A Denver homeowners’ association has ordered a local police chaplain to remove the “thin blue line” flag from his property, even while allowing neighbors to fly similar flags for other first responders and the military.
The chaplain, who wishes to remain anonymous for sadly obvious reasons, has flown his Thin Blue Line flag since National Police Officers Day in May.
He told Fox News 31’s Deborah Takahara earlier this week, “I believe that’s why I’m being targeted — because I’m associated with them. I believe it’s just because it’s everything going on in the world right now, in this country.”
The notice from his HOA insisted that the well-known flag flown to show support for all police officers is actually a “white lives matter” symbol.
Or as our mysterious chaplain said, “There’s nothing about racism at all there. It’s simply saying, ‘We stand for you. You continue to do all the great things you do’.”
“I serve with so many different officers of so many different ethnic backgrounds. I’ve shared it with them. This isn’t a white lives, this is a blue lives matter because they do.”
The thin blue line between law and anarchy is thinner than ever, as police in cities like Atlanta (and maybe soon in New York) have caught the “blue flu.”
Blue flu is when police — who are forbidden to strike — call in sick en masse. In this case, they’re protesting against movements to cut their funding and give it to anti-police groups like the Marxist-tainted Black Lives Matter organization.
This isn’t the first time an HOA has gone bat-guano crazy in response to a recent crisis.
Forget the HOA: California Democrats Want Another $20 Million to Enforce Gig Job-Killer AB5
Back in March, after Tennesee had gone under COVID-19 lockdown, a local HOA actually threatened to evict a homeowner for working from home.
Brought to my attention by social media, the homeowner went to a legal advice thread on Reddit after his HOA tried to pull the following BS on him for trying to continue making a living during the lockdown:
The HOA complaint — which was verified as legit by thread moderators — says, “It has come to our attention that you are in violation of Article VII, Section 8 of our Bylaws” which state that “Commercial business may not be maintained or transacted on any Lot or in any residential unit.”
As a result, “we will be invoking section II, Article 4 of the Bylaws, which allows the Board to foreclose on any property that is in violation.” The HOA president demands, “You must vacate the premises by April 30, 2020.”
He wasn’t entertaining clients with loud music. He wasn’t causing a traffic jam in his neighborhood with an influx of customers. He was just a guy, working from home, the way so many of us have done these last few months.
Those of us lucky enough to still have jobs, that is.
As I wrote back then, “the HOA president is the kind of organically useless martinet for whom lampposts were invented,” and this seems to be the case in Denver, too.
Researching today’s story I found a related incident in Washington, where Clark County Sheriff Chuck Atkins just ordered workers to remove all Thin Blue Line materials from “anything associated” with the Sheriff’s office.
I don’t think I want to live anywhere where even the police are going all anti-police.
None of this is to say that our police forces couldn’t be better, or that none of our police departments require serious reforms and improved training.
Because that simply isn’t true: We can and must do better.
The need for improvements is particularly acute in our Democrat-dominated big blue cities like Milwaukee, where the Thin Blue Line sometimes acts more like a big, mean truncheon.
But when an HOA attacks a police chaplain — presumably a man with zero connection to any kind of brutality — for showing support to his brother and sister officers in the quietest possible manner…
…that’s no longer a debate over whether Denver’s thin blue line requires some kind of reform or improvement. That’s the HOA arbitrarily and capriciously attempting to silence a homeowner — possibly in violation of a state law that “protects homeowners’ rights to display flags and political signs from HOA restriction,” according to Fox News 31.
Someday, perhaps soon, that chaplain’s HOA is going to need help with a genuine problem, maybe even one requiring a thin blue line between themselves and something awful.
If and when that happens, who are they going to call — the police?
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