Voluntary association is the tool society uses when its members are free to behave as they will. Government is the tool society uses to force its members to behave in certain ways. Cloaking the tool in the civility of democracy does not change its essence, as a democratically elected government only appears non-threatening to the majority. This is not to say that government is not a necessary and useful tool. It is to say that it is an extremely dangerous one.

Making it harder to obtain guns makes it harder for criminals to commit crimes. But making it harder to obtain guns also makes it harder for victims to defend themselves, and makes it easier for criminals to commit crimes.

When government limits its force only to preventing people from imposing harm on each other, people have the maximum ability to cooperate. It is from cooperation, not coercion, that human society flourishes.

The faith that people unthinkingly place in government and its ability to accomplish any number of important goals is at the same time a faith in the people who work in government, so-called public servants. If we contend that only government can accomplish certain things, then we are, by definition, asserting that the people who work in government are somehow more knowledgeable, more capable, more well-intentioned, or more motivated than their counterparts outside of government.

Natural rights are rights people have by virtue of their humanity. Because natural rights arise from our nature as humans, they precede governments and they render humans fundamentally equal. When governments enact laws to treat people equally under the law, they are not bestowing equality. They are protecting the innate equality that exists regardless of whether particular governments choose to respect it.

When politicians talk about raising the minimum wage, they talk about the single working mother who is holding down two jobs to support her family. The reality is that the average minimum wage worker is part time and lives in a household with a family income of more than $53,000, which is about the United States median household income.

Finally, the money to pay for an increased minimum wage must come from somewhere, and there are only four places from which it can come: other minimum wage workers, in the form of layoffs and reduced hours; higher wage workers, in the form of static or reduced compensation; investors, in the form of lower profits; or customers, in the form of higher prices. How much each of the groups pays for the minimum wage hike depends on how competitive the various marketplaces are.

Raising the minimum wage doesn't make the worker's labor more valuable. It makes it more expensive

An argument intended to manipulate can stand on emotion. But an argument intended to persuade must stand on fact and reason.