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

Is that how other countries perceive American's idea of freedom?

Yes, I'm familiar with the scene you describe, but that is a small fraction of the places I have seen with chain link fences. In fact, regarding the barking dog, in my experience it is the solid wood fences with dogs inside that will not shut up because they can only hear but not see what might possibly be intruding. This is why it is common to cut access holes for the dogs to see out to realize there's nothing to bark at. I've seen versions from slits cut into the boards all the way to portal domes around the fence line.

In the US, after the radical republicans and proto-communists fled europe in 1848, they came to the US and helped form the republican party which led to a civil war which was fundamentally about worker's rights. After that there were decades of skirmishes and unionization pushes that are celebrated everywhere but in the US (such as May Day). There were radical anarchist and socialist led efforts that brought about the 8 hour day, minimum wage, and weekends through armed violent struggle.

This led to the professionalization of police (example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_and_Iron_Police) and the earliest propaganda outfits which came out of WW1.

Anyway, fast forward to after the war, the right wanted to not deal with that for another 100 years so they got to work on trying to flip the script. (for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Economic_Educat...)

Clergy went from left wing to right wing, rural people went from bomb throwing anarchists to flag waving conservatives, the american spirit that led to the Burlington, Haymarket, and Railroad strikes, Battle of Virden Mines, Pullman Strike, Colorado labor wars, blair mountain, Harlan county war, all of these were redirected - redirected to scapegoats; women, government, gays, immigrants.

For instance, modern country music came from folk music, which had a bunch of left wing songs (such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzvH5UZVQU8 or pre-ww2 folk singers like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hill_(activist) ). It was re-invented, intentionally, as troop-worshipping, flag waving super-patriotism.

It looks so weird as an outsider because it's a manufactured flip. The fundamental culture didn't change, it's just that propagandists can communicate their lies faster and more convincingly than those who constrain themselves to material reality.

Scammers win because they're trying to convince, while honest people are trying to have integrity.

Further especially that word few germans could tell you why it is called like that:

Spieß is spear, so Spießbürger/Spießer is just a spear citizen, or a speary?! ;)

(One explanation is the medieval simple citizen that could not afford a better weapon than a simple spear. Not even sure if the only explanation attempt though..)

In those situations the HOA could be seen as government imposed rather than purely “freedom of association”.

I own a 100 year old home so there is no HOA but it’s difficult for most people to afford such homes since there’s a limited supply and they’re often either in highly desirable or blighted city centers.

Yes, tell your realtor "I don't want to look at any of the properties you have for sale, or any properties within the greater [insert city here] metro area, or for that matter any geographical location within 100 miles of here". He'd look at you less strangely, and might even chuckle instead of telling you to go fuck yourself and to not waste his time.

And the best part of all is that these two requests are essentially identical.

This. I live in a drama-free HOA and appreciate it for what it is and does. I had to review and agree to the covenants of my HOA as a condition for closing. The rule most likely to be in violation here is something along the lines of “only operational automobiles in good condition are permitted to be parked in the driveway; any boats, recreational vehicles, broken down or unsightly vehicles must be behind a fence”. The whole point is to maintain a clean, safe, attractive, and ultimately desirable neighborhood so as to protect property values on behalf of the association’s members.

Although this homeowner’s actions are characteristic of malicious compliance, I believe the net effect is precisely in line with the stated purpose of the HOA: in compliance with the rules, an elegant mural depicting a pristine boat now adorns a new fence that restricts sight of and access to a boat of unknown condition. Anyone driving by looking to buy might come away with a chuckle and the sense that the neighborhood is committed to maintaining a safe and attractive environment for homeowners.

In many jurisdictions within the United States, an HOA can assess fines for exceedingly trivial violations, then after the fines remain unpaid for a time period as short as 6 weeks, file to sell your home at auction to pay the fees. They can take your home from you, evict you from it, and this is deemed perfectly legal. Do they have to provide proof, for instance, that your grass was actually one half inch too tall? No, there is no adversarial process where they would have to prove that were the case.

> I pointed out that nowhere in the condo bylaws was a grill mentioned. They said something about city fire codes, so I got a note from the fire department. They were unable to force me to do anything.

It must be very thrilling to be able to be an amateur lawyer and win a case. Have fun, because those people tend to hold grudges. My experience is that you'll never have a week of peace for as long as you live there again.

This is very idealistic, but not quite how it works. HOA boards can and do constantly violate with impunity the rules they are supposed to follow. Most often to embezzle funds but also to enforce their personal will.

You can contest this of course, you can go to court. It takes pretty deep pockets to pay for lawyers and years of persistence. I know multiple people in years-and-years-long legal battles with HOAs. Those who have enough money to see it through often usually win, but it takes a lot of patience and money. Most people don't have that kind of cash to blow on fighting corrupt HOAs.

