Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - The Freedom to choose: The Villages or New York city
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Old 03-19-2013, 10:44 AM
Villages PL Villages PL is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CFrance View Post
I appreciate your thoughts and ideas, Villages PL. Just adding my two cents. I see the benefits of restrictions, both in the condo and here.

We did balk and fight, however when the builder up there arbitrarily decided there would be no satellite tv allowed. We fought back and won. It was against the FCC regs, what he was doing. So in my opinion, restrictions are okay (you know about them up front and choose to accept them when you decide to live in a certain place)... unless they are unlawfully infringing upon people's rights.
I agree, the builder can't restrict certain basic rights, like freedom of speech. But other than basic rights, they can restrict almost anything they want to. Now that I've had some time to collect my thoughts, let me give a simple comparison to explain how you can compare The Villages with N.Y.C., regarding freedom.

We willingly give up many freedoms in The Villages for the betterment of the community. This is commonly done in most communities all across the country. So why single out the Mayor of N.Y.C. for his desire to create restrictions?

The Villages:

In The Villages, we give up the freedom to choose the exterior color of our house in exchange for a neutral (bland) color scheme. This restriction, a loss of freedom, was put in place by the developer. Why? Basically, it's a control issue. If left up to individual residents to choose their own color, they might not choose wisely. And this is seen as protecting the community.

New York City:

It's no different than what Mayor Bloomberg is trying to do in N.Y.C. He wants to control the portion size of soda and reduce it from 20oz. to 16oz. because he doesn't trust N.Y.C. residents to choose wisely. And this, like the previous example, is also seen as protecting the community.

Note: Whether one likes it or not is another issue.