to give him a genuine thumbs up. Of course, I hope he is the real deal and not hiding some evil agenda; it is so hard to tell who is for real in our global society today.
> >
> > In spite of my guarded respect for Kasparov, I don't think his approach is good for the US--my perspective has to do with some economics ideas but I won't dwell on that right now. In particular, as I argued in a previous post on Usenet, there is no such thing as a "fair sacrifice of someone else's resources and/or turf." You might want to vote for Candidate X in spite of his/her willingness to appease evil interests, reacting out of fear to vote for this candidate in spite of serious ethical "compromises" offered by the candidate to get into power. My position is: That is totally fine if there is no better option, but Americans are very delinquent when we fail to use our hard-won free speech abilities to criticize serious moral deficiencies in candidates that we've voted for, loudly. We don't "weaken" our candidates by blasting their outrageous moral failures; instead, this action of vocal criticism challenges our leaders to get out and let someone better lead, improve and change the game so that the "reformed bad guy candidate" has become the best we can get, or lose and be humiliated for evil deeds. "Tolerance of evil" has not been the American way in the past, and it must not "stick" to our political society, on the individual voter level or on a larger scale. Compromise is OK, but not unethical compromise that unfairly hurts others and robs them of their resources.
> >
> > I assert, loudly, adamantly, and without apology, that it can be moral for an American citizen to support a candidate who has fought for "evil outcomes," based on pragmatism, compromise, secret sadism, or something else, if and only if the American citizen loudly uses free speech to criticize the failure of the candidate. Any vote for an immoral candidate that is not qualified by "I had to vote for X in spite of Y because ... " is literally very unethical, though not illegal, according to me.
> >
> > Americans must not fritter away our morality and values, however they may vary from person to person, playing into the hands of evil doers at home and abroad by tolerating evil "compromises" that we know about. Free speech is ours to use; if we refuse to use it when it's important and easy for us (which it always is right now in the USA), we push ourselves off the cliff of democracy into the canyon of national failure and corruption. Do not support candidates who will sacrifice the resources of other people without discussion of the evil deed(s), or you will have "liked" the idea that other citizens will do the exact same thing to you some day; one day, we might all be without many of our rights if this vicious cycle is not stopped. Stand up for your virtuous neighbor that you maybe don't want to socialize with in the long term, or watch as your own remaining neighbors Kitty-Genovese-ify you just as you did it to the good-guy citizen you chose to drop as part of an evil political "compromise" for you and your family and your convenience and comfort.
> >
> > Kasparov is probably good, but this is a major point of disagreement for me. We've got the right to stand up for others with words as Americans; we are very remiss when we don't use it en masse, which should be never.
> >
> > This post wasn't related to professional life as much, but my point could be applied to your workplace as well as to your neighborhood; my post showcases my values well, I think. If you just let your neighbor or colleague be deleted by a metaphorical predator drone by your Congressman because you don't really prioritize him or her, the obvious point is, you're likely close to being next to meet that fate. That's just logic and economics in action.
> >
> > -Philip White (philip...@yahoo.com)
> (In short: Be scared of evil and deletion of respect for the rule of law in our political system--not the ethical far-left liberals or the ethical far-right conservatives, wherever these people are in our political system. Compromise is fine but not necessary to stop evil; fighting evil, loudly and with words and other legal means, is necessary to stop evil in the USA.)

