When I was looking for a new home a couple of years ago, I avoided ANY property with an HOA. My father had advised me against it decades ago when he was renting a condo in Florida.
This is why I own my single family home (without a HOA). HOAs are notorious for incompetence and generally being a pain in the ass. This is "government" that directly impacts you and those can be the most critical "governments" to worry about.
In my opinion, most people serving on the boards of HOAs lack the skills to do the *voluntary* work!
From what I've seen though, the most common problem with HOAs is that developers build communities, setting up HOAs (that are initially well run) that are under funded. Ten years down the road, the developer is "long gone" and the HOA board members get the rude surprise of realizing that HOA dues have been woefully low and there is no funding available for projects that will soon be needed.
Funding aside, the intrusion of "petty tyrants" in telling you how to live (don't you dare let that grass grow too tall!) is very undesirable.
Clearly I'm not a fan of HOAs, but the point is in the comparison. If people live in an HOA (if you don't, compare it to county or city government) and are unwilling to take the time to be at all involved, you can bet they won't be involved at the broader levels of government, which is why we are in the predicament we are in. If people actually took the time to understand the constitution, and to truly know the people running in elections, they might vote differently. As well, if citizens would put in the time and effort *after* elections to regularly contact their representatives on issues, those representatives might be persuaded to vote differently on bills.
Yes, but the past three years has been a depressing demonstration of just how lazy humans are. Tyranny can crash down and yet the common citizen just keeps "doing the grind". Sure, certainly I've met a lot of activists that are trying to raise awareness but they are being censored and the rest of the people don't care.
Government has become so distasteful that I'm not sure anyone wants to be involved. Contact your legislators? Ha! Form letter responses that make it clear they didn't even read what you sent them!
True enough. Most representatives (at least supposedly "conservative" ones) are deaf to the cries of their constituents. This is why we need to be so diligent in voting. Frankly, I think the parties need to be dissolved (they are corporations) so we can get back to voting for individuals based on their own positions rather than a party-selected candidate who stands on the party platform. I have little expectation, however, that that will actually happen.
When I was looking for a new home a couple of years ago, I avoided ANY property with an HOA. My father had advised me against it decades ago when he was renting a condo in Florida.
Nope nope nope
This is why I own my single family home (without a HOA). HOAs are notorious for incompetence and generally being a pain in the ass. This is "government" that directly impacts you and those can be the most critical "governments" to worry about.
In my opinion, most people serving on the boards of HOAs lack the skills to do the *voluntary* work!
From what I've seen though, the most common problem with HOAs is that developers build communities, setting up HOAs (that are initially well run) that are under funded. Ten years down the road, the developer is "long gone" and the HOA board members get the rude surprise of realizing that HOA dues have been woefully low and there is no funding available for projects that will soon be needed.
Funding aside, the intrusion of "petty tyrants" in telling you how to live (don't you dare let that grass grow too tall!) is very undesirable.
Clearly I'm not a fan of HOAs, but the point is in the comparison. If people live in an HOA (if you don't, compare it to county or city government) and are unwilling to take the time to be at all involved, you can bet they won't be involved at the broader levels of government, which is why we are in the predicament we are in. If people actually took the time to understand the constitution, and to truly know the people running in elections, they might vote differently. As well, if citizens would put in the time and effort *after* elections to regularly contact their representatives on issues, those representatives might be persuaded to vote differently on bills.
Yes, but the past three years has been a depressing demonstration of just how lazy humans are. Tyranny can crash down and yet the common citizen just keeps "doing the grind". Sure, certainly I've met a lot of activists that are trying to raise awareness but they are being censored and the rest of the people don't care.
Government has become so distasteful that I'm not sure anyone wants to be involved. Contact your legislators? Ha! Form letter responses that make it clear they didn't even read what you sent them!
True enough. Most representatives (at least supposedly "conservative" ones) are deaf to the cries of their constituents. This is why we need to be so diligent in voting. Frankly, I think the parties need to be dissolved (they are corporations) so we can get back to voting for individuals based on their own positions rather than a party-selected candidate who stands on the party platform. I have little expectation, however, that that will actually happen.
The beast is self-serving and self-preserving.
Agreed 100%. Trash the existing parties. Vote for people, not parties.