Put that possibility off for a moment and ask the hearer to answer whether theft as a general practice is acceptable. Although the intuition that stealing is wrong is strong, people are often not quite sure what to say about why it is wrong. Proceed, then, with this question. Suppose Congress took a vote, and the majority, which carried the day, passed legislation licensing local police authorities to take anyone's property whenever in their judgment, and in their judgment alone, they saw fit to do so. Make, then, this suggestion.
Theft violates a right, and hence it is wrong regardless of whose right is in question.
One can now move in for the coup de grace one's adversary, whether he realizes it or not, is a classical liberal. Everything the state does beyond protecting these basic, negative rights of individuals is a violation of these same rights. Conscription, for example, is a use of your body to which you did not assent. The income tax and the staggering national debt are nothing but obligations on you to labor for the benefit of someone else. Wealth transfers to the poor, subsidies to farmers, support for the arts, and Social Security are all the forcible seizure of some people's property in order to give it to others.