A man ordered to hide his boat painted the boat on his fence

There are many countries in the world which don't measure their freedom in eagles per square burger yet are totally free to associate, and they do. I cannot do much in my neighborhood either (Switzerland here) but there is a respected process for raising cases and handling exceptions and all that. We call this the rule of law, by no means perfect either. This doesn't seem to be the case with the HOA where the system guarantees you living under the will of the leadership - be they idiots or geniuses. So if liberty is defined by randomness, yes, HOA defines the land of the free. Otherwise please allows us to scoff.

Freedom of association is missing the point when it comes to HOAs.

There's some very significant differences between freedom to associate in a book club and freedom to associate in an HOA. If you don't like a book club, there is no scenario in which you are contractually obligated to join it and pay membership fees indefinitely. And the bookclub doesn't have broad legal authority, backed by the courts, to dictate how you maintain, use, and sell your personal property or even aspects of your lifestyle.

I would add that this statement might equally apply to government - that is, if you disagree with the policies of a local government (property tax too high, school district underperforming, etc), move somewhere else. If you disagree with your state, move to another one. And if you disagree with national policies, immigrate to a country whose policies you agree with. But therein lies the pitfall of freedom of association - if you disagree with your HOA, or your local/state/federal government, you may not have the financial or legal means to change your situation.

I see a dichotomy of "associations with oversight" and the converse (associations with no oversight). If your HOA forces you to build a fence, there is no appeal process similar to if a government entity charges you with a crime (e.g. appeal to a state/federal circuit court and ultimately to a supreme court). Within each is an enforcement mechanism that may or may not work. In your dinner party example, which is an association with no oversight, a naked table dancer may simply crash the subsequent gatherings. In all levels of government, there are those who continue to hold their position regardless of the misdeeds and accusations levied against them.

Perhaps that is the essential trade-off of freedom, to be free to associate with any group of people despite the possibility of being victimized by them (now or in the future).

HOAs require more than (or a very specific extension of) freedom of association to exist: they require an ability to bind any future owners of a piece of land to join the HOA (regardless of how they acquired that land: via sale, inheritance, bankruptcy, ...). For property that's not real estate that's usually not possible (see e.g. inability of companies to provide binding promises on how the data they have are used after they go bankrupt). Given that this ability applies very inconsistently across types of property, it doesn't seem like an essential part of freedom of association.

It's an interesting tradeoff of freedoms when you consider how free a person is to leave a HOA. Purely legally speaking, they are free to leave at any time if the HOA starts to enforce unjust restrictions - but practically speaking, moving house is onerous and many are not in a position to do it. This is essentially a contract where you enter freely, but the other party has the ability to vary the terms unilaterally, and your only recourse is to exit.

A tech analogy comes to mind. We freely choose to host our workloads in a Server Owner's Association (sorry, cloud service provider), and we take on the risk that the provider may change the offering and impose restrictions that we don't like. They will tell us that we are free to leave at any time, but switching clouds can be non-trivial to say the least, leaving us feeling trapped and decidedly unfree.

The freedom to enter into private contracts is the freedom to bind oneself.

The more a person is dependent on "associated or local governments" [1] relative to "national or supernational governments", the more freedom they enjoy.

This is somewhat counter-intuitive because one might think that if e.g. every resident of a nation had to obey a singular and simple set of national rules, that would promote freedom more than having governments and rules differ between regions.

I wont go deeply into the underlying mechanisms of why the more chaotic choice promotes freedom while the more orderly choice reduces freedom but it has something to do with organisations competing for members and members being willing/free to move between those organisations.

[1] HOAs, school districts, unions, chapters, guilds, bars, insurances

HOAs are not a story of free association. They are a story of privatization.

We used to have local government deal with local governance. But local governments decided they didn't want to do that anymore, so they started encouraging the creation of HOAs to deal with all of those pesky local governance issues.

If all thar mattered was free association, the fix would be very simple. Enshrine into the the right to leave an HOA. But states won't do that, because once people leave, they will except their local governments to start providing the same services the HOAs do, and all of those local governments are going to complain to the state government.

This is some extreme mental gymnastics where restrictions are actually freedoms.

By the same logic, how about a freedom for the government to limit your speech? Now censorship is freedom and free speech is a restriction.

Someone always scoffs, but I think it is usually a sign that they don’t really understand freedom.

Others understand freedom from the perspective of the individual. Americans understand freedom from the perspective of the state.

