Brookhaven Courier

Issue date: 11/12/07 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Chris Vivero

Media Credit: Samantha Nickel

My father used to tell me, "Pull up your pants or I'm going to do it for you." Little did he know that seven years later Ron Price, a member of the Dallas Independent School District Board of Trustees, would try and do it for me.

Price is proposing a law that would result in a $50 fine for anyone who wears baggy pants or shows their underwear. Such laws have already been passed in Lafourche Parish, La., and proposed in other states such as Florida.

So what legislators are saying is that crime in this country needs to take a back seat to regulating, what my grandma likes to call, sagging britches.

I guess police departments won't just be protecting and serving, they will also be enforcing dress codes.

While we're at it, why don't we outlaw plaid golfer pants? Or why don't we send people to jail who wear white after Labor Day?

Since when is it the government's job to make sure people are dressed a certain way?

Ever since I started picking out my own clothes, my pants have sagged. It's not a conscience choice, but I can't wear pants that are tight around my waist because it's uncomfortable. And I can never find a pair of pants that are long enough in the legs and small enough in the waist.

I'm tall and skinny, not the best body type when shopping for jeans.

I'm sure people don't necessarily want to see my underwear, except of course when I'm wearing a cute pair. But do I really need to be fined $50 for the way I dress?

It's not like I enjoy seeing some ladies' thongs when they ride out of their pants, but I'm not going to tell them to stuff those panties back where they belong. I just look away.

It seems in America we are obsessed with this idea of moral conduct. I don't remember reading anything in the Constitution about morality. And who says it is morally wrong to sag your pants?

I might be mistaken, but I think that's how dictators run their countries.

I've read pieces in the news about these so-called laws and they always have the same reasons for proposing them. They say it will cut down on crime, and that it's in no way directed at a certain race.

I would think more people wearing sagging pants would cut down on crime, not the other way around. Think about it; if someone is robbing a store and they have to make a quick getaway, wouldn't sagging pants make them slower and therefore easier to catch?

Maybe when they are running with the booty they just pillaged, the sagging pants fall down around their ankles and trip them up, making the police's job easier.

I don't know how the law works; I'm just making suggestions here.

Actually, all I really want is for the government to stay out of its citizens' personal business. I don't cry and whine when the government raises taxes or goes into an unjust war, so they need to stop pushing their moral agenda and start worrying more about helping the millions of poor people in our country.

They need to get their minds out of the gutter and into the ghettos of our country.

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