Donald Trump is an incoherent mix of good policies and bad policies.

Some of his potential 2020 opponents, by contrast, are coherent but crazy.

Daniel J. Mitchell, Comparing the Economic Growth of East Germany to West Germany: A History Lesson

https://fee.org/articles/comparing-the-economic-growth-of-east-germany-to-west-germany-a-history-lesson//amp

It is untrue that some are poor because others are rich. If a order of society in which incomes were equal replaced the capitalist order, everyone would become poorer. Paradoxical though it may sound, the poor receive what they do only because rich people exist.
Ludwig von Mises, Socialism

“A solid first step is for gun owners to recognize that infringements like the GCA of 1968 must never be tolerated by anyone who believes in the right to self-defense.”
Jose Nino, The 1968 Gun Control Act: 50 Years of Federal Gun Control

https://fee.org/articles/the-1968-gun-control-act-50-years-of-federal-gun-control/

Insistence on butting into other people’s business is believed by many to be evidence of altruism and wisdom. It is, instead, evidence of a greedy urge to exercise power combined with a foolish fantasy that such power is fit to be exercised by anyone over anyone.
Don Boudreaux

It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

In 2017, Americans gave over $400 billion to U.S. charities. And this was not large corporations giving for the sake of tax breaks. Corporate philanthropy only comprises around 5 percent of all charitable giving in the U.S. Over 90 percent of high-net-worth households give to charity, the average rich household giving 10 times what the average U.S. household gives. More than 60 million Americans volunteer around $200 billion worth of their time. In money and time, Americans voluntarily give away well over a half-trillion dollars annually, more than the federal government spends on all welfare programs combined.
Open your eyes and see the good

ANTONY DAVIES AND JAMES HARRIGAN

https://triblive.com/opinion/featuredcommentary/14306558-74/antony-davies-james-harrigan-open-your-eyes-see-the-good

“Unionized, government-run monopolies have turned Americans into the servants rather than the masters of their governments. They have provided shoddier and shoddier “services” for more and more money, year in and year out. They are textbook examples of the failures of socialism and should be abolished. Any services that they provide for which there is an actual demand can be provided with superior quality and lower costs by private, competitive markets.”

“Organized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About Government” by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

And, he has more to say on unions.

Envy, and its twin, covetousness, are unlovely facets of human nature, and only moral energy keeps them bottled up. But when envy and covetousness are uncorked they work against freedom and for Socialism.
Why Do They Turn to Socialism? by Edmund A. Opitz

Politics, the media, and the judiciary never pause at waging the new endless wars: the war on drugs or against high blood pressure, or the campaigns that assert the endless struggle against fat and obesity. The list of the enemies grows every day, whether racism, xenophobia, or anti-Islamism. The epitome of this movement is political correctness, the war against having one’s own opinion.
Antony Mueller, fee.org

https://fee.org/articles/cultural-marxism-is-the-main-source-of-modern-confusion-and-its-spreading//amp

https://statementonsocialjustice.com/articles/social-justice-threat-human-rights/

The term “opportunity cost” comes to mind.

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/01/25/u-s-solar-energy-employs-more-people-than-oil-coal-and-gas-combined-infographic/#7e7836582800

An obvious implication is that political ethics, originally identical with the ethics of war, must long remain akin to them; and can diverge from them only as warlike activities and preparations become less. Current evidence shows this. At present on the Continent, the citizen is free only when his services as a soldier are not demanded; and during the rest of his life he is largely enslaved in supporting the military organization. Even among ourselves a serious war would, by the necessitated conscription, suspend the liberties of large numbers and trench on the liberties of the rest, by taking from them through taxes whatever supplies were needed—that is, forcing them to labour so many days more for the State. Inevitably the established code of conduct in the dealings of Governments with citizens, must be allied to their code of conduct in their dealings with one another.
– Herbert Spencer, “The Sins of Legislators”

This is the single best argument against war I have ever seen.

freedom of expression correlates with better protection of human rights, higher GDP, less violence and lower corruption. Finally, repression of freedom of speech has—in a historical perspective—been the most desired instrument for governments and dictators around the world to retain impoverished people in obedience.
Filip Steffensen, fee.org

https://fee.org/articles/i-believe-in-freedom-of-expression-but/?utm_campaign=FEE%20Daily&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=64605027&_hsenc=p2ANqtz–8G4QOMTpJ1JvB0ecoZJucOQIsoHwQEbdb_tzQV6AtDp8A1tJ_Vg7OUizo6Kijp7jtMMpPfxZ7ChxIW7qwZP3R34kgVw&_hsmi=64605027

Marx’s disciples from Cuba and Venezuela to South Africa and Zimbabwe are committing the same mistake today. Crazed by their ideological hatred of the free market, they refuse to see that capitalism has delivered what Marx had long desired—less work and higher income. Plus ça change…
Marian L. Tupy, fee.org

https://fee.org/articles/capitalism-has-achieved-what-marxism-merely-promised//amp

An essential feature of socialism is to dehumanize others. Like millions in Pol Pot’s Cambodia or Mao’s China, millions of North Koreans have been taught to hate others. Millions in the “hostile class” have been starved, brutalized, and murdered. Socialism will never produce a different outcome. How is it possible to insist that the next socialist regime will be different?
Barry Brownstein, fee.org

https://fee.org/articles/socialism-is-not-built-on-compassion-its-built-on-dehumanizing-others/

As more people choose to get off of the sofa and rejoin the workforce, the unemployment number actually increased. Contrary to intuition, this is A GREAT THING!

This is just a tiny, arguably statically insignificant bump, but it is hopeful.

Here is a simple rule: you can judge the caliber of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee by how angry the Democrats get. The smarter and more influential the nominee, in an important sense the more qualified they are, the angrier Democrats will get.
Dr. John Lott

All of us, even the most progressive Progressive, denounce as criminal relieving a man of his wallet at gunpoint. Yet Americans increasingly aim government’s guns at their fellows as if neither God nor man objects to coercion from the State. We’ve replaced “What’s yours is yours” with “Whatever I can legally take from you is mine.” No matter that a huge gulf usually yawns between legality and virtue.
Becky Akers

https://fee.org/articles/can-political-freedom-exist-without-virtue-americas-founders-didnt-think-so/

“Even parents who complain about low academic standards in the schools seem not to understand that academic achievement is not the real priority of today’s educators. Classroom brainwashing is the goal, though it is expressed in prettier and more pious words than this.”
– Thomas Sowell