Underwear Inflames Connecticut's Aged

Via Jack Fowler, I see that I can safely return to my hometown of Stratford, Connecticut, without pants on:

The fashion police were sent packing Monday night in Stratford when the Town Council rejected a proposal to fine people who wear their pants so low they expose their underwear or buttocks.

The proposed ordinance by Town Council Minority Leader Alvin O'Neal, D-2, would have made it "unlawful for people to wear pants which fall below the buttocks to expose their undergarments," with a penalty of $250.

Council Majority Leader Michael Henrick, R-10, said while he favored the "spirit of what Mr. O'Neal is trying to accomplish, I don't believe we have the authority to impose such an ordinance.

But O'Neal said about 40 senior citizens in his district contacted him because they "are sick and tired of going to the supermarket, or walking down the street and seeing people's underwear and buttocks," O'Neal said.

Stratford's public schools double as carcinogenic asbestos dumping grounds, which may explain the Connecticut Post's editing job here.

Elsewhere in reason: Chuck Freund on the politics of pants.

Comments

[jtuf]

sick and tired of going to the supermarket, or walking down the street and seeing people's underwear and buttocks

Maintaining eye contact is a good way to avoid that.

[Russ 2000]

Via Jack Fowler, I see that I can safely return to my hometown of Stratford, Connecticut, without pants on:

Make sure you post pictures.

[joe]

The Anti-Sagging Slacks Control, Rehabilitation, And Censorship Krusade Act failed?

Dammit!

[JW]

How did this get past the Plumbers Union?

That's going to be one ugly protest.

[Pro Libertate]

So topless is okay in New York, and bottomless is okay in Connecticut. Do I understand this all correctly?

[SugarFree]

I think that the real shocking part of the story is that they didn't make it illegal to walk around airing out your ass crack. I guess they are saving up their political capital to get that backwards ballcap ordinance passed.

[Warren]

I see that I can safely return to my hometown of Stratford, Connecticut, without pants on

Today's survey question:
What would you do for a glimpse of Howley's whale tail?

[thoreau]

I would drag my mouse across the desktop to close the browser before anybody can look over my shoulder and read Warren's response.

[Dan T.]

I agree that the government should not attempt to legislate poor taste out of existence.

Poor taste in clothing serves a useful purpose in helping us identify the social class of the wearer.

[NeonCat]

The Atlanta City Council is entertaining such an ordinance, and would also ban exposed bras and such.

God, I'm glad the City of Atlanta has so few problems that the idiots running it can devote time to the issue.

[Randolph Carter]

Again, God I hate my state. My town's high school is still chock full of asbestoliciousness.

[Brian Courts]

Well, unless they keep it well-moisturized I can understand those senior citizen complaints - who wants to see a dry, cracked, red, flaky coin-slot?

[Reinmoose]

What would the ordinance have said about people who wear their underwear higher than their pant-line, and it occasionally shows due to a bunched shirt?

[SugarFree]

Reinmoose,

It allowed for a good faith defense if you were over 25.

[Lamar]

I would write "Bush Sucks Ass" right above my crack and call it free speech.

[de stijl]

The yoots would just counter with an anti-cardigan law. What starts out as a tit-for-tat sartorial legislation exchange would soon escalate to an all out generational war.

[Josh Strike]

Regulating what citizens wear (or don't wear) is absurd. It's just a huge overreach of governmental authority, period. You don't have to say that society will dictate who fails and who succeeds based on how they choose to present themselves; you don't have to make an economic case that this is a state-subsidized way of helping morons look smarter than they actually are, or that it somehow undoes the Darwinian scheme. I think I'm starting to get where this magazine's coming from. I agree mostly, but for vastly different reasons; let's put it where it's at, huh? "Authority" is always bunk, always rotten and the cause of rot. Everything else -- the protest against the economics of redistribution, etc. -- is really an anger at someone else making that decision for you. Right? It's too bad people here don't spend more time focusing on the key problem -- the accumulation of power by means of bureaucracy and inbreeding between corporate and governmental forces -- and waste so much energy combating its few decent side-effects, like a guided economy and more available health care. Why not a new bargain with the government: Don't tell me what to do, at all, just leave me the hell alone, and I'll give 10% of my income to the charity of my choice. How about that? But you'd resent the 10%. Why should I give it to anybody? Screw 'em.
The why is: Some people -- like people around here -- are smart enough to take care of themselves, but too short-sighted to notice that if you don't take care of the people around you, you'll end up getting bit in the ass, and there won't be any government around to protect you from their beating your brains out with a 2x4 in the name of some REAL communist revolution...
In other words, you're all right, but you're seeing it in such black and white terms that you're going to lose by default.