(I remember that in a previous post, I argued that "service is better than voting." One easy way to amplify your service quantity is to simply stand up for good values and criticize candidates, even ones you've voted for, who have betrayed your values. As an example: If you are very conservative and religious and oppose abortion, you should speak out about, e.g., a pro-choice candidate that you're voting for that you think is evil, according to you. If others ardently disagree with your perspective, such individuals can disagree with you (if you are open to debate) or speak out in general about different perspectives, and this can lead to community-level debate, which is very healthy for democracy, according to me. In general, I argue that if you're a US citizen who isn't in jail, agreeing to silence yourself to appease a candidate you support as part of a "deal" in a sense to support this candidate's agenda is going to carry costs that will outweigh the benefits, even if you don't see it right away. Getting your car towed by the CIA or whatever is not as bad as losing all your rights, and you might not trace how exactly your loss of rights happened too well--that is hard sometimes. Never just stand there when someone is being hurt and you can help out just by talking--it isn't French law or superstition, it's the basic logic of "the Golden Rule" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule)--society-based watchers who observe your conduct might apply inferred "rules" about how you treat others to how such "watchers" will treat you and recommend that others treat you, so for one thing, you should look and be willing to help when it's easy so that others will help you when it's easy for these people to help you.)

On Friday, January 7, 2022 at 9:46:08 PM UTC-5, B.H. wrote:
> On Friday, January 7, 2022 at 8:34:14 PM UTC-5, B.H. wrote:
> > On Friday, January 7, 2022 at 8:18:44 PM UTC-5, B.H. wrote:
> > > Hi everyone,
> > >
> > > Russian chess player and business and politics writer Garry Kasparov wrote a post on Facebook today; here are some short excerpts:
> > >
> > > "The center must unite against the extremists, or soon the center too will be gone. ... Please, do not take your democracy for granted."
> > >
> > > Perhaps echoing Hillary Clinton's plea for compromise and the prevalence of moderate politics in light of possible looming extremist leadership in Congress, Kasparov seems ready to suggest that Americans should react based on fear and compromise their values and interests to avoid a political disaster.
> > >
> > > I respect and admire Kasparov guardedly; I like his pro-Democratic values, his willingness to stand up to Vladimir Putin, and also his ability to succeed at chess. I haven't been as fond of a few comments I read by him in the past about the "stability" of certain people he's criticized, and I don't know if I know enough about him to give him a genuine thumbs up. Of course, I hope he is the real deal and not hiding some evil agenda; it is so hard to tell who is for real in our global society today.
> > >
> > > In spite of my guarded respect for Kasparov, I don't think his approach is good for the US--my perspective has to do with some economics ideas but I won't dwell on that right now. In particular, as I argued in a previous post on Usenet, there is no such thing as a "fair sacrifice of someone else's resources and/or turf." You might want to vote for Candidate X in spite of his/her willingness to appease evil interests, reacting out of fear to vote for this candidate in spite of serious ethical "compromises" offered by the candidate to get into power. My position is: That is totally fine if there is no better option, but Americans are very delinquent when we fail to use our hard-won free speech abilities to criticize serious moral deficiencies in candidates that we've voted for, loudly. We don't "weaken" our candidates by blasting their outrageous moral failures; instead, this action of vocal criticism challenges our leaders to get out and let someone better lead, improve and change the game so that the "reformed bad guy candidate" has become the best we can get, or lose and be humiliated for evil deeds. "Tolerance of evil" has not been the American way in the past, and it must not "stick" to our political society, on the individual voter level or on a larger scale. Compromise is OK, but not unethical compromise that unfairly hurts others and robs them of their resources.
> > >
> > > I assert, loudly, adamantly, and without apology, that it can be moral for an American citizen to support a candidate who has fought for "evil outcomes," based on pragmatism, compromise, secret sadism, or something else, if and only if the American citizen loudly uses free speech to criticize the failure of the candidate. Any vote for an immoral candidate that is not qualified by "I had to vote for X in spite of Y because ... " is literally very unethical, though not illegal, according to me.
> > >
> > > Americans must not fritter away our morality and values, however they may vary from person to person, playing into the hands of evil doers at home and abroad by tolerating evil "compromises" that we know about. Free speech is ours to use; if we refuse to use it when it's important and easy for us (which it always is right now in the USA), we push ourselves off the cliff of democracy into the canyon of national failure and corruption. Do not support candidates who will sacrifice the resources of other people without discussion of the evil deed(s), or you will have "liked" the idea that other citizens will do the exact same thing to you some day; one day, we might all be without many of our rights if this vicious cycle is not stopped. Stand up for your virtuous neighbor that you maybe don't want to socialize with in the long term, or watch as your own remaining neighbors Kitty-Genovese-ify you just as you did it to the good-guy citizen you chose to drop as part of an evil political "compromise" for you and your family and your convenience and comfort.
