tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5060417.post8894543200183484138..comments2023-11-05T06:18:25.377-06:00Comments on The Privatopia Papers: Thoughts on socialist conspiraciesEvan McKenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04479661304143631524noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5060417.post-65954825842589142112011-09-12T08:11:12.190-05:002011-09-12T08:11:12.190-05:00I like the general assessment set forth by Prof. M...I like the general assessment set forth by Prof. McKenzie except for the conclusion near the bottom. In fact people ARE paying their taxes. There has been layer upon layer of different taxing entities created so that one entity can continue taxing while foisting off the responsibility for the services it was supposedly taxing for to another taxing entity. Eventually you get to HOAs which have never been delegated any taxing authority to begin with and yet which tax while having no obligation at all to actually provide services.<br /><br />Other than that, I would also submit that "common interest housing" is a complete misnomer because it implies that the people have a "common interest" when the only thing they share is a common liability. HOAs do fall into the Agenda 21 "plan" even though not explicitly so. Expansion of homeownership is only permitted via HOA-burdened property and the local municipality (city/county) dictates where that is allowed to take place. The local municipality also mandates "ordinances" that they could not constitutionally impose on each one of these settlements via "private" restrictive covenants.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5060417.post-63810174624891930722011-09-11T12:03:26.281-05:002011-09-11T12:03:26.281-05:00Whether privatization is good or bad depends on th...Whether privatization is good or bad depends on the circumstances. My point is simply that we hear all this anti-HOA rhetoric from right wingers--people who also claim to hate government. I say, make up your mind. Personally, I prefer public to private government. And if you claim you don't want any form of social organization, private or public, please go live outside society someplace.Evan McKenziehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04479661304143631524noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5060417.post-32342250144955530342011-09-11T11:47:24.772-05:002011-09-11T11:47:24.772-05:00Back on June 29, 2010, this blog published a recen...Back on June 29, 2010, this blog published a recently discovered letter by (then) KGB chairman Yuri Andropov to Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, regarding their plot to impose communism in America.<br /><br />It can be read at <a href="http://privatopia.blogspot.com/2010/06/httptheweekcomarticleindex204550the.html" rel="nofollow">privatopia.blogspot.com/2010/06/httptheweekcomarticleindex204550the.html</a><br /><br />After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many Party <i>apparatchik</i>s continued to produce propaganda extolling the virtues of the collective ownership of American's private property. Even though they no longer receive funding from Moscow, the Communisty Associations Institute is able to continue with Comrade Arbatov's plan by collecting HOA dues from American homeowners.<br /><br />I never imagined that one day conservatives and libertarians would become the champions of Communism. And they don't even realize it; they're more naive than the Soviet apologists we called "useful idiots" during the Cold War.<br /><br />And in an even more bizarre twist, the left-wing web site Daily Kos realizes that <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/17/272221/-An-HOA-Can-Legally-Prohibit-Smoking-In-Your-Own-Home" rel="nofollow">"Communism will never truly be defeated as long as Homeowners Associations still exist"</a> and that <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/09/18/903191/-Does-HOA-stand-for-Hatred-of-America?via=tag" rel="nofollow">HOA stands for "Hatred of America"</a>.<br /><br />Next thing you know, we'll be reading about <a href="http://forum.pafoa.org/general-2/69743-hoa-banning-gun-ownership-private-community.html" rel="nofollow">HOAs taking our guns away</a>; gun confiscation being another common conspiracy theory about the United Nations.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5060417.post-11841957342284608782011-09-11T09:31:49.294-05:002011-09-11T09:31:49.294-05:00"CIDs are a form of privatization. They appea..."CIDs are a form of privatization. They appear where local government fiscal capacity is limited. To put it simply, if you don't like CIDs, quit complaining about paying your taxes and drop the anti-government rhetoric. You will have either public or private provision of basic services."<br /><br />I believe some discrete government services can be privatized provided it is done so with proper oversight and transparency. However, it's a mistake to replace government with a private corporate structure in the form of mandatory membership HOAs. Doing so creates a closed, corporate culture that's inappropriate to open public governance and prone to abuse of power.Fred Pilotnoreply@blogger.com