VA is for lovers

Lester Maddox wrote:

If the people are too f***ing stupid to dress themselves then someone needs to step in. Now if we can get them to talk right...

Since when in America does someone being "stupid enough" qualify someone else to step in? Our country was founded on freedom, whether that was the freedom to be as stupid as you want or dress the way you feel because you don't care what others think. We have Americans who vote in elections they know nothing about... some might call that an ignorant vote, i call it stupid. Nobody steps in to vote for these people. What do you have to say to that?

A bill passed the house in VA yesterday allowing a $50 fine for anyone wearing their pants low enough to expose their underwear. The democratic response:

"Del. Lionell Spruill Sr., a Democrat who opposed the bill, had pleaded with his colleagues to remember their own youthful fashion follies.

During an extended monologue Monday, he talked about how they dressed or wore their hair in their teens. On Tuesday, he said the measure was an unconstitutional attack on young blacks that would force parents to take off work to accompany their children to court just for making a fashion statement."

As a teacher I see plenty of students, of both races, wearing their pants in this fashion. As teachers, we are to prepare students for the real world. In the real world you can't go to your job and wear your pants like that. I think the bill is a good idea. It will be hard to enforce, but it should be on the books. I could care less about parents that have to take off work to go to court with their kids. In most cases it will be the only time they are involved in their children's lives.

Wearing your hair long or wearing bell-bottoms is not the same as exposing yourself / underwear to people that don't want to see it. Any thoughts. Story can be linked to from cnn.com

I like this law, and using the race card is freaking stupid.

I'm moving to Virginia right now. It must be Nirvana - they've apparently solved every other problem facing the state, and are down to this as the critical issue of our times.

I predict a lot of plumbers going out of business in the near future.

Seriously though a good way to get around the law is simply do not wear underwear, how can you expose something that is not there?

It's hilarious to walk through malls and see how low kids try to wear their pants. You'd think constantly having to tug up their pants would be enough of an annoyance to get them to wear their jeans properly. I was at the Georgetown v UConn game last month. One of the Hoyas literally had his pants elastic situated upper/mid thigh. He couldn't even run down court properly. that didn't last too long but it's crazy to think he'd even try to get by with that.

I've often thought this whole trend was started by some kid who was forced to wear ill-fitting hand-me-downs but was cool enough to pull it off and even co-erce others into wearing their pants the same way.

Actually the "trend" was started in prisons as a sign that the wearer was "spoken for" ie. someone's b1tch.

The only thing more assinine than the trend itself is a bunch Southern VA old-school politicians writing and passing this stupidass law.

I can't believe that someone has passed a bill to restrict the way someone dresses. I understand that they have to grow up and enter the real world and they can't go around like that, but let them have their fashion now. People in the 60's weren't forced to cut their hair, which represented their pot smoking, promiscuous sex, and detestment for war attitude. These things were offensive to people, but the hippies were allowed to continue their chosed lifestyle.

People are too easily offended these days by: seeing people's underpants, the mention of God in schools or public place, evolution. Why can't people just accept that other Americans are going to have different views and different ways of doing things? Pretty soon, America is going to be all about controlling it's citizens. Good job America, a few more bills like this and we'll be living in the 1984 George Orwell novel. Otherwise we are going to have to learn to get along.

Don't be in a hurry to move to VA like so many Yankees are..

yeah, it's got unbelievable scenery, great rural areas, but the "good-old-boy" mentality is alive and well in the state legislature - things like being the last state in the union to have elected school boards (not all the cities within the state have them yet). There's generally a "we know what's best for you" attitude here. You live under a subtle "thumb" so to speak. Affirmative action is the end-all philosophy - the "race card" always wins locally. State workers, teachers, etc. will be the last in line for raises - we're told "...just be glad you have a job." Remnants of the Old South are alive and well.

It amazes me how neo-cons rant against "political correctness," and hail the limitation of government -- until it comes to something they disagree with.

The pants bugs me too, but kids dress differently from me. It's not obscene and it does not represent "hate speech." Call me a radical Constitution hugger, but the legislation of dress codes lapses a bit too far into the Communist politics of old for my taste.

Ah neo-cons -- they bring us: big government, huge debt, lost jobs, and a legally defined set of morals (not to mention that whole war thing). Liberty schmiberty...