Cohousing-L Mailing List: The Law's Response to Rules & Regs Violation

[Lion Kuntz (lionkuntz]

--- Liz <liz [at] significant.com> wrote:

> 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?

The Congress of the United States makes rules all the time, and they
expect that they will be obeyed or followed. However, somebody may
point out that the law itself is illegal, and when the courts decide,
yes this is an unconstitutional law, it is voided. The Supreme Court
does not take into account how much agonizing went into the
rule-making, how many vote-getting favors were traded, how much
smoozing, how many lobbiests gave campaign contributions to get the law
passed. None of that is important. The only important issue is, does
the rule violate a deeper more fundamental rule of justice, privacy,
property rights, freedom...

 
> 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

One or a group can make all the rules you want about (redutio ab
adsurdum) "the only authorized place to sell crack cocaine is by the
dumpsters after dark on weekends", but that rule dies when held up to
the template of society's rules which didn't give anyone permission to
ever make that rule in the first place.

Society made a rule that censorship of media is not permissible by
associations, and individual property owners could not be held to rules
censoring their access to media of their choice. That's the rule you
have to live with, because that's the law of the land made because
congress has interstate commerce regulatory authority, and has a
mandate to maximize freedoms of individuals unless some substantial
injury can be demonstrated through enxercising those freedoms.

You have to demonstrate some kind of injury before your rule can
lawfully impede individuals from exercising their freedom. Why is
constricting freedoms more important to you than exercising freedoms,
where there is no injury demonstrated?

Why is injury "by rule enforcement" less important than injury from
"disregarding a rule"? Why isn't there one standard that applies to
both?

--- Lion K.

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