I've never understood why we allow that to be legal, just like neighborhoods or complexes that are age restricted, but we allow it none the less.

to compare with europe: as far as i know germany or austria don't have the equivalent of a HOA, but what is allowed and what isn't is defined by local law. the closest example i could find are rules a landlord is allowed to impose on their tenants. for example, if i rent a house with garden, then the landlord can demand that i take care of the garden, but they can not specify how often i am supposed to mow the lawn or how high i let it grow.

if not even a landlord can make such rules for their own property, then a HOA would have even less chance to make such rules for homeowners.

that said, local laws can be quite far reaching, especially when it comes to aspects that affect the character of a neighborhood which includes rules on the outside design of the house and the front yard. not something i am happy about myself. beyond that these rules are mostly about things directly affect and cause problems for the neighbors. otherwise a homeowner has the right to do whatever they want on their property.

as for the freedom to choose an HOA. no such freedom exists. because my choice of where i live is not defined by the HOA but by other considerations like location and cost and most importantly, availability. the argument that i could have moved somewhere else if i didn't like this HOA is not really reasonable given the housing shortage in most places.

the right to live somewhere trumps the freedom of association

A fun John Oliver video on how corrupt HOA's are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrizmAo17Os

Selling your house and buying a different one that isn't in an HOA isn't as trivial as you make it sound. And in some parts of the country, it's rather difficult to find a house that isn't part of an HOA - in Texas, many neighborhoods get built with an HOA built-in.

I’m sure this is true nationally, but does it hold locally for areas with good employment prospects? And once you remove apartments (which don’t have HOAs but are subject to the tyranny of the landlord instead)?

Genuinely asking because I can’t think of too many areas in NoVA that don’t have HOAs.

Correction… There are areas of older housing without, but any subdivisions built since the 80s seems to have one. The areas without tend to be older “downtown” areas (Arlington - very expensive) or on the outskirts (Fairfax Station - very expensive).

Do we do so by smashing HOAs (and giving the responsibilities to someone else)? I believe this is the wrong approach because it will destroy any potential for this localist (and thus inherently good, imo) system to heal. You're basically passing the baton onto another entity that might do a better job off the start but will inevitably fail because it is even less capable of evolving.

I'd rather try to discourage rigidity/complacency and incentivise innovation in the HOA-space which is much more complex to implement but better than smashing HOAs.

Regarding your point about "not buying the whole argument": I think it would be foolish to organise a military or pandemic-prevention-force on a municipal level. The levels need to exist and some higher levels have responsibilities that the lower levels don't have. I absolutely believe that this is good.

In conclusion, somehow communities of a certain region need to be organised if they want to be organised, especially when the region is densely populated. I'd rather organise these communities through self-emergent associations than top-down mandated government. And yes, the self-emergent association-type HOA is broken. I'd rather fix it than replace it with a inherently worse alternative.

When you have an HOA with regular single family homes, it generally has to have been setup by the contractor, who build the entire planned community. These mass produced planned communities are also typically cheaper and lower value than individual one-off single family homes, as they are built to a price point for a profit.

You are free to not buy the land of course.

I don’t think anyone would argue with their regulation of common property; it’s their petty interference in private property that’s the rub.

I interpret such actions as what to normally expect in a lower trust society and culture. We pay for such settings in many different ways.

And never mind that the main value add of leaf blowers (over the traditional rake) is to coat your neighbors with debris and dust, thus necessitating even more cleaning (inside too, if they dared to have their windows open).

Also I'd say it's your characterization of freedom that is a narrow misunderstanding. I'd define freedom as the ability for individuals to make their own choices in the presence of society. Being the only person for miles and thus being "free" to do whatever you want isn't some sensible ideal of freedom, rather it's a pathological case that has made freedom irrelevant. In other words, freedom itself directly depends on tolerance. And by the time a city is forcing someone to build yet another ticky-tack fence to hide the mere sight of a perhaps-ill-advised boat it's clear that there is very little tolerance aka respect for freedom.

They don't. For all the power an HOA might have in their street or apartment block, outside of that very small boundary they're nothing. We're not talking about Boeing or Morgan Stanley or PG&E here.

HOAs are actually popular by choice - developers wouldn't set them up for "80% of available houses" if the houses were more valuable without them.

2% of people have horror story experiences with corrupt HOAs pocketing their cash. 23% of people just get poor value for money where some asshole changes a lightbulb and charges 100 residents $1 each. 75% of people have a tolerable experience, and quite like the fact their neighbour can't park an RV on their driveway and rent it out on airbnb, and if that means limiting what people are allowed to do on their own driveway, so be it.

What's the story with Texas?

C'mon mate, exchange some culture!

When you're discussing our gun laws with foreigners, I guess you're right that it's always necessary to spell out the fine details, like the fact that we have separate rules for gun-toting people who are over 18 and gun-toting people who are under 18, because from their perspective it's almost certainly just one big jumble of insanity.