Homeowners associations

[Tallpine]

First there were Grammar-Nazis, and now there are Nazi-Nazis 

[Brad Johnson]

Please explain how an HOA is either more or less voluntary than a local government such as a city or town government.

I don't see a fundamental difference.

In joining an HOA you are voluntarily subjecting yourself to home ownership regulations/restrictions beyond those imposed by your local, county, or state governing bodies.

Brad

p.s.  No nazis were mentioned in the making of this post.

[Tallpine]

I just can nazi myself living in a HOA.

[Levant]

"Is it worth giving up some liberty to keep up the value of your home?"

Giving up liberty?

For *expletive deleted*'s sake. 

In most areas of the country they have powers that are commeasureate with living in a town with a town council.

They are probably the purest form of limited representative government we have in this country because the ratio of electors to elected is normally miniscule.

The ONLY way you "give up some liberty" is if you become part of the overall problem in that you buy your home and then prove that you have no concept of how to protect your personal liberty by completely disengaging with your community and ignoring what is going on around you while chanting "OH I'M A FREEMAN AND I'M OK..."

Government, by definition, is a trade off of liberty and services or protections.  Of course you give up some liberty when you buy into a homeowners association.  Once you agree to be governed, the government, or HOA, has the ability to change the laws or rules. 

Today you can paint your door blue.  Tomorrow they pass a new law that you can't paint your door blue and you're a day late getting it done.  You didn't buy into them regulating your door color when you moved in, you just thought they were going to make your neighbor keep the lawn mowed and the junk cars off their lawn.

Any time you give another control over what you can do you surrender liberty.  Liberty for safety.  Liberty for security.  Liberty for health care.  Liberty for clean streets.  Liberty for mowed lawns.

And the reason I would never live within the town or city limits of any town is that small towns are becoming more and more like little HOAs.  These petty rules used to be the domain of HOAs but now towns are jumping on them like crazy.  The same politically minded folks who run the HOAs are often running for city council and using that power to apply HOA rules to those who don't voluntarily join.

http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/21/tulsa-destroy-survival-garden

[K Frame]

I see what you did there...

[K Frame]

Government, by definition, is a trade off of liberty and services or protections.  Of course you give up some liberty when you buy into a homeowners association.  Once you agree to be governed, the government, or HOA, has the ability to change the laws or rules. 

Today you can paint your door blue.  Tomorrow they pass a new law that you can't paint your door blue and you're a day late getting it done.  You didn't buy into them regulating your door color when you moved in, you just thought they were going to make your neighbor keep the lawn mowed and the junk cars off their lawn.

Any time you give another control over what you can do you surrender liberty.  Liberty for safety.  Liberty for security.  Liberty for health care.  Liberty for clean streets.  Liberty for mowed lawns.

And the reason I would never live within the town or city limits of any town is that small towns are becoming more and more like little HOAs.  These petty rules used to be the domain of HOAs but now towns are jumping on them like crazy.  The same politically minded folks who run the HOAs are often running for city council and using that power to apply HOA rules to those who don't voluntarily join.

http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/21/tulsa-destroy-survival-garden

And I've already outlined how you, or anyone else, can mitigate that concern.

[K Frame]

" I probably should have said "overbearing fanatical control freaks" but I didn't."

You're right, you didn't. You traveled down the Godwin path at a high rate of speed and crashed into the signpost of blithering idiocy at the end.

[K Frame]

In joining an HOA you are voluntarily subjecting yourself to home ownership regulations/restrictions beyond those imposed by your local, county, or state governing bodies.

Brad

p.s.  No nazis were mentioned in the making of this post.

You used the word voluntary in your reply, and yet I don't think you've entirely grasped the concept of what that really means...

[Levant]

And I've already outlined how you, or anyone else, can mitigate that concern.

No, actually you didn't.  If you meant this:

The ONLY way you "give up some liberty" is if you become part of the overall problem in that you buy your home and then prove that you have no concept of how to protect your personal liberty by completely disengaging with your community and ignoring what is going on around you while chanting "OH I'M A FREEMAN AND I'M OK..."

then you failed.  Participation does not in any way guarantee protection of rights.  How does participation work for us in the gun control debate?  How about Obama Care?  How many times do governments (and HOA's are governments) act with total disregard to the wishes of those governed?

Implying that participating and voting them out is not the answer.  Majority rule is not the same thing as being free. 

[AZRedhawk44]

  Majority rule is not the same thing as being free. 

^^ Game-set-match.

When 51% of your neighborhood can deny you the right to build a new barbeque grill island, or jungle gym for your kids, or undergo a Mustang restoration in your garage, that ain't right.

It's tyranny of the majority, now on the block level.

[TommyGunn]

" but that doesn't mean we're ignorant."

