Today millions are celebrating Valentine’s Day (according to Wiki those cultures that are Christian-influenced) by expressing their love for their significant other(s) via words, gifts and actions. In that spirit I’d like to share an essay entitled The Love of Power vs. the Power of Love by Larry Reed, who in my book is hands-down one of the best communicators for the ideas of individual liberty and responsibility around today.

The essay starts out with a quote from William Gladstone:

We look forward to the time when the power of love will replace the love of power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace.

Then Reed tells it like it is:

Though we say we prefer love over power, the way we behave in the political corner of our lives testifies all too often to the contrary. . . Love is about affection and respect; power is about control. . . When real love is the motivator, people deal with each other peacefully. . . A mature, responsible adult neither seeks undue power over other adults nor wishes to see others subjected to anyone’s controlling schemes and fantasies. . . But politics today provides a sad commentary on the ascendancy of the love of power over the power of love. . .

Millions of Americans think government should impose an endless array of programs and expenses on their fellow citizens . . . We’ve burdened our children and grandchildren, whom we claim to love, with trillions in national debt — all so that the leaders we elected and re-elected could spend more than we were willing to pay for. We claim to love our fellow citizens while we hand government ever more power over their lives, hopes and pocketbooks.

Reed then challenges supposed do-gooders to reflect upon their actions. And though on its face it may seem a bit harsh, it’s necessary to cause people to think outside their normal paradigm:

[I]f you think power is the answer to our problems, or if you think loving others means diminishing their liberties, you’re part of the problem.

Though such folks may genuinely have laudable goals, the means many of them choose to advance them — the political process — violates the rights of others and grossly misallocates resources. But, easy as it may be, Reed doesn’t end on a pessimistic note. Instead, he offers five resolutions that he plans to stick to and that that he challenges readers to adopt as well. The first and the third, being, in my eyes the most exhaustive and the most pragmatic, respectively, are:

I resolve to keep my hands in my own pockets, to leave others alone unless they threaten me harm, to take responsibility for my own actions and decisions, and to impose no burdens on others that stem from my own poor judgments.

If I have a “good idea,” I resolve to elicit support for it through peaceful persuasion, not force. I will not ask politicians to foist it on others just because I might think it’s good for them.

That make sense — love stemming not from force and control but from respect and freedom. And what better day than today — a day celebrating love — to spread this perspective?

I encourage you to read the entire essay here. Then learn more about this perspective by checking out the Freedom: My Anti-Gov and Politics Hurt overview and the Nonviolentists and Random Acts of Anarchy groups on Bureaucrash Social.

Thanks to my colleague Drew Tidwell for making me away of this essay.