> > >
> > > Kasparov is probably good, but this is a major point of disagreement for me. We've got the right to stand up for others with words as Americans; we are very remiss when we don't use it en masse, which should be never.
> > >
> > > This post wasn't related to professional life as much, but my point could be applied to your workplace as well as to your neighborhood; my post showcases my values well, I think. If you just let your neighbor or colleague be deleted by a metaphorical predator drone by your Congressman because you don't really prioritize him or her, the obvious point is, you're likely close to being next to meet that fate. That's just logic and economics in action.
> > >
> > > -Philip White (philip...@yahoo.com)
> > (In short: Be scared of evil and deletion of respect for the rule of law in our political system--not the ethical far-left liberals or the ethical far-right conservatives, wherever these people are in our political system.. Compromise is fine but not necessary to stop evil; fighting evil, loudly and with words and other legal means, is necessary to stop evil in the USA.)
> (I remember that in a previous post, I argued that "service is better than voting." One easy way to amplify your service quantity is to simply stand up for good values and criticize candidates, even ones you've voted for, who have betrayed your values. As an example: If you are very conservative and religious and oppose abortion, you should speak out about, e.g., a pro-choice candidate that you're voting for that you think is evil, according to you. If others ardently disagree with your perspective, such individuals can disagree with you (if you are open to debate) or speak out in general about different perspectives, and this can lead to community-level debate, which is very healthy for democracy, according to me. In general, I argue that if you're a US citizen who isn't in jail, agreeing to silence yourself to appease a candidate you support as part of a "deal" in a sense to support this candidate's agenda is going to carry costs that will outweigh the benefits, even if you don't see it right away. Getting your car towed by the CIA or whatever is not as bad as losing all your rights, and you might not trace how exactly your loss of rights happened too well--that is hard sometimes. Never just stand there when someone is being hurt and you can help out just by talking--it isn't French law or superstition, it's the basic logic of "the Golden Rule" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule)--society-based watchers who observe your conduct might apply inferred "rules" about how you treat others to how such "watchers" will treat you and recommend that others treat you, so for one thing, you should look and be willing to help when it's easy so that others will help you when it's easy for these people to help you.)

(I don't want to get too bleak or political in this post, but in case you're a "how to survive extreme interpersonal circumstances" knowledge enthusiast: One of the best easily communicable ideas I have for surviving difficult political situations is to ask yourself, when considering a course of action to pursue when dealing with difficult people or a difficult situation, "How would I like it if my way of addressing Person A in Set of Circumstances XYZ were applied to me if I were Person A in a very similar Set of Circumstances XYZ' ?" You're allowed to use conditions--"If a person (including me) does something evil to hurt another person, especially repeatedly and in a severe case, then he/she forfeits the right to have his/her feelings treated with a high level of sensitivity, at least for a little while." , is a principle that I'm very fond of. Be careful about applying impossibly complex and unguessable conditions--"If a person has secret and unusual conventions for treating other people, then this person risks that someone might apply such conditions to that person." A good set of "basic conditions" to hold yourself and everyone else to is: Try to be at least sort of friendly + Always follow US laws if you live in the US + Seriously consider maybe following other people's conventions and rules even if you think they're stupid rules if it's easy enough for you + Never start fights or hurt people or be insensitive for no reason + Never just abandon someone who is hurt if it's easy to help + Do your job as well as you can + Support your friends + Be grateful to people who have helped you + Be tolerant of people with different beliefs or backgrounds from you + Be polite by default + Don't lie when it's important unless there is a great reason + Don't be sadistic. Obviously, this post in the thread has very little to do with Garry Kasparov; I was just adding on some more possibly useful information for those who don't already know this sort of thing.)