It’s not a chicken-and-egg question. It’s simply a matter of asking, “What will I do today to create the tomorrow I want?”

Far above the millions that come and pass away tower the pioneers, the men whose deeds and ideas cut out new paths for mankind. For the pioneering genius to create is the essence of life. To live means for him to create.

The activities of these prodigious men cannot be fully subsumed under the praxeological concept of labor. They are not labor because they are for the genius not means, but ends in themselves. He lives in creating and inventing. For him there is not leisure, only intermissions of temporary sterility and frustration. His incentive is not the desire to bring about a result, but the act of producing it. The accomplishment gratifies him neither mediately nor immediately. It does not gratify him mediately because his fellow men at best are unconcerned about it, more often even greet it with taunts, sneers, and persecution. Many a genius could have used his gifts to render his life agreeable and joyful; he did not even consider such a possibility and chose the thorny path without hesitation. The genius wants to accomplish what he considers his mission, even if he knows that he moves toward his own disaster.

Neither does the genius derive immediate gratification from his creative activities. Creating is for him agony and torment, a ceaseless excruciating struggle against internal and external obstacles; it consumes and crushes him. The Austrian poet Grillparzer has depicted this in a touching poem “Farewell to Gastein.” We may assume that in writing it he thought not only of his own sorrows and tribulations but also of the greater sufferings of a much greater man, of Beethoven, whose fate resembled his own and whom he understood, through devoted affection and sympathetic appreciation, better than any other of his contemporaries. Nietzsche compared himself to the flame that insatiably consumes and destroys itself. Such agonies are phenomena which have nothing in common with the connotations generally attached to the notions of work and labor, production and success, breadwinning and enjoyment of life.

The achievements of the creative innovator, his thoughts and theories, his poems, paintings, and compositions, cannot be classified praxeologically as products of labor. They are not the outcome of the employment of labor which could have been devoted to the production of other amenities for the “production” of a masterpiece of philosophy, art, or literature. Thinkers, poets, and artists are sometimes unfit to accomplish any other work. At any rate, the time and toil which they devote to creative activities are not withheld from employment for other purposes. Conditions may sometimes doom to sterility a man who would have had the power to bring forth things unheard of; they may leave him no alternative other than to die from starvation or to use all his forces in the struggle for mere physical survival. But if the genius succeeds in achieving his goals, nobody but himself pays the “costs” incurred. Goethe was perhaps in some respects hampered by his functions at the court of Weimar. But certainly he would not have accomplished more in his official duties as minister of state, theater manager, and administrator of mines if he had not written his plays, poems, and novels.

It is, furthermore, impossible to substitute other people’s work for that of the creators. If Dante and Beethoven had not existed, one would not have been in a position to produce the Divina Commediaor the Ninth Symphony by assigning other men to these tasks. Neither society nor single individuals can substantially further the genius and his work. The highest intensity of the “demand” and the most peremptory order of the government are ineffectual. The genius does not deliver to order. Men cannot improve the natural and social conditions which bring about the creator and his creation. It is impossible to rear geniuses by eugenics, to train them by schooling, or to organize their activities. But, of course, one can organize society in such a way that no room is left for pioneers and their path-breaking.

The creative accomplishment of the genius is an ultimate fact for praxeology. It comes to pass in history as a free gift of destiny. It is by no means the result of production in the sense in which economics uses this term.

But anti-government conservatives seem to think this coercion is a bad thing. It is not.

…what is not disputable is that oftentimes it is entirely legitimate to restrict people’s freedom in pursuit of the public interest – and that we are all much safer and better off for it.

While most conservatives will readily admit that the government is legitimate in restricting criminal behavior, they do not think it is legitimate for it to restrict the freedom of normal, law-abiding citizens. For example, they believe it’s wrong for the government to use zoning laws to restrict how people use their private property, and for it to force people to wear motorcycle helmets or to prevent them from smoking in public facilities. They invoke the specter of “Big Brother” intruding into the private lives of citizens – telling us what to do in our everyday lives. But in virtually every case in which government tries to regulate the behavior of ordinary citizens, it does so for the same reason it restricts the freedom of criminals – to prevent harm and to promote the good of society as a whole.

Why not pass laws stating everyone must drive no more than 20 miles per hour? That would make roads a lot safer. Why not pass a law forcing car manufacturers to build cars that can’t go faster than 20 miles per hour?

When people’s actions only affect themselves, we usually could care less what they do.

What would make you care less?

But when individuals’ actions begin to harm others, then we do care and we want to stop it.

Who’s “we”?

I couldn’t make this shit up if I wanted to, folks.

Windsor says: “I have discovered that the federal judges in Atlanta, Georgia, Washington, DC, and the justices of the United States Supreme Court function like common criminals intentionally making bogus rulings against honest people while covering up the crimes of their fellow judges. I have been contacted by people from all over the country and around the world with their stories of judicial corruption with judges all over the U.S.”

Source article.

Without the goal and scorecard of profit, it is hard to even make value judgments between people and programs, so there are few checks against mounting inefficiency and abject failure, let alone evolution towards improvement. Source.

LOL LOL LOL

Every idealistic cry for the government to “Do Something” means raising revenue, which means taking money from people to spend in the name of the new cause instead of letting it be used for whatever purpose the earner would have preferred.

Economics 101, baby!

Also, it is horribly crass to say it, but taxes are extracted by the threat of force.

Define crass: lacking sensitivity, refinement or intelligence.

Uh, it’s not crass then, dude. I love you man, but the threat of violence is just that: the threat of violence. And theft is theft. And kidnapping is kidnapping. It doesn’t matter if the person issuing the threat, or committing the theft or performing the kidnapping is wearing a uniform and a badge or carries a gavel. That person is a fucking dick head and it’s every individual’s moral obligation to stop that person from continuing to inflict damage on others.

What things do you care strongly enough about to feel morally justified in pointing a gun at me to get me to pay for them? A few layers of distance by proxy let most people avoid thinking about it, but that is really what it boils down to.

Carmack is a smart individual. If you don’t like Mises or Rothbard or Hoppe, then listen to Carmack. He helped author Doom. C’mon. Really? I’d trust this guy over some dickwad in D.C. who barely knows how to operate a computer, let alone write a game.