[NeonCat]

@ Josh Strike: I think I know WTF you are talking about, but I am not sure you do. You seem to be saying the problem with authority is that it isn't the right authority, but you fail to say who it should be besides "charity." My charity is the National Association of Doing Nice Things for NeonCat. I expect your contribution shortly.

My 12 gauge beats a 2x4. Even a Communist one.

[Josh Strike]

I guess I should have refined my comment on charity...since this convo is hypothetical to the point of being masturbatory, let's just call it any group with no political or religious affiliation, whose sole purpose is to provide food, medicine or education to people who would otherwise unquestionably be hungry, ill or illiterate. Don't entangle the question with "where," "how" or "by whom," you know that no matter the answer you'd find a reason to dislike it; everyone around here's pretty honest about that basic fact, and it's nothing to be ashamed of. I'm just saying that in the long run, it's counter-productive if your goal is to save money; because in societies where no social services exist, people have to spend an awful lot on security around their own house, have to put their money in banks in safer countries, have to get to work in armored cars and the like...

[Jackson Kuhl]

Wow! I live near where someone who's sort of famous used to live! Awesome. Do you know Katherine Heigl?

Stratford's public schools double as carcinogenic asbestos dumping grounds, which may explain the Connecticut Post's editing job here.

Yeah, that and the Post is the paper of penury.

[M]

Why not a new bargain with the government: Don't tell me what to do, at all, just leave me the hell alone, and I'll give 10% of my income to the charity of my choice. How about that? But you'd resent the 10%.

Not so much as the Governor would find unacceptable the other part of the bargain. History hasn't given us many examples of Governors made of such stuff as United Way administrators.

[Josh Strike]

It's not that I'm looking for a wise and just King. I'm talking about modern capitalism's need to view history through a slightly longer lens just to preserve itself against forces that a twelve-gauge -- even your own tank -- won't help you save your family's life from, when push comes to shove, there's no safety net, no literacy but among the few people who were smart enough or the majority literate who were born with money, and the kids from the wrong side of the tracks come busting your windows after midnight. What I'm suggesting is that you can't bury your head and ignore the problem of insolubility and inadequacy leading to extreme displays leading to violence, any more than you can legislate the side-effects away like the old folks in Connecticut would like to do. You have to think further ahead, and make some kind of investment in the future. And unfortunately, the only way to make most people do that is to force them to; thus, taxes, bureaucracy and the rise of the police state, SO -- if you're standing on the side of reason, what you should do is come up with a scenario under which we can be protected without handing over our liberty, and free without handing over our safety. I'm not hearing anything here that's making me think you guys have a line on this that no one else has come up with and failed at before.

[M]

It's not "

[Josh Strike]

What you say makes a lot of sense; unfortunately, to have a functioning highly technical civilization with a wide division of labor to develop and produce life-enhancing products and continue growing the economy, you have to actually teach people how to read; the lower castes in India couldn't read, and that's why they lacked the tools to foment revolution. Once a ruling caste is forced to implement widespread literacy, the cat's out of the bag, and the citizens are all potential rebels, and that's why democracy only develops in educated societies; and incidentally, why socialism and welfare states develop in the most highly educated societies. It's a lose/lose proposition if you're not prepared to stay ahead of the game as the ruling class; the good news is, you're presiding over a much more diverse and powerful economy and military, and have more than ever. As long as you're willing to hand out a few pieces of the pie, you can stay at the top. It's when you get greedy that you'll find things getting very bad...

[smacky]

Underwear Inflames Connecticut's Aged

Don't they have a cream for that?