[dionidium]

Re: your last paragraph, I'd say fair enough :)

Re: the form of the argument as it applies to minimum wage, it works like this:

Argument: "Minimum wage isn't enough for a family to live on!"

Response: "It was never intended to be enough to live on. It's for teenagers, etc, etc."

Note that this path leads us away from all the interesting questions about the minimum wage and into an argument about what lived in the hearts of the people who wrote the original law. That's the inevitable result of this kind of argument and the thing I'm objecting to.