The assumption that the minimum wage helps low-wage workers permeates public discourse on the topic. One of the most curious political phenomenon is how the idea of the minimum wage is mindlessly accepted by the public as a policy that undoubtedly helps the poor. This transformation of the minimum wage from a policy originally intended to keep minorities out of the labor force to one aimed at protecting marginalized workers has been a stunning political magic trick.

In a recent essay, I noted that the US Constitution, by making the United States a free trade area, increased Americans’ living standards considerably. The story changes when it comes to international trade. Indeed, with the benefit of hindsight (which includes economic insights subsequent to 1787), it turns out that the Founding Fathers’ treatment of US trade with other countries was rife with landmines.

As long as I’ve known him, my father has always been the entrepreneurial type. Even now, in his seventies, he picks up side jobs both to keep busy and to have a little extra spending money.

Throughout my childhood and youth, he had always been an independent insurance broker and salesman. He often employed one or two people to help with the phones and the paperwork. But also often just worked alone.

The US manufacturing sector has had a rich history, one that has lifted millions of Americans into the middle-class, making the Land of the Free the most envied nation in the world. You clock in your eight to 10 hours a day, bring your lunch pail, and complete an honest day’s work, giving you a paycheck to purchase that new radio set to listen to Suspense, a modest two-bedroom home, and enough cash left over to buy your child the latest Cowboys and Indians toy set. The American Dream blossomed thanks in part to manufacturing.

Gun control may be coming to a legislature near you.

In the wake of the Parkland, Florida, and Santa Fe, Texas, shootings, elected officials on both sides of the political aisle are rallying around “red flag” legislation.

Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs), informally known as red flag laws, are gaining traction in legislatures nationwide. Red flag laws are presented as a common-sense proposal to disarm people who allegedly present a danger to themselves or others around them.

Trump’s tariffs are simply, in the words of economist Murray Rothbard, “not only nonsense, but dangerous nonsense, destructive of all economic prosperity.” Business owners who are suffering from this ham-handed government intervention should be the first to complain, whether having voted for Trump or not.

I asked a friend of a business owner (a fan of the president), what the owner thought of the tariffs. “He’s for them,” came the answer.