Category Archives: Free Speech

Comcast Starts Billing Spokane, Washington Customer as “Asshole Brown”

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Homeowners are beleaguered enough with abusive HOA boards and managers.  Many of these HOAs require homeowners to only use the approved cable company to get cable TV and Internet services.

But telephone and TV providers have unparalleled records, themselves, when dealing with people trying to get changes in their service. I experienced the near impossibility of getting a change in my Century Link and Verizon phone service in Colorado last fall so I knows it goes on.

The story from Spokane, Washington linked below is beyond belief. When Ricardo Brown and his wife insisted in cancelling his cable, Comcast began sending bills to his home addressed to “Asshole Brown.”

Incredible!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/29/comcast-asshole-brown_n_6568238.html

 

Red, White and Blue: Such Hideous Colors!

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What is it about the American flag that so disgusts the boards of Homeowners Associations? Why is it that patriotism across this grand country is dying? Our parents and grandparents fought fascism abroad a half dozen times over the past century. But the unregulated HOA movement is continuing to increase its dictatorial grip on the tens of millions of people who have come under its control. Our kids are growing up in schools that no longer teach the Pledge of Allegiance or duty to God and Country. They’re learning by our example that patriotism is just not PC.

The latest example comes to us, from of all places, El Paso, Texas which is essentially a military town. An HOA developer is demanding that an elementary school take down a red white and blue flag display from an exterior wall.

(link to flag controversy in El Paso)

 

 

Voting Rights are a hot button issue in US elections – except in HOAs

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guest blog by Deborah Goonan

I follow think tanks from both ends of the spectrum, so I can learn how people see important issues from different perspectives. A few days ago, a Cato article on a proposed Voting Rights Amendment came up in my news feed. (See link below)

But while Americans debate the pros and cons of issuing Voter IDs – do they prevent voter fraud, or do they disenfranchise minority voters? – Nobody wants to talk about universal voting rights for residents of HOAs.

Why not?

That’s nearly 65 million voters, many of them disenfranchised by corporate voting systems that allocate votes per “unit” or “share” owned, Representative Voting Councils, heavy use of proxy ballots, and many unmonitored election processes. Let’s face it. In many HOAs, voting is rigged – in ways that are sometimes technically legal.

Under the current voting system in place in HOAs:

·      Investors can simply “bulk buy” control of the Board,

·      Developers can hang onto control of their affiliate-appointed Board for years or even decades due to various legal loopholes,

·      Board members can intimidate owners into giving up their proxy votes,

·      Ballot boxes can be stuffed, mail ballots “lost” or otherwise mishandled

·      Owners who are delinquent on their accounts for any reason (even fabricated) cannot vote,

·      A handful of Voting Members can legally vote on behalf of hundreds or thousands of owners without any input, and

·      Tenants are almost always not allowed to vote even though they have to follow all of the same rules and create equity for their landlord-owners.

As a result of such shenanigans, millions of Americans are subject to the whims of their often-unaccountable HOA Boards. Collectively, HOA residents stand to lose millions of dollars in wasted or misappropriated assessments, their rights guaranteed under the Constitution, and, in too many cases, even their homes.

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/voting-rights-amendment-unnecessary-measure-meet-exaggerated-needs?utm_content=buffer7abd8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Why Do HOAs Hate Renters?

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guest blog by Dave Russell
Most HOAs have long shunned those who rent properties within Homeowners Associations. I’ve heard every disparaging comment ever made, “renters are trashy, uncaring, and simply make for bad neighbors.”  Well I’m here to dispel those myths and misconceptions about renters.
 
Most renters are actually decent, hard working folks, who pay their bills, and follow the HOA rules more often than homeowners do. Let’s take a look at one of the renters in my own homeowners association. Stacey Barker, single mother of three, saw a Facebook post from co-worker, Romona, who she didn’t really know all that well.  Ramona posted a plea on Facebook for prayers, or for someone who would be willing to donate a kidney to save her dying husbands life.
 
Less than ten minutes after Ramona’s desperate Facebook post was published online, Stacey Barker – a woman Ramona hardly knew – replied. “I sent her two messages,” said Barker. “The first time I don’t think she took me seriously, and the second time I said, ‘No really, I will get tested and if I’m a match I will donate.” Stacy did get tested and was a perfect match! Such an uncaring renter, isn’t she?’
 
Stacy, the renter, took two months of unpaid leave from work and donated her kidney to a man she didn’t even really know. Aren’t these renters something else! Ramona’s husbands life was saved thanks to Stacy Barker. Pay close attention all of you HOA board members! Not every renter is a ‘bad neighbor.’

 

Interesting WSJ Column on Free Speech

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Whether you agree or disagree with the Wall Street Journal columnist linked below, the term ‘hate speech’ is a constantly sliding scale. And it usually slides in ways that benefit the current political power. The first act of dictators is to ban some kinds of speech. Certainly, some speech is in bad taste but if you allow any ruling power to regulate what can and cannot be said in public, then you’re on a decidedly slippery slope.

On the Neighbors At War blog we frequently take note of certain Homeowners Associations where a battered neighbor who tries to run for the board is banned from speaking out, banned from handing out campaign literature, forbidden from expressing opinions to neighbors. That kind of fascism threatens the very homes and neighborhoods in which we live.

At the same time, censorship of any kind is a double-edged sword. On a website like this, the moderator has the power to permit or to edit out language or thoughts that he deems are simply in bad taste. But this website is not a government institution. It’s a place where we share concerns, thoughts, feelings.

Our Republic is unique in that the very first right granted to Americans was the right to express thoughts without government censorship. Are there limits? Of course. And we granted the Supreme Court the power to analyze certain kinds of speech to see if they constituted an endangerment to others. In some cases (yelling fire, libel, slander) the Court ruled that freedom of speech is not absolute.

Although Wall Street Journalist Bret Stephens is being pilloried for writing this column, in my opinion he should be congratulated for his analysis.

Your thoughts?

http://www.wsj.com/article_email/bret-stephens-the-scandal-of-free-speech-1421106813-lMyQjAxMTE1OTE4NDExMTQ5Wj