Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Chris Kemp's Response to Rules & Regs Violation

[Liz (liz]

So, I'm not in cohousing yet. We are getting ready to build.

And I am hearing, mostly, from this list that if my community decides  
on a principle that is important to us, and comes to consensus on  
that issue, that we should not assume that there is any good reason  
to actually FOLLOW what we agreed to.
After all, I'm paying good money for this home, why should I follow a  
rule that I helped create?

AND, if I were to go to a co-housing list and ask for advice on how  
to deal with an issue, in addition to some good ideas, I'd get 50%  
feedback that it was wrong for my community to want what it did and,  
by consensus agree to it.

This isn't quite the ideal I was imagining.
-Liz
Mosaic Commons
Berlin, MA


On Apr 16, 2006, at 6:39 PM, Lion Kuntz wrote:

> --- Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com> wrote:
>
> > On Apr 15, 2006, at 5:05 AM, Lion Kuntz wrote:
> >
> > > A proper question is why was the orginal description so distorted?
> > Why
> > > weren't both sides put plainly before the group before asking how
> > to
> > > obtain compulsion of a rule, which on further alanalysis was
> > grossly
> > > misdescribed?
> >
> > Whoaaaaaaaa Nelly! We have two descriptions. Who decides which one is
> >
> > "correct"?
>
> The United States Government decided. They said that it is illegal to
> prohibit or censor access to global information by mob or majority
> rule. The individual decides and is a majority of one, who morally
> outnumbers and outvotes the many.
>
> All talk after that is not about enforcing or ignoring regs of an
> association, but is about obeying or disobeying the law. Once that
> element came into play the old discussion was deceased. Now the
> question has morphed into "who is in favor of breaking the laws and  
> who
> is not?" Is breaking the law a lesser issue than breaking an
> association regulation? The laws on harrassment also supercede
> regulations -- no person or group has lawful authority to intrude into
> the privacy of their neighbors and make fundamental lifestyle  
> decisions
> over them under duress of threats of punishment. This should be too
> obvious to necessitate bringing up supreme court rulings on the  
> matter.
>
> This applies over every single square inch of the lands, not excluding
> customized housing associations of any kind. Freedoms traced to the
> Declaration of Independence and the original Constitution of the  
> United
> States are the property of the individual first and foremost.
>
> All freedoms not voluntarily relinguished to the collective remain  
> with
> the individual; and transfer of rights is done openly, knowingly, not
> under coersion or duress, and are required to be justified by some
> greater social good, else the transfer is void. That is the meaning of
> "inalienable rights": you can't give them up or renounce them even if
> you wanted to, but you certainly cannot be made to give them up by
> force of cliques, cults, juntas, mobs, majorities, gangs, despots,
> tyrants or ad hoc associations.
>
> Many laws are routinely striken down for failing to honor that social
> contract. If laws made by the highest lawmaking bodies in the  
> hierarchy
> can fall for being unconstitutional, than regulations made by private
> groups are as much in jeopardy of crumbling for the same reasons.
>
> The collective, or body politic, must rationally justify its
> usurptation of individual rights in a court of law if the injured  
> party
> so requires them to do so. The injury to the collective must be
> demonstrated and be significantly more severe than the injury to the
> individual's rights. On a toss-up, the principle is the individual has
> maximum freedom, (as do the individual members of the association, but
> not the association itself as an "artificial person").
>
> Long centuries groaning under despotism and tyranny are the basis for
> these decisions and organization of governmental structures we have
> inherited from the foundation. The wisdom of the collective who  
> decided
> these long before our births should not be discarded lightly in our
> age. They have withstood the test of time and the USA is the oldest
> lasting democracy on Earth because of checks and balances, based on
> freedoms which motivates individuals to participate and defend the
> shield to their freedoms.
>
> Some people live busy lives and are not attracted to bueaurocratic
> process. They participate, if they even do, with one eye open,
> daydreaming half the time. It would be folly to assume that everybody
> is equally informed about matters decided in committee half a decade
> ago.
>
> Laws and regulations linger long after those who made them have moved
> on, linger even after higher law has been invoked to invalidate the
> regulation, and sunset provisions are rarely provided to retire old
> restrictions after they are no longer valid. Perhaps the reason for  
> the
> regulation has vanished, or perhaps it has been voided by higher
> authority, but it is infrequent that the regulations are modified in a
> timely fashion.
>
>
> The particular regulation described from the beginning of this
> discussion not only affected 18" satellite dishes, but also applied to
> solar panels and ham radio antennas and even broadcast TV antennas.
>
> The collective failed prima facia to establish their injury sufficient
> to justify intrusion into the domain of privacy every citizen may wrap
> themselves up in. At that point there was no further need for "the
> other side" to describe their view. The complainant failed to  
> establish
> an injury justifying a regulation.
>
> The complainant, thus presented the evidence against themselves.
> Photographs by any party establishing the position of the satellite
> dish are not required at this point, nor are the notarized eyewitness
> accounts of scores of dozens of reputable witnesses. Where there is no
> injury there is no valid offense.
>
> The fundamental question has never been "did or didn't a party put  
> up a
> satellite dish?" The main issue has been, and continues to be, how can
> an association justify taking away freedoms where they have no injury
> to present? Until an injury can be described, the issue of actual
> satellite dishes is premature.
>
> When a person has paid a substantial amount of the sweat off their
> brow, represented as money in purchase price, it is not a trivial  
> issue
> that other persons begin to chip away at the value of what was bought.
>
> Just because "YOU" (whomever, generic "YOU") paid your purchase price
> does not entitle you to intrude on others devaluing their purchase
> value.
>
> When you are talking typical prices between $200,000 and $400,000 per
> unit advertised around, buyers have some expectation of getting value
> in the privacy of their domain without feeling like they have to pull
> up roots and move just because others had meetings and decided to
> devalue the property.
>
> --- Lion Kuntz
> Sonoma County, California, USA
>
> ...
>
> > This is a perfect example of the two opposing viewpoints that govern
> > actions in cohousing every day.
> >
> > 1. We have agreements that were very carefully thought out and agreed
> >
> > to by all members and should be followed until changed. If they are
> > outmoded, they need to be revised.
> >
> > 2. As long as I'm doing what I think is reasonable, the agreements
> > don't apply. Other people don't follow them. They no longer make any
> > sense.
> >
> > What is important is that communities revisit their agreements
> > regularly and ensure (as much as is possible) that everyone agrees
> > which belief is to prevail. Obviously, in this instance, there is no
> > agreement.
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/