In the first case, you're free if you can practically do something. In the second case you're free if the government doesn't ban it, regardless of whether you can actually do it.

Take for example the issue of ads on Smart TVs. There's no law that says you have to have ads on them, but in practice it's impossible to buy a TV which doesn't flood you with ads.

People in the first case consider that if a law is passed to ban embedding ads on TVs, then that increases the freedom in the world. Americans consider that banning such ads is a horrible government overreach which hurts the feelings of poor billionaires, and that if people want, they can always buy TVs with no ads, even though no such TVs exist.

They prefer an imaginary freedom to a practical one.

People who end up in a petty HOA usually regret it, and come to see joining any HOA as a big mistake.

I'm pretty sure that freedom of association is strongly tied to being able to quit the association freely. I don't think that the condition of having to change home to quit an association is a reasonable term.

But when those groups are tied to real estate ownership they aren't free associations, they are serfdoms.

Your position seems a bit ideological. Ultimate freedom doesn't exist, since pretty much all societies agree that they want to stop people from murdering one another for instance.

Any legal system always has to balance individual liberties and the tyranny of the majority (or a law-giving minority).

An HOA that was useful for 50 years and never created any drama could turn bad next year when they elect some new board members.

That's why countries for instance have constitutions, so the system is hard to change even when someone new takes power.

true freedom includes the freedom to make mistakes, even big mistakes.

That's pretty much the reason why we don't have "true freedom" and we want to stop people from making really terrible and easily avoidable mistakes, like eating food that kills them.

Limiting HOA against petty bullshit requirements (with more freedom for an initial set of bullshit requirements) at least is one of these limitations.

This is a good perspective, and a great case study in understanding how freedoms are always in tension.

The usual remedy to protect people from freely making the mistake of entering into associations that harm them is regulatory, of course.

Employment regulations place certain rules on what you can expect when you choose to throw yourself into association with a company as an employee, to prevent you accidentally finding yourself at the whim of an abusive employer.

Regulating what kinds of things HOAs can demand is a perfectly reasonable thing for governments to do to make it safer for people to purchase houses with confidence they won’t be subjected to egregious restrictions.

So we do end up limiting freedom of association. You can’t join up into an HOA with your neighbors that bans any of you from selling your house to a black family.

The problem with HOA vs other types of voluntary associations is that it’s very difficult to get out of an HOA — you have literally one recourse: sell and move. That’s a huge barrier because even if you wanted to you may not be able to afford to sell and move. And HOA rules change so the terms you now object to were perhaps not even in place when you agreed to join the HOA. It becomes coercive. When my wife and I last moved to another city and were looking to buy, our first requirement was that our house not be encumbered with an HOA.

Yeah, mortgage debt slaves are forced to associate among themselves and pay money to the most insufferable local busybodies available. That’s the “freedom” we’re talking about here. I’m generally against big govt, but in this case I would gladly pay the same amount to the municipal government instead so that they’d maintain the road and public greenery, and otherwise get out of my hair.

There is no freedom of association if there is no freedom FROM association.

That is, if your only option is to buy a house within a HOA or not but that house, you're not really free...

Interesting details and case analysis from your side here. HOAs are subject to debate frequently.

Philosophically, freedom has, among other dimensions, the dimension of negative and positive freedom: being free from something and free to do something.

Freedom usually refers to individual rights against the state. Freedom to have private contracts is part of what distinguishes socialism from capitalism.

What you describe regarding group associations is correct. Others are correct, too, when they appeal to freedom as the right to be spared from something.

Freedom to form groups does not mean being forced to join them. That's the point here. HOAs are partly like cartels, in my view.

Unfortunately, in practice most people don’t choose HOAs, they simply can’t afford to live anywhere without one.

I agree. You can be free without having total anarchy. Some (but not too many) laws/rules/restrictions ironically make us more free.

Nope. You'd be hard pressed to construct a narrative short of failed-state-need-24-hour-armed-security-to-survive where I'd entertain the notion of allowing 3rd parties any kind of say over what I can and can't do on my property.

But leaf blowers 7 am are fine xD

It's this bad. The problem is Boomers.

Boomers mostly worked one job between two people, and had the silent generation to take care of their kids so they had a lot of time for masterbatory lawn care/putting trashcans away the second the trash truck pulls away/nonsense.

Now they are retired and have even more time, but also authority over people far busier than they ever have been.

It's not that bad, the vast majority of people in an HOA like being in one.

