Freedom is the Key. "Paddle Freely"

“Paddle Freely” is a memory aid to remember the key reasons why government involvement should be avoided when possible. To regain or defend freedom, citizens must perform 2 key tasks—reject political solutions and implement civil solutions.

Power corrupts. Lord Acton said, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Each time we turn to government at any level we transfer power from our family to a government agency and the administrators elected run that agency. As more power is concentrated in the government, more corruption results.

America, 200 years ago, was set upon a balance of power. Severe limitations were placed on the federal government in favor of states and citizens, which is critical to the successful operation of the legislative, judicial and administrative balance. Putting too much on the federal balance will distroy it because the force of corruption grows exponetually.

Leaner government is cleaner government. If there is a way to do something civilly rather that politically families should make every effort to implement the civil solution. Freedom depends on it.

As Close to the situation as possible. Abbreviated ACTSAP, this principal rests on the unique knowledge families close to a situation have that no one else can have. State and national legislators cannot possibly know the level of detail county legislators do. By the same logic, the county legislature cannot have the same level of knowledge of a situation as the families living on the street where the solution is needed. Additionally the same successful solution in one neighborhood may get poor results only a few miles away. Business has recognized this and pushed decision making back down to the lowest level possible.

Diversity As we turn from community to government at any level we stifle the diverse range of creative solutions developed by families working together freely. No government program can match the creativity and dynamics of communities working together to solve problems civilly rather that politically.

Love. Political programs by their nature are impersonal and lack the most important ingredient for helping people. The citizens who pay the wages of government social workers would go to jail if they did not pay their taxes—hardly a “charity” system based on love and caring. A better solution is to lend our neighbors a warm hand before our neighbors need to reach out to the government.

Education. Many governments around the world have “free” government schools. This is another piece of the balance of power set into America 200 years ago—there were very few. President Lincoln said, “As the youth are educated, so goes the nation.” Who should be in charge of the nation--voters or Politicians? If politicians run the schools, then politicians run the country.

Freely. Land of the free seems sort of lame when the American government collects average taxes of 50%, runs 88% of the K-12 schools, the military, a huge public assistance network, takes 14% from each American’s earnings for retirement benefits, owns most roads, airports, and 30% of the land. Any government that controls more that 15% of a citizen’s funds is doing too much and the citizens are doing to little. This last word reminds us that freedom is the goal.