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I’m Struggling with Personal Freedom Today
The Libertarian in me is struggling to stay consistent in my desire for personal freedoms, especially where personal property is concerned. Mustangman and I put our house on the market a couple days ago — we’re moving to Dayton, OH in a few weeks. The Portland market can only be described one way: hot! Most houses listed below $400,000 are under contract within a week, and we have been hoping for a fast sale.
This weekend, we packed up the kitties and took a trip up to Yakima to see Ryan M and his family while our realtor did open houses and a ton of showings. Everyone loved our house with one glaring exception. Here’s where we take a step back.
When you stand in the street looking at our house, to the right is a well-kept house and yard. To the left, you might as well be looking at a junkyard/auto repair shop. We never talk to this neighbor, who I not-so-affectionately refer to as “the grease monkey,” but he’s always out in his driveway “fixing” one of the three rusted-out 1960s Chevy trucks parked in his driveway and the street. In the back of the truck parked on the street is a load of roofing shingles waiting to be taken to the dump from where he replaced his roof … almost a year ago. There’s an old exercise bike in the front yard, along with several tires and an axle.
The backyard is so much worse. If you are ever in need of bags of concrete, water heaters, car parts, kitchen sinks, or marijuana, his backyard is the place to go. As you might imagine, the idea of living next to a trash heap is less than appealing to potential buyers. More than one person has said the next door neighbor was a barrier to them putting in an offer, and I am left desperately yearning for something I normally abhor — HOAs.
My general regard for HOAs is low; they many times end up being run by community busybodies seeking to create their little fiefdom by means of CC&Rs. I’ve seen ridiculous outcomes from battles fought in the month HOA meetings, resulting in huge fines being paid and lawsuits over the pruning of trees. But right now I would gladly proclaim, “My kingdom for an HOA!” While we live in a heavily populated area, we are part of an unincorporated town, so we are under the county’s jurisdiction. As such, there is little we can do to make the neighbor pick up his yard, which is affecting our home value.
I have always thought that people should be able to do with their property as they see fit. But what if the things you see fit are in bad taste? What if your lifestyle brings down the property value of those around you? At this point, are not his personal freedoms to live like a slob harming me? Should I have the right to require he conform to community standards of upkeep?
I’m conflicted about this, y’all. But more than that, I just really want to go over there and tell him, “Act like an adult, put your damn toys away, and go get a job!”
Published in General
Libertarianism works great when you have a bunch of reasonable people.
But then, so do you most other forms of government.
The problem is when you start mixing in the unreasonables. Just like with any other form of government.
And there are always unreasonables. That’s the major reason we have government.
Aw, good! We love that book for kids his age. We also love how much it irritates the parents who have to read it. 😃
Indeed!
FWIW, one of our best-ever neighbors was a drug dealer. It was our first house, on the slummy edge of an otherwise coveted NE Portland neighborhood (for the locals: Piedmont; we were on on Lombard a block from MLK). Right next door was a black albino who was nothing but polite, very quiet, kept his property very nice, had a charming tween-age daughter, and spent his days walking out to the curb to have brief conversations with all of the cars that would pull-up all day long. He told us that he sold custom auto parts, but we never saw any auto parts.
Our real problem, especially when we were selling, was picking up all the trash that passersby would leave in our front yard, mostly from the Taco Bell a block away. Also tiny empty ziplock bags.
Despite the roughness of the location — an apartment across the street had been raided as a drug den, and cops were constantly called to the residence of “yelling man” whose house we could see from our backyard and whose temper tantrums could be clearly heard a few times per week — we sold in less than a day, and for more than asking despite a realtor telling us to ask for far less.
I want to write about African alibinos. Please tell me as much as you can.
I knew one in college.
In the libertarian utopia, you would not be allowed to call the cops on him, either.
I wish to hell you wouldn’t talk about libertarianism, because you don’t know what you’re talking about.
People on Africa with albinism tend to have a hell of a time. They face ostrization and are frequently killed for being albinos.
You can read more here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_people_with_albinism
Sure I do. I have been told, in detail, what libertariansim is. In fact, you yourself argued that in the libertarian utopia as you see it, communities would have no rights to enforce a way of life on anyone new moving in, and the only solution would be for all of them to move.
My time at Ricochet has made me far, far less libertarian than more so. So either you and your brethern are really, really bad communicators on what liberarianism actually is, or, you are good at it, and I grow more repulsed as I learn more.
In all fairness, Fred is a horrible salesman for libertarianism.
Huh. I thought that was just a snarky way of saying urban white guy.
Our neighbor had skin as white as mine (I’m German/Irish), but typically African American features. He also had weird-looking eyes. He had a clean-shaven head, but his teenage nephew who spent a lot of time over there and was also albino, had a full afro of white hair. It was different.
And everything else.
If I remember correctly, this comment was for governmental rules. People should be able to enter into almost any contract.