Always remember: If it's in the news it's not the norm. Whatever you hear about a country via the news is the opposite of what that country typically is.

I lived in a community with an HOA for 5 years and never had any issue. Like you say, it existed primarily to ensure the upkeep of common facilities (pool, private road, gym, and community building). The only real rule I remember them enforcing (and fairly loosely, at that) was that residents were not allowed to park long term in visitor parking spots. Which to me seemed like a perfectly sensible rule.

A lot of HOAs have reasonable boards but contract out a lot of management to companies (I wouldn’t be be surprised if they were owned by private equity firms).

These companies are incentivized to find infraction to fine, and drive around regularly to make sure every rule is strictly adhered to. Trash bins out too early or late? Fine! Fence painted the wrong shade of soulless beige? Fine!

In NC, the HOA can force foreclosure on unpaid fees, even if the home is paid off. And 80% of available houses are in an HOA. They have us. Anti-HOA legislation is needed, but the legislature is greased by their lobbying.

The HOA is generally allowed to put a lien on your house, through the contract you were forced to sign with them.

Aren’t HOAs private entity? It was an HOA demand in this case, not a municipal one I think.

I tried to have the HOA enforce rules against cutting down of trees. I even took it to a lawyer. I found out that many HOA covenants are written so poorly that they're not enforceable.

A lot of them, yes. Half of U.S. states allow their schools or school districts to make their own rules regarding guns in schools. About a dozen states explicitly allow concealed firearms in schools.

Edit to help those confused about U.S. and states' laws: The 1990 Gun-free School Act doesn't apply to concealed firearms. 32 states allow teachers and school employees to bring guns to school (with some restrictions). States that explicitly allow concealed firearms in schools in some form or another are Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.

I’d be fascinated to see the geographic and demographic distribution of HOAs. In American Suburbia basically every neighborhood I’ve seen has an HOA. But in some cities I’ve lived they seem completely absent.

I’m guessing there was a particular (white flighty) period of time and kind of people who really wanted these things. Neighborhoods built before this time don’t have them, and newer buildings (at least where I live) don’t seem to have them either. So these may be mostly phenomena of a specific period.

HOAs serve a pretty useful purpose: to coarsely/imperfectly segregate people who want to live in an HOA away from people who would never want to live in an HOA and vice-versa.

Those two groups are somewhat prone to having conflicts with each other and HOAs let both be happier than if they were to be annoyed by living next to each other.

There’s plenty of places share there’s no restrictions like this. But people that live in communities have the right to regulate how community members use their property. It’s for the greater good.

By and large, no.

I’m not sure of any states / places that allow a student to bring a gun to school. A lot of schools have a police officer present, and I imagine they would typically be able to bring their gun. And some states are debating (or have authorized) allowing faculty to bring a gun to school; the caveat being (in most instances I have seen) said faculty would have to pass enhanced gun safety training.

Students - generally, not allowed to bring guns to school (too young to legally own/carry).

Teachers/staff - depends on state/local laws.

I'm assuming the OP meant the lack of overall regulation that leads to be people illegally bringing guns to school (and using them).

The only cases where students may possess firearms on school property of which I'm aware are when they are necessary for a school activity.

For example, my oldest daughter is involved on the trap team (a shotgun sport). Her firearm is cased and unloaded except on the shooting range itself, and practice is outside of normal school hours. In practice, that means she only has it in my vehicle when I'm taking her to practice or picking her up from practice. It's a non-issue.

As of about five years ago, when I went through instructor training for shooting sports, there had never been in an injury caused by youth shooting sports in our state in the ~100 year history of the program. Further, the group I was working with, 4-H, had a perfect safety record nation-wide. To muy knowledge that is still the case.

For the UK a HOA is conservation area if it were run by the folk on Nextdoor.

But to buy that home/land from the previous owner you have to sign a contract stating you can't leave the HOA and that when you sell you only sell to those who will join the HOA and contract.

This goes back to the construction company/realtor investing to build the entire suburb and putting down the roads and such.

Same thing that prevents you from declaring sovereign state on “your” land - the laws =)

In short: land covenants. In HOAs you will see titles containing terms about the property being subject to restrictions voted for/applied by the association. If you continually decline to adhere to the restrictions, you can be legally compelled to sell and move on.

Note: I'm using phrasing local to me, I expect there may be minor differences but the same gist.

