I’ve just noticed this on another forum.
I have no idea what the laws are there in relation to this matter, and this appears to be an isolated incident, but it made me wonder how the average American would feel seeing a foreign flag flying in their neighbourhood. Would it bother you? Would your reaction be different depending on whose flag it was or do you feel any nationality has the right to display their country’s flag on their own property?
Home Owner’s Associations (HOA) can be good, but sometimes they can be full of 100% bullshit.
This is such an example.
The HOA can pass a rule like this and get away with it, unfortunately.
I would never buy a house if I had to join an HOA.
The elementary school down the street from where I grew up enjoyed flying various flags, it was a lot of fun. They asked me to bring them a Danish flag when I lived in DK and were very excited about it, since the school colors were red and white. The flag was far bigger than any other the school owned, and it was pretty funny to see this enormous Danish flag billowing over the school under a small, weatherbeaten American flag. 
Anyway I love to see flags and would be happy to see most any of them sprinkled around my neighborhood. The only exceptions would be of the usual obvious Nazi-type sort.
As above, HOAs can be ridiculous. This is a sad example of excellence in idiocy.
I live in a regular neighborhood, not one with a HOA. Neighbors across the street were Australian, and flew the flag outside their home. I didn’t think anything of it, and I never heard of anyone else hassling them.
The thread title is misleading. I wouldn’t want our entire country represented by a silly HOA, which in my opinion exist to further class discrimination.
It seems that local governments like school districts and neighborhood covenants are more apt to be tyrannical in their outlook, and they get away with it.
“Maybe next time you’ll think twice before you send us Priscilla, Queen of the Desert!!!”
I grew up on military bases all over the U.S. I noticed plenty of instances where citizens of allied countries who were stationed on American bases were allowed to fly their country’s flags in front of their houses.
For what it’s worth, there was news a while back about a HOA banning a resident from flying the **American ** flag. They said the flagpole was too high.
As long as flag ettiquette (or whatever it’s called) is observed I really don’t care what flag you fly.
dangermomEven if you wanna fly a swasticka on your front porch. I think you have a right to do it. Just be ready for others to exercise their first amendment rights at you. I don’t much care for that flag either, but if you ban one, where does it stop? How about the Confederate flag?
Yes, but these militaries are probably a bunch of unpatriotic hippies, contrarily to good lawn-abiding citizens…
One of the greatest movies ever.
That’s what we get for sending them Bio-Dome.
I have a similar tale - my parents were living in New Hampshire a couple of years ago, and proudly hung an Australian flag above their front door (since they didn’t have a flagpole).
Then September 11 happened.
No one actually specifically told them to take it down, but neighbours and other people in the area made it very clear about what they thought of someone having anything other than a US flag on display. So they took it down to avoid offence.
Now I recognise that it was a sensitive time, but Australia has always been a firm ally of the US, even when other countries have not.
Y’know, it’s one of the great wonders that Americans, the rugged individualists who dwell in the land of the free and have unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, will voluntarily live under these Homeowner Associations and Restrictive Covenants. Really, now.
There’s probably a moral in this somewhere about “protecting” a lifestyle right into insane insularity.
Rest assured, this is not typical in the U.S. Frankly, I’d never heard of such a thing until this–and I live right smack-dab in the midwest. (You know, home of parnoid troglodytes.)
Before I bought my house, the apartment complex where I lived had balconies that somewhat faced other buildings. Offhand I can remember 1 Swiss flag, 3 Canadian flags, 1 Norwegian flag, 1 Indian flag and 1 Mexican flag casually flying from balconies. Big nothing, other than a few friendly waves and conversation-starters at the pool.
It’s not all that uncommon to see foreign flag bumper stickers on cars or flags in front of houses around here. It’s no big deal at all, and I’ve never heard anyone even comment on it.
This is so perfect. And True.
HOA’s bylaws are stronger (if that is the word) than court. When you agree to live in one of these Achtung! kinda neighborhoods, you sign away loads of rights and given into the lack of common sense. It is the dippiest/nazi-est person(s) in charge of something like that.
My cousins live in a HOA, they cannot leave their car out over night. No toys left out (front or back) and garbage cans must be put away immediately after pick up. Oh, and sheds for kids toy containment and lawnmowers are a no-no too. It is insane.
When I drove on their lawn with our pick up truck to minimize moving a huge ass tree stump that my husband dug up for them, they just about had a heart attack because …fark if I know…the grass may get bent and the HOA would have spazms. But it’s ok for my husband to lug a huge heavy thing 50 yards to save the grass. Fat chance. My cousin, I’m sure, still has nightmares over that incident with his countrified cousin. Good.
I would never live in a HOA. Most of them seem brain dread leemings anyway.
The main reason would be because then I couldn’t put out my Buddha Statue dressed in my own bridesmaids dresses on my front lawn. ( Not that I have done it here yet, as I haven’t the money to buy said Buddha that I haven’t found yet)
But I will one day, and no stinking HOA will shut down my Cross Dressing Deity, or by Gum, I 'll put up a Cross Dressing Jesus statue right next it and I’ll get the ACLU involved, maybe Jesse Jackson, who always shows up at worthless causes, which would definately be my cause. And that will show them.[size=1] sorry, a bit of a rant for something that has never happened and never will.
And the irony of it all would be that it would be perfectly fine for all the slack jawed farktards soccer moms to have one of those retarded Porch Goose all dwessed up soooo cute. That would be ok.
Pardon me, but I need to take my anti-stroke medicine right now.
My British born but US citizen uncle used to fly a British flag on July 4th (Independence Day - the day the colonies declared their independence from Britiain). He did it mostly as a goof - any other day no one would have cared in the slightest. The one time a neighbor give him grief, my uncle showed him his Honorable Discharge from the US Air Force, his Disabled Veteran status papers, and for bonus points took off his shirt and showed the neighbor the huge scars on his back where they put his spine back together after the plane he was crew chief of crashed.
Bother me? Pfft. I might consider putting up a pirate flag, but other than that, I don’t think I’d care much.
The U.S. frequently reminds me of that spaceship of useless people in a Doug Adams book.
I see the Mexican flag flown all the time. Not bothersome.
Did I say I would ban them? I seem to recall that I said I would object.
I like the pirate flag idea though. Now I’m in the mood to go buy a buncha different flags. My brother used to have an East German flag in his room…maybe I could get a flag for every family member, and fly, say, the Russian flag on my SILs birthday, and the NZ flag on my other SILs birthday, and…well, I have a lot of SILs. The possibilities abound.
Shirley, are those goose statues found all over the place? I was under the impression that they were a local phenomenon. I’ve only seen a few here, but the one I liked was dressed as an astronaut for the anniversary of the moon landing.