Membership Has Its Benefits ... Doesn't It?

[question everything]

Membership Has Its Benefits ... Doesn't It?

It's nice to live in a well-mannered neighborhood, but is it worth forfeiting freedom and diversity?

By Lyla Fox
Newsweek

Sept. 18, 2006 issue - It's in a gated community," my friend said, as she exuberantly described the home her nephew had purchased. I knew she wasn't aware that for me the words "gated community" double for "exclusive," "private," even "discriminatory." My friend didn't realize my concern that we are far too controlling about who lives next door to us and what they're up to. We may give lip service to the words "tolerance" and "diversity," but for the middle and upper-middle class those words don't seem to include the poor, the ragtag and the slothful. Heaven help anyone who messes up a well-manicured lawn or trips an underground sprinkler system. We'll see how tolerant we are then.

(snip)

Nationally, we engage in debates over what to do about illegal border crossings, NSA wiretaps and congressional intrusions. But locally, I see more and more of my friends embarrassingly eager to describe how their homeowners association polices garage doors that are left up, clothes that are hung on "illegal" clotheslines and houses that violate the "approved colors" code. "The association doesn't approve of that," they say. Though people can argue that we have the freedom to choose whether we live in those communities, I am concerned that we too quickly hand over our personal choices to the sanctimonious marshals of the homeownership associations. In making sure the rules are obeyed, we are eschewing personal freedom. It's a micro-stamp of approval of the Big Brother threat most of us struggle against. We are acquiescing too easily to the idea that others have every right to determine our every right.

(snip)


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14752498/site/newsweek/

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Gated Communities:

Homes for busybodies, run by sociopaths.

[Dr.Phool]

2. Last week, the night before the primary election in Florida

I was out putting up campaign signs in 37 precincts, one of which happened to be in a GATED TRAILER PARK!!! They wouldn't let us in!

Now that's upscale.

[woodsprite]

3. Eeeewwww! We looked at a regular development around

here that had a nasty homeowner's association. You were not even allowed to park your pickup truck or van in your own driveway because they have "commercial" license plates AND we were told that our large pickup truck (a nice looking one used to tow our trailer) would not be allowed because it weighed too much. We put the brochures back down on the sales persons desk and walked out.

My SIL says that they lived in a townhome community in Richmond where you weren't allowed to park ANYTHING in your driveway. All vehicles had to be parked in your garage.

[question everything]

4. And.... the garage doors have to be closed

I once wanted to have part of a fence that we were replacing open with just wrought iron. No... because if my yard was "messed up" - i.e. with toys and yard furnitures strewn around - it would offend passers by.

[razors edge]

5. gated community=

self imposed prison isolation paid for by the prisoners. tyrants love this divide and conquer shit.