If I Can Read 'Hanes' You're Totally Getting Fined

Is it just me, or a lot of crazy shit going on in Virginia? First, anti-gay license plates, and now the Virginia legislature has passed a bill to fine people $50 for letting their underwear peek out. I am not making this up.

Leaving aside the obvious issues of how this bill, if signed into law, would become the greatest excuse in the world for cops to stop young black men whenever they want and turn Virginia into a haven for racial profiling, let's examine the rationale of the bill's sponsor in proposing the bill:

After the vote, Howell repeated his contention that the bill is about
building character in young people. The baggy-pants mode of dress, he said, is
disrespectful.

Since when in the "Land of the Free" is being "disrespectful" a crime that can be punished with a fine? I believe this country, as a matter of fact, was founded by men who were very disrespectful of the authority of the time. I mean, they wrote damning, disrespectful screeds about the King such as the Declaration of Independence, they threw a bunch of tea into Boston harbor, and refused to pay their taxes. A disrespectful bunch if ever I heard of one.

Moreover, who the hell does this guy think he is to decide what is and isn't disrespectful? It's a style, for chrissake! Most of the guys who wear baggy pants with their underwear showing are neither trying to show respect nor disrespect. It's just what the kids are wearing these days.

Hey, Mr. Howell, why don't you introduce a law forbidding miniskirts while you're at it? Hey, why don't you insist on prosecutors indicting Sally Field for showing too much skin on "Gidget" or Elvis gyrating his hips too much? Jeesh.

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you have the right to make it against the law. If that were so, people who introduce idiotic bills like this would be taken out into the woods and sodomized with a GI Joe with Kung Fu grip.