Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Presumably because of demand. As I figure, the HOA is basically a way of forcibly excluding people who can’t “fit in” with the community or follow the rules. Reading in between the lines, that was what was going on in this case, as in, classic bullying. Probably the people trying to force defendant to fit in were a real mess of busybodies, obviously, as they brought a dumb case to court, but this is the function here.
In a more sympathetic case, imagine a family moved in who left rusting cars on the lawn and other obnoxious but not quite illegal things that nobody of your class or background would do. How do you make them stop? I know a lot of the people here are libertarians, principled or otherwise, but the average Joe ain’t and would rather keep those families out, or else coloring within the lines. Personally I don’t empathize and enjoy my freedom more, but I get that’s a rarity overall.
And apparently HOAs are overall popular. People like em. Or at least, they aren’t the kind of radioactive that would stop people buying these properties, even with the very obvious downsides, and encourage developers to not enforce them. I know revealed preferences is a meme, but it seems to apply here.
Relating this out. I’ve seen a lot of people on this forum arguing pretty directly for a shared US culture. Well, the HOA feels exactly like what’s being asked for here - an association that punishes deviance with process, and upholds normalcy. Japan is a pretty culturally centralized place, and from what I hear from my friends there, pretty much every little village and neighborhood has its own little HOA (micro-local government). They organize things like who goes to sweep out the graveyard, sure, but also make certain nobody gets too far out of line, in that distinctive passive-aggressive but unmistakably Japanese way. And I think of that, and of the fuck-you American spirit, and it makes me laugh a little. Conformists are allowed their little liberties here, but why think they’re remotely popular? An American will only subject himself to banding together once he’s exhausted the alternatives for keeping the undesirables out.
(This is ignoring the little associations that are just about funding shared resources, like an HOA that pays for the community pool. Those have a straightforward reason to be.)
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