It’s an old, old argument indeed – and one, despite its evident fallaciousness, still widely wielded and fallen for. If you are against trade restrictions, you are against workers and high wages. If you are against minimum wages, you are against the poor. If you are against paid family leave, then you are against families. If you are against Obamacare, then you are against affordable health care.
And it works, of course, with equal fallaciousness in the other direction. If you are for same-sex marriage, then you are against traditional families. If you are for legalizing prostitution, then you are against morality. If you are for cutting taxes, then you are against equality. If you are for Citizens United, then you are against democracy. This list, too, can be extended indefinitely.
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See also this relevant quote from The Law by Frédéric Bastiat:
Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.
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