Robert Ede

@ThenonbinaryC @ReemAmirIbrahim I could have quite happily taken days off when I had panic attacks or during periods of depression and suicidal ideation. The NHS utterly failed me and had I not paid for help privately I could be dead today. I needed a lot of help and I got none, but that which I paid for.

@silentrob73 @ReemAmirIbrahim yes bc you didn’t need it so claiming would have been fraud. well done for not committing fraud

More than 1.5 million people claim PIP for mental health conditions. By 2030, 1 in 8 Brits will be claiming disability benefits. 1 in 8!

@ThenonbinaryC @ReemAmirIbrahim It was also good for taxpayers as well.

@silentrob73 @ReemAmirIbrahim so you didn’t need it. good for you

@ThenonbinaryC @kehm0r @ReemAmirIbrahim Who said anything about disabled people? I’ve worked alongside very competent people that happen to have a disability of some sort. Being a victim is a mindset not a disability

@silentrob73 @kehm0r @ReemAmirIbrahim why do you hear disabled and think victim?

@DrHoenderkamp @afneil @TimesRadio If he blocked you that’s called freedom of association.

Listening to @afneil wax lyrical about how much he values personal freedom/freedom of speech on @TimesRadio is amusing. Who remembers his full page vitriols telling us that we were selfish if we didn't take the covid jab and we should be banned from partaking in society...no freedom allowed there. Two Tier Freedom. (PS: he blocked me for challenging him on that and I remain blocked today... freedome)

@TheRabbitHole It’s not atheism that brought us “women with penises”. As an atheist I’ve always known reality is real. If you deny reality you simply exchange one religious belief system for another.

Reject Reddit Atheism

@elonmusk Anyone who has read The Calculus of Consent understands this.

Incentives drive outcomes

I love seeing how technology can be used for good. Brilliant.

@MileiSays My only critique of that quote is that government cannot grant rights. You're born with them. Government only creates entitlements.

“There is no such thing as a free lunch. Every time you grant a right to someone, there’s always someone else who has to pay for it.” — Javier Milei

@sophielouisecc Well, I'm morally consistent. Just as I don't want to fund pensions for the wealthy, I don't want to fund other people's children either. My daughter pays for her own child, my granddaughter. She and her fiance work. Just like I paid for my own kids.

Workless households will be handed a £6,000 annual benefits boost when Labour lifts the two-child cap on Monday They get an extra 6k without having to get out of bed - yet this week we have been debating whether pensioners who have worked 35 years should get 12k per year

@kehm0r @ReemAmirIbrahim You can’t help those that won’t help themselves. We have a nation of victims, and it’s about time people learned to take responsibility for their own lives.

@silentrob73 @ReemAmirIbrahim Isn't the whole point to make the world a better place for the next generation?

@realninawysocka I don't believe in ideology of race. So if you use the language of race you are by definition a racist. So no I don't care if someone calls me racist, because it's a made up idea which I reject.

Are you still worried about being called a racist?

@GBNEWS It's a waste of time when parliament is soverign. Unless you have a codified consitution it's words on a page that the next government can just tear up.

‘Just letting people express themselves as their God-given right.’ Adam Smith Institute’s Max Marlow says people feel they can’t speak freely in Britain due to fears of Government persecution, and that the proposed Free Speech Bill would mean protection for open discussions.

the actual quote is... "I am, at the Fed level, libertarian; at the state level, Republican; at the local level, Democrat; and at the family and friends level, a socialist." it's from Nassim Taleb, author of The Black Swan and Antifragile. But, I think he got the original idea from somewhere else and popularised it. It's basically saying why political systems don't scale. What he's saying is... Don’t apply one ideology at every level. Don’t scale local moral systems (like sharing) up to national policy. Don’t scale central control down into personal life. That's the gist of it anyway.

@TheAliceSmith Who said something so stupid? I've never heard it?

“I’m a communist with my family and a capitalist with my colleagues.” So you use state terror and repression, mass surveillance, planned starvation, and forced labour camps to deal with your family? Weird and abusive!