Where in the US is there a supermarket that sells guns? I've never seen one. They'd need a FFL (Federal Firearms License) and anyone purchasing would have to go through a background check and in some states, a mandatory wait period of 3-10 days.

Small magnets seem to be banned too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/08/17/magnet-sa...

A fun workaround would be an air cannon that launches kinder eggs with a warning to not eat the chocolate ammo.

They forgot the Kinder Egg amendment to the Constitution when they were drafting the Bill of Rights.

Try not paying your property taxes and see what happens, do you still own your home then?

It's a felony. You'll go to jail.

Get a trailer and park the bike in the trailer.

Solution: buy an old, rusty, barely functionnal van, paint it the most provocative way for the conservative people while still abiding to the law. Boobs, penises, vulvas, LGBTQ+ slogans, drawings of Bin Laden with huge neon colors, whatever. Park it in your driveway if you have one, or on the street in front of your house if you can. With an amovible ramp, here is your bike shed.

Now after a few months you can apply for a permit to have a bike shed, maybe the concil will be more tolerant.

People have been tolerating thousands of ugly eyesore vehicles that do not match at all with the architecture but crack down on small, well integrated bike shed. This is just hypocrisy and jealousy by people who refuse to evolve to a new, better world.

We've had similar struggles and something like a babboe or urban arrow won't fit. I was 95% close to ordering a Libelle https://leichtlast.de/ The non-motorized unsplittable version weighs around 20kg, the splittable slightly more, but it is splittable.

We then settled for a Muli https://muli-cycles.de/en/

I still sometimes think the Libelle would have been cooler but the motor is stronger on the muli and I'm very happy with it too.

You might see improvement here - https://irishcycle.com/2023/07/28/department-exploring-plann... but honestly Ireland is so carbrained I wouldn't hope for much.

America runs on the principle of localism, which basically means that laws should be passed at a local level to deal with their own specific issues. Hence the United "States". This is compatible with some areas having stricter HOAs or laws.

I think it's the opposite. They buy a house in a certain environment, and they'd like the house and environment to remain the same (and not be devalued). It's not exactly a hard to understand perspective, even if you disagree with the level of enforcement.

And as a result you get painfully boring neighbourhoods.

Ireland will absolutely specify what species trees you are allowed to plant (sometimes forcing you to use non-native ones, even).

I really don't mind the green ones, in particular when the bikes are used as an alternative to a second car, which to my is significantly more "fugly".

To be fair, the Germans have a word for everything

Look, a man with a duck on his head

We Germans have a word for that: Quacksalberaufdekopfmann

Yeah, but do not forget how we are even codifying quite narrow-minded views about how someone should build their house in Bauordnungen (building code). My parents had to sue to build their house with a pitched roof, even though one neighboring house already had the same. And do not get me started on Denkmalschutz (monument protection?) ...

In the US, there's many doctrinaire refusers of anything with the "government" label so the exact same societal function and role is carefully reinvented without using that scary "g" word that leads to wobbly knees and couch fainting and so we have things like HOAs and a slew of other institutions.

There's even privately run versions of it like the Irvine Company, which built centrally planned cities by a board of unelected bureaucrats - but you see that's privately owned, so it's great! Just don't call that the "g" word otherwise the blood vessels in many Americans foreheads are likely to pop while they scream about public libraries and the post office being a communist menace.

It is very important to preserve the freedom of people with slightly more power to fuck with those with slightly less power!

In many cases now it's primarily about shifting the tax burden on the cost of public roads/sewers ect.

Even a chain link fence would be sufficient to meet the law. Chain links are unsightly too.

Kind of expensive but wouldn't a transparent glass fence meet the requirement as per the words?

Democracy is the tyranny of the majority, and most people who live in Western countries do enjoy their democracy.

This is a city ordinance, nothing to do with an HOA.

Perhaps this is not about sight as much as about proximity. I'm guessing parking, walking or driving next to a boat could be not as safe as compared to e.g. a parked car.

I would think a sea-side city, of all the cities would need such a legislation due to the abundance of boats in their neighborhoods.

Well in the US we used to be forced to agree that no "non-whites" would reside at the property when we purchase it. Later SCOTUS would state such provisions are legal between private parties, but can't be enforced with the coercion of the government.

The same thing could happen with HOAs

What's necessary is to limit the power and scope of HoAs. In Canada, for example, HoAs are generally restricted in how they can levy fines - so their ability to mess up your life is greatly reduced.

Try here https://www.boredpanda.com/red-wall-graffiti-experiment-lond...