Yeah, yeah it does when you make that kind of comparison. And a history lesson is certainly appropriate because anyone with a scintilla of knowledge of what the Nazis were realizes that NOTHING we have here in the United States comes even close.


"The Nazis were street thugs before they were ..."monsters" and a whacky political movement before that."

That sounds more than vaguely reminiscent of Marge Schott.... "Everyone knows [Hitler] was good in the beginning, but just went too far..."

Wow.

Get off your high horse.   IF you know ANYTHING about the Nazis you ought damned well know they started out basically as street thugs.   What do you think the "brownshirts" really were?  They weren't Boy Scouts.  They were violent street thugs who through wile gained political power until they eventually ruled Germany.
And to compare anything I said with Marge Schott "everyone knows was good in the beginngin but went too far" is just utterly disingenuous and vile.  I never said that I never meant that  and how DARE you infer or imply that.

I strongly suggest you go back to my post and reread it and POINT OUT just where I conveyed the messages you have taken.  You have severely misread what I stated both in meaning and in content.

[Levant]

The problem with saying Nazi in a forum post is that now detractors get to focus on something other than on that which you wanted them to focus on.

Nazism is not so far off in that it is a form of fascism and many HOAs are definitely fascist but, of the two, fascist is definitely the better choice.

[brimic]

The problem with saying Nazi in a forum post

The problem is the 'godwin' meme.

godwin is a leftard and probably saw 'nazism' as being too close to (well actually identical to) a socialist utopian society.
Now, people are castigated for using the term 'nazi', when in fact, its probably the best term to use to describe a facist collectivism.

Speech control = mind control. leftists are really good at that game. (1)



(1) Just so we are all clear, I am in no way insinuating that Mr Irwin is a Nazi, facist, leftist, collectivist or even a closet downloader of midget pr0n.

[Levant]

Yeah, God forbid you actually make time to take an active interest in the governance of the community in which you've chosen to park yourself and your family.

It's governance where no governance is needed.  I would not participate because to participate is to legitimize it.  Those who buy in, of course, agreed to more government and really should participate to try to reduce the rate at which the HOA leadership becomes more fascist.

All this said, my neighbors and I are currently fighting with the HOA in our community, and tonight is another meeting on the topic. I'm moderately down on HOAs right now, because my HOA, as it is currently being run, is NOT how I helped run the HOA when I was on the board for a dozen years.

It's getting to the point where I'm thinking seriously about standing for the board again next year because I do NOT like where this current group is going.

I'd hate to see when you're up on HOAs.

[Levant]

I was just thinking about the thread for the Colorado apartment complex that tried to ban guns.  Could an HOA change their bylaws to ban guns and foreclose on your house if you don't comply?  I guess the answer is yes.

[Brad Johnson]

You used the word voluntary in your reply, and yet I don't think you've entirely grasped the concept of what that really means...

No, I'm pretty sure I know what the word "that" means.   

I was very specific about the way I phrased the response.  Joining an HOA is a voluntary act, and HOAs have rules, regulations, and restrictions beyond those imposed by your local, county, or state governing bodies.  The shorter, simpler way to say that is the reply in question... "In joining an HOA you are voluntarily subjecting yourself to home ownership regulations/restrictions beyond those imposed by your local, county, or state governing bodies".  I suppose a case could be made for changing the "home ownership" phraseology to "home appearance, management, and upkeep", but that would be tedious for the reader and the general sentiment doesn't really change enough to warrant it.

Brad

[Balog]

No, actually you didn't.  If you meant this:

then you failed.  Participation does not in any way guarantee protection of rights.  How does participation work for us in the gun control debate?  How about Obama Care?  How many times do governments (and HOA's are governments) act with total disregard to the wishes of those governed?

Implying that participating and voting them out is not the answer.  Majority rule is not the same thing as being free. 

If you define anything other than anarchy as tyrannical and fascist then yes, any form of governance is definitionally oppressive. But that's hardly a point one can assume as a given in a discussion.

[Levant]

If you define anything other than anarchy as tyrannical and fascist then yes, any form of governance is definitionally oppressive. But that's hardly a point one can assume as a given in a discussion.

Ummm.. hold on a few seconds while I check... Yup.  As I thought.  Nothing in the post you quoted about fascism.  Nothing that says any form of governance is oppressive.  Nope.  Nothing at all.

I'm anything but an anarchist.  Don't believe it could work any more than could communism.  Both present themselves as some sort of utopia but neither has ever worked.  Government is, inherently, evil.  We accept that evil in return for what we get from it.  The Founders of our great nation wanted very little from their government.  I wish I were as independent as were they.  But I want very little from my government, also.

I accept that we need government.  If our government was still restrained by the Constitution I would be the biggest fan our government has.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil;

You should try reading Common Sense.  The section from where the quote above comes describes how governments are formed and sounds quite similar to how an HOA grows out of control.