The Executive Director of 'American Humanist' took great offense with Ben Sasse's call to have more children.
Sasse is battling terminal cancer and is very open he is likely near death. His interviews of late have been reflections on life and discovering what is really important. He believes having a family is the most important thing. He challenges young couples to have kids and stop finding joy in video games and dopamine hits. This really set off 'Fish Stark'
All right @BenSasse, let's make a bet.
— Fish Stark (@fishstark) April 29, 2026
Let's divide the US in half. I'll let you pick which half.
In your half, you ban Candy Crush. In my half we institute 16 weeks of paid parental leave, universal childcare, & a restored child tax credit.
Let's see which has more babies. https://t.co/MDxRjiUy5z
Fish believes the only way to entice young couples to have babies is to create a welfare state and pay for their every need, apparently. Um, ok.
To be clear: I’m getting married this year & am deeply, fanatically excited to be a dad!
— Fish Stark (@fishstark) April 29, 2026
But we & many other couples my age (30) are having the heartbreaking convo “can we afford as many kids as we hoped”
“they just want to play phone games” is deeply unempathetic & pedantic
Fish wants to have kids, to be clear. He's just thirty and can't afford it. He went to Harvard and Yale, yet can't afford a child is slightly weird. Perhaps he should have gone to trade school so he could make enough money for a family?
Im pretty sure his point is not literally about candy crush, but you know that and just can't admit it.
— I am Mike Hunt (@IamMikeHunt420) April 29, 2026
Of course, he didn't just specifically mean 'Candy Crush'. He was making a broad statement about Americans spending so much time online.
Then he should say what he means rather than talking about Candy Crush
— Fish Stark (@fishstark) April 29, 2026
If he needs to be that explicit for you, maybe you aren't cut out to have these deep intellectual conversations, Fish.
Can you imagine the room when someone brought up “paid parental leave” for the first time
— Parker (@pk198722) April 29, 2026
At its core the suggestion that a for profit business should provide you with free money because you decided to reproduce is such an insane level of entitlement to someone else’s money
It also keeps companies from hiring young women of childbearing age because they know they may get stuck with paying multiple months of parental leave for a worker. It's more beneficial to hire men who are less likely to take leave or women who seem less interested in creating families. This is just reality.
We've never had paid parental leave, universal childcare, etc... but we have had much higher birthrates... try again.
— Reagan Caucus NC (@ReaganCaucusNC) April 29, 2026
Europe already has paid leave and a massive welfare state. How’s their birth rate doing?
— Habeas Corpus Linguistics (@HabCorpLinguist) April 29, 2026
And why didn’t this lack of paid leave and universal child care stop people from having kids for the last 200+ years of American history.
Spoiler alert: the birthrate in Europe is lower than ever.
We have done this experiment. You basically just described laws that have been enacted across the board in the EU.
— Professor X (@rationalhumanis) April 29, 2026
Turns out the birth rate there is even worse than ours, across the board.
If only there was an entire continent that could be an example of the latter to see how that would work. https://t.co/vNV6WpCGPc
— Carl Paulus (@CarlPaulus) April 29, 2026
If you were talking to anyone else on the planet, I'd agree with you.
— brihana davidson🤓 (@brihana25) April 29, 2026
This is a man very publicly dying, and he's working it all out with himself in front of us. He's ruminating and wrestling with his own regrets.
I don't agree with him, either, but please, let him be. https://t.co/XAsFNrSts2
Also, this. Ben Sasse can say whatever he wants. Period.
Yes, because this is totally the point of what he was saying 🙄 What a great strawman you built there https://t.co/bG6Nsu0WHL
— Nate Williams (@nateapologetics) April 29, 2026
The Left is exhausting.