The statists’ epistemological method consists of endless debates about single,
concrete, out-of-context, range-of-the-moment issues, never allowing them to be
integrated into a sum, never referring to basic principles or ultimate
consequences—and thus inducing a state of intellectual disintegration in their
followers. The purpose of that verbal fog is to conceal the evasion of two
fundamentals: (a) that production and prosperity are the product of men’s
intelligence, and (b) that government power is the power of coercion by
physical force.
Once these two facts are acknowledged, the conclusion to be drawn is
inevitable: that intelligence does not work under coercion, that man’s mind
will not function at the point of a gun.