The Closed Fist of Authority, Right Smack in the Kisser

History is full of petty tyrants who got a whiff of authority and liked the buzz it gave them.

Some hit the jackpot and got to rule entire countries and invade weak neighbors and drive their tanks through the vanquished capitals.

Alas, others have had to content themselves with meeting the fourth Wednesday of every month and serving on their local homeowner associations.

That’s the matter at hand today, with the behavior of some of these associations resembling suburban wilding sprees in which innocent people are harassed, intimidated and extorted by people who by comparison make the Sheriff of Nottingham look like Andy of Mayberry.

The latest victim was Kim Garrett of Santa Ana, who was told in no uncertain terms that she must remember this: a kiss is not just a kiss.

Indeed, at the Town Square condominium complex, it’s an act of defiance.

At least we know how they came up with the name “Town Square.”

Here’s the deal: After kissing a gentleman friend good night one night last month outside the complex, Garrett received a “courtesy notice” in her mailbox.

The notice, from the homeowners’ association, said she had been in “noncompliance with the governing documents of your association.”

Under the heading “Description of Violation,” the notice continued: “Resident seen parking in circular driveway kissing and doing bad things for over 1 hour.”

In the interest of full disclosure, I think we’re entitled to know what those “bad things” were, but according to Garrett, a grandmother and financial consultant, there are no particulars. She said the entire good-night episode consisted of a single kiss, after which she went into her condo and her friend left.

Did I mention that Garrett is 51 years old?

I suppose that as the best medicine, laughter should be the prescribed potion for this whole affair.

It’s just that there are lots of Kim Garretts out there, some who want to plant hyacinths instead of petunias and others who want white light bulbs instead of yellow outside their door. In my complex, there was a raging controversy over whether residents could display political signs on their homes during election season (Surprise: It’s against the rules).

You wonder how we got to this point. When did we will it all away?

Just because you drive up Interstate 5 through South County and see that all the houses look alike, does that mean that everybody has to act alike?

And let’s not pick on South County. Are you listening, Irvine? Hello, Huntington Beach.

If we’ve learned nothing else in Southern California over the years, it’s that it’s not what you do, or even who you are, but what you own.

And if signing away fundamental personal rights to homeowner associations ensures that the properties maintain their appearance and, ergo, that values remain high, what’s the harm in a little uniformity, right?

Loosen up a bit, and you invite anarchy. The next thing you know, you’ll find a green house next to a blue house, and one will have a screen door and the other one won’t.

That’ll just confuse the children, who have enough trouble figuring things out in this wildly spinning planet.

As for the Kim Garretts of the world, I can only repeat the advice given when some of my friends deigned to question U.S. policy during the Vietnam War: love it or leave it.

We argued that those weren’t appropriate choices in a free society and that mindlessly yielding to authority figures was a perilous course.

With an anarchic point of view like that, you can understand why I couldn’t care whether Garrett and her friend were going at it so hot and heavy that they wound up wearing each other’s clothing in the front seat of the man’s car.

Unless they were waking up the neighbors, I would figure it was their business.

On the other hand, the association may have set a bad example for future violators.

After all, it showed what might be construed as weakness by just giving Garrett a “courtesy notice.”

With a violation of that magnitude, some may wonder why the governing body didn’t just haul her out of bed that same night, take her out to the village square and brand a big Scarlet K on her forehead.