I always argue with libertarians that ultimately they’re arguing for a life run by HOA’s and the like when they want small government. It’s funny how many of them hate HOAs.
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The primary sticking point is that only a government can legally use force, imprison you, seize your property etc., and therefore an HOA is not a government.
My counter argument is to stop paying your HOA fees and see how quickly you end up in court- Because the fact they outsource their use of force doesn’t mean they aren’t doing exactly that by proxy.
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Not really. I’m pretty sure everybody hates HOAs, except maybe the people running the HOA and property developers/real estate types - and even they only like them when they’re controlling them.
that’s the libertarian fallacy right there. they believe that without government they will get to run all the contracts, and therefore will be powerful and in control.
the truth is, anyone who’s near enough to our own socioeconomic income level to argue with, is never going to be the one in control. and, with everything purely as contracts: they won’t even get a vote
although if they do get a vote, then they’ve just reinvented a democratic government. so good for them.
( unless their vote is only proportional to their economic stake, in which case see their vote will simply be drowned out by those in the highest income tiers. so repeat the above logic )
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I don’t. I live in one, and frankly, we would have a shitty neighborhood without it. We have a common area with a walking path and a lake. No way any group of homeowners can manage the upkeep and liability of that without an HOA or some organization that closely resembles one.
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Fair enough, that’s definitely a benefit. In my part of the world that kind of thing is generally provided by local government and I’ve always assumed it was more or less the same in the States. That might have something to do with why I’ve never come across anyone who didn’t hate it when their neighbourhood ended up with an HOA or covenants etc. All of the same hassles, with less of the actually useful stuff.
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Don’t get me wrong. If the neighborhood covered by an HOA doesn’t have extensive common property, then I really don’t see the point. At that point, the HOA board are often just little paint-color and lawn-length warlords. That’s what people hate about them - the pettiest of petty. But that’s not the only application of an HOA.
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i wonder sometimes what liability insurance would look like with national healthcare. since insurers suing each other over payment for personal injury seems to be one of the biggest expenses, would much of these sorts of fees just evaporate?
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American catholics would really prefer to be baptists, wouldn’t they? The idea of a catholic church (or any church) having a billboard or display board out front is so alien to me and probably considered declasée by the Vatican.
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Not all American Catholics… Given that despite church teachings, I don’t believe the majority of American catholics support bans on abortion (like, you know, much of the country).
This is once again, a vocal minority of right wingers within this subset of American catholics who do not speak for everyone.
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Haha, I like that framing. They really are arguing for that.
However much like Ren Faire people imagine themselves as nobility and thus would be having great lives back then, libertarians all imagine they will be the ones in charge of this new world so it’s all okay.
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I’m gonna guess that the vast majority of Ren Faire folks are probably far more aware of the reality of the Medieval period vs. their modern day LARPing, but Libertarians believe in the bullshit they spew. There isn’t nothing wrong with having a little fun by dressing up and enjoying a bit of myth. There is something wrong with tearing down the social fabric of society and handing it over to corporations.
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Even Evangelicals were supportive of Roe at the time. This business of turning it into an existential issue galvanizing and polarizing single-issue voters is all manufactured and recent.
In 1968, Christianity Today, in the flagship magazine of evangelicalism, …they said:
“Whether the performance of an induced abortion is sinful we are not agreed,” the statement read, “but about the necessity of it and permissibility for it under certain circumstances we are in accord.”
Some Evangelical leaders at the time openly spoke out in favour of the right to choose, in fact. I can’t find a source for that right now.
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Yes, I’m well aware of that fact.
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Apologies if I was ‘splaining. Only meant to reinforce your point.
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It’s worse than that. The Pope has told Catholics not to write their religious beliefs into secular law, and American Catholics have completely (and blasphemously?) ignored it.
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In this case I wasn’t even speaking about abortion (which after all the Catholic church has backwards views on all around the world) but just that the idea that imposing your religious views on others as a church is very much frowned upon in old world Christianity.
This reinforces my view that American catholics are much closer in culture to extremist Baptists than to catholics abroad.
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Ah… my apologies then. We should figure out a method of reinforcing without seemingly 'splainin…
Again, not all Catholics… Can we stop doing this where we impose the worst possible sector of a group as representing all of them? It’s not helpful and it only serves to divide those of us who aren’t assholes.
And among probably a majority of American Christians.
Stop letting the fascists wing of the faith dictate our understanding of what’s happening. 
FFS, SOME American Catholics.
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Not many of the rank and file, but most certainly most of the leadership seem to deviate from what the Vatican is directing. We’re talking bishops, archbishops, etc. And certain Catholic Supreme Court Justices, of course.
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A vocal minority is not all, though. And much like the right wing white evangelical movement, I doubt even that is a majority.
Given that there was a political movement aimed at Catholics in US history, let’s not paint them all with the same broad brush. It’s had consequences in the past for people.
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