Why We Can't Have Nice Things

HOAs, School Boards, and DEI

I want to buy a condo or a townhouse. I just sold my home of 15 years. It was a large two and half story Victorian-style home in St. Paul. She was over 100 years old and required a lot of love and attention to maintain. I enjoyed that home, it's neighborhood, and the quick walk to over a dozen bistros and coffee shop as well as its proximity to the Cathedral of St. Paul. I was five minutes from downtown St. Paul and fifteen minutes to downtown Minneapolis.

That home was my family's base for my children's formative years, with six bedrooms, three baths and a dining room that could accommodate fourteen people. Our dining room was the daily hub whereby we connected as a family each and every night around a home-cooked meal. It was a welcoming table full of laughter and conversations and all who happened to be in my home at mealtime were invited to share our spirit. Technology was not allowed at mealtime, unless we needed Wikipedia to settle an argument. Disagreements like, "Was Nero or Caligula the Roman emperor at Christ's crucifixion" needed to be settled on the spot. It was in those moments that internet became handy because our meal conversation could not continue until we learned both were wrong and Tiberius was the answer. Other than that necessity, we did not even play the radio for background music. All attention at our dining room table was focused on each other. Someday, when I can find the time, I will write about that sacred table and how I utilized it as the center of my single-parenting strategy.

The desire now to move into a condo or townhouse is because I'm at the stage of my life where I'd like to spend more time writing, traveling and enjoying other leisurely pursuits. I am looking for a turnkey living situation whereby I could turn the key to the lock position on my home and leave for a month or more and not worry about maintenance or upkeep. No lawn mowing in the summer nor snow removal in the winter. Right now, I'm simply looking for a place to live that is more like an Airbnb. When I show up, I want it to be fully appointed and clean. And when I am gone, I don't want to worry about a thing. But there is a problem with my plan.

Purchasing a condo or townhome requires living under the thumb of a tyrannical HOA. As it turns out, many Homeowners Associations have imposed more living restrictions upon their residence than even the crazy progressive city councils in which these associations reside. They also extract huge association fees to fund their version of residential utopia. I am finding it hard to surrender one of the largest assets I hold to such a group of little Napoleons. And that fear of HOAs, not high interest rates, is what's keeping me from moving forward with my plans to downsize and simplify my living arrangements.

But why are HOA's getting such a bad rap? Were we all not told to think globally but vote locally? It is the national elections that garner most of our attention. And as crazy as the legislative feces is that comes out of Washington DC, it rarely affects our lives as much as what happens in our own back yards. Case in point with HOAs. When your HOA votes for increased association fees so they can install a green bike path (paved in petroleum-based asphalt) to a newly constructed garden honoring Chairman Mao, there is not much a homeowner can do but pay the fee and keep quiet. Lest your grumbling becomes too audible and is used against you in the form of a reduced sale price in the future when you wish to sell your HOA captive property to the next unsuspecting fool desiring a more simplified living situation.

It's not just the HOAs that are out of control, local school boards are the new landing zone for progressive "do-gooders" with political axes to grind. School boards, like their counterpart HOAs that abandoned property management, have also neglected their prime objective of educating students. They both are the "downstream" of American political culture and the "green" they now promote is just the old "red" in disguise. And because both have taken their eye off their primary objective of managing property and educating children, those subject to these governing bodies are in a pickle, they are faced with "shut up" and comply or leave scenarios. In the case of school boards, if a parent becomes too vocal in their disagreement with its political trajectory, they may be labeled a domestic terrorist. See this 2021 DOJ directive for details.

Clearly, if anyone personally threatens a school board member, or HOA representative for that matter, they should be held accountable for their violent intimidation. But simply expressing a disagreement on a policy is not violence and is, in fact, a protected right. Specifically, freedom of speech and the right to assemble and petition government for redress of grievances is guaranteed in our First Amendment. So, regarding school boards, the DOJ has no business interfering with First Amendment protected activities. For HOAs, since they are private entities bound by agreed upon contracts, such First Amendment protection may not exist. Hence my reluctance to willfully participate in one by purchasing a condo or townhouse.

On the school front, because of out-of-control school boards, more families are opting for home schooling or hybrid-style co-operative learning situations. I wish that churches would lend their vast unused Monday through Friday spaces and Godly pursuits to these endeavors. However, I do not hold out much hope for the churches to meet this call, especially in the urban areas where it is needed the most. Because, as it turns out, the members that ascend to the church counsels or board of trustees are the ones who did not make the cut for their local HOA or school boards. Political motives have replaced biblical ones at the local church level as well. Case and point, I once witnessed more conversations around insuring that the coffee served after our church service was "free trade" certified then was ever spent discussing the significance of Paul's letter to the Romans.

I have been in business all my life. One of the things I love about business is that the "invisible hand" of poetic justice ultimately rules business leaders' decisions, or at least it used to. Businesses are just as susceptible to little Napoleons and leadership pushing political agendas as HOAs and School boards. However, their goal is to turn a profit and they do so by not only putting out a superior product at a fair price, but through attraction. Meaning, overtly political businesses may be silently boycotted by customers who disagree with their politics. Disney is one such organization reaping financial woes due to crazy-assed political inspired policies. This is the evil inflicted by DEI inspired business decisions. Heretofore, though some business leaders desired to insert politics into their operational decisions, the overarching need to turn a profit usually kept overtly political decisions out of the boardroom. DEI initiatives changed that. Companies embracing DEI have placed political necessity above the profit requirement. Therefore, achieving diversity equity and inclusion, at the expense of life-sustaining profit, becomes an organization's highest goal. So, in a sense, the C-suite boardrooms have begun to mirror the same attitudes and objectives percolating in local school boards, church councils, and HOA's. Politics, not profits, not education, not preaching the word of God, and not fiduciarily managing individuals' properties, has become the number one priority in way too many governing bodies. And, because all these political pursuits defy God's will, they will turn out badly for the organizations that embrace them.

There is one who predicted this reality. John Adams said, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Morality and virtue, according to Adams, are the foundation of our republic and are necessary for a society to be free. There is another, who knows this truth and fights diligently to obscure it in governing bodies. That is the original deceiver, the one who slithers eternally on his belly yet entices humans to pursue and promote their desires as superior to the Love, Grace and Forgiveness of our Father. I can hear lord nefarious now, as embodied in the iconic figure of Edward Wayne Brady say regarding HOA modus operandi, "you want to hear some irony? We didn't even come up with that one. You did it all by yourself. Sometimes you amaze even us."

But sometime, even lord nefarious must get a little nervous that our society is becoming too good at evil intentions. It makes me wonder if this Babylon Bee clip is parody or is it reality? I can imagine these very conversations occurring in many of our organizations right now. I leave it to you to decide if the word to tone down the evil has been sent to our boardrooms, church counsel, school boards and HOAs. Moreover, I am most concern that Ronald Reagan’s prophecy, spoken 60 years ago is becoming true:

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. – 1964