That argument assumes that I have a "duty" to provide for others. I do not. It also assumes that people have the right to compel me by force to help others, they do not. The fact that the government doesn't feed them doesn't mean they won't be fed. In a free society, people are more prosperous and more generous. By demanding the state intervene, you aren't saving their life, you are establishing the principle that some people are sacrificial animals for the sake of others. If you're really worried about that person, you're free to help them with your own money, but you have no moral right to help them with mine. You wouldn't steal a sandwich to feed a homeless person, so why would you steal my money? If I choose to leave them to starve, or feed them is my choice entirely. The starving man fallacy is purely an appeal to emotion, designed to make people feel guilty about putting their own needs first. Why even stop at food? Free healthcare for everyone. I mean, people might die? Right? What's the limit on redistributing my income to others? Is there one? I didn't inflict some injustice upon them, but you would use force to make me help them? How is that moral?

@silentrob73 @ReemAmirIbrahim Nightwatchman state as per Nozick is libertarian. I'm all for individual liberty and have some sympathy with minarchists in theory, but in practice, it's too narrow. Say a person who's worked all their life loses their means to self-support. What then, leave them to starve?

Government pensions are a scam. Younger workers are paying more and more to fund a system that is mathematically impossible to sustain. Would you scrap the triple lock?

@TheAliceSmith It’s all incentives. 🤷‍♂️

Do we really have a ‘representative democracy’ when our politicians represent neither the views nor interests of their own citizens - and explicitly have no intention of doing so?

No, they weren't “socialists”, but their safety-net ideas still rest on coercive taxation. The use of force against the productive. I come at this from the Objectivist angle so I reject that root and branch. Property rights aren't optional because some people are poorer than others. Welfare, pensions, or “basic income” is just legalising looting. I reject all forms of social engineering from the start, economic or otherwise. Voluntary charity and capitalism capitalism lifts people out of poverty. Forced sacrifice (altruism) doesn't.

@silentrob73 @LindseySharratt @ReemAmirIbrahim Were economists like Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, etc socialists then? Since they advocated for basic income

I’m not a libertarian. I live my life based on Objectivist principles. I see government as necessary, but with one specific, limited purpose. The protection of individual rights. Which are: The right to Life. The right to liberty. The right to property. Therefore we need: The Police: To protect us from criminals (domestic force). The Military: To protect us from foreign invaders and warlords (external force). The Courts: To settle disputes according to objective laws, to protect property, resolve contracts disputes and defend from fraud. I would personally enshrine this in a codified constitution that limits government power. What is often referred to as the nightwatchman state. Government is absolutely not for socially engineered outcomes. Individuals are responsible for their own lives, good or bad. That doesn’t mean others cannot choose to voluntarily provide assistance if they choose to. So when deciding on what taxes to levy my answer is that if it doesn’t serve to protect those rights as I mentioned above it is an immoral tax.

@silentrob73 @ReemAmirIbrahim Interested in hearing yours. You're clearly more libertarian than me and I'm curious on how far apart we are. I have some libertarian tendencies but they're most restricted to 'keep the government out of my business where it doesn't need to be in it'.

This is a deeper philosophical crisis. Too much of our politics and culture now runs on raw emotion and sentimentalism rather than principles grounded in reason, evidence, and reality. I'm exhausted by everyone's feelings dictating everything, and it’s past time for clear-headed thinking before we collapse into anarchy.

There is a sense that we are lost, adrift There is an anger beneath the surface - growing. Dissatisfaction Self involvement is the priority. The needs of others, forgotten. Our sun is going down. We must fix everything.

@ScoLibertarian @DailyMail Or just home school your kids. Schools are fucking useless today.

@DailyMail Create a "safe space" for female teachers by educating boys seperately.

Union warns schools face 'masculinity crisis' as nearly a quarter of female teachers complain about misogyny from students trib.al/DWIUKtx