Following is a comment I wrote in one of the “blue” women’s groups. Someone had posted looking for an HOA, preferably 55+, that was not overwhelmingly red.
I commented that HOA’s tend to attract people who are attracted to authoritarianism. Another person said something similar.
Another group member laugh-reacted our comments and said they were silly.
At first, I laugh-reacted that person in retaliation. But the old “taste of their own medicine” thing doesn’t sit so well with me these days. So I changed it to a sad react, and wrote the following comment:
A bit earlier, I changed my laugh-reacts to sad-reacts because the latter are a more honest reflection of my emotions. Regarding the slow but steady creep in authoritarianism in our country.
Of which the increasing prevalence and dominance of HOAs is but one manifestation.
I say this as a Boomer. It’s been a journey to see so many people of my generation who were all about Woodstock and “question authority” and protesting the war and all that
… and now wanting to live in planned communities that severely restrict creativity and freedom of expression.
Of course, freedom of expression always has a flipside. If we are all free to express ourselves, then a neighbor might do something we don’t like. But I am willing to deal with that. I’d rather have my neighbor be allowed to put up some weird decorations or paint their house a wild color (personally, I actually like those things, but to each his own), in exchange for me getting to do the landscaping and decorations that I want to do.
I guess to a degree it will always be human nature that some people are willing to trade a bit of freedom for what they see as stability and security. And we will all have different ideas about that.
Myself, some pretty extreme stuff would have to be going on in a neighbor’s house or yard for me to want to tell them what to do.
Note, there are and always need to be prohibitions against hate speech – displaying swastikas, painting obscenities on one’s house or fence, etc.
That’s not what I’m talking about here. I live in a regular neighborhood, not an HOA, and still nobody would put up with us putting swastikas etc.
We also have local code enforcement to make sure people aren’t creating a health / safety hazard on their properties. Like for example, if a person is breeding dangerous animals on their property, or has a bunch of leaking cans of chemicals sitting out in the yard. That kind of thing.