A minimum-wage law, a law that prevents employers and employees from entering into mutually beneficial economic exchanges, is as far from a free market or free enterprise as one can get. That's why it causes so much damage and destruction, especially to black teenagers and others whose labor, for one reason or another, is valued by employers at less than the government-established minimum wage.

For libertarians, freedom entails the right of people to live their lives any way they choose, so long as their conduct is peaceful. For conservatives, freedom entails the right of government to do just about anything it wants, even if its conduct is violent.

There is no difference in principle, ... between the economic philosophy of Nazism, socialism, communism, and fascism and that of the American welfare state and regulated economy.

[D]ecade after decade, through taxes and regulations, governments at all levels took ever-increasing control over people's lives, wealth, and property. The control grew exponentially, decade after decade. The rationale was that the control was necessary -- for society, for the poor, for the nation, even for freedom itself. Americans continued living their life of the lie: they continued believing that the more control government exercised over their lives and property, the freer they became.

Every day, IRS agents levy liens on homes, bank accounts, and businesses; they confiscate cars, furniture, boats, and other personal property without the constitutional protections of due notice, hearing, and due process. If a person forcibly resists, government agents kill him for resisting arrest.

History has shown more than once that when people surrender totalitarian powers to their rulers, they are inevitably exercised in the next big crisis. And let's not forget here that the next president who wields this power and who will be in charge of military might well be Hillary Clinton.

The lesson that Americans today have forgotten or never learned - the lesson which our ancestors tried so hard to teach - is that the greatest threat to our lives, liberty, property, and security is not some foreign government, as our rulers so often tell us. The greatest threat to our freedom and well-being lies with our own government!.