This past week, Q-line asked: “Is the government going too far in regulating us?” The question is in response to a Louisiana congressman who wants to ban people from wearing low-riding pants.
Here are your responses: ☎Who really cares about a person’s underwear being seen? Charging $500 or six months in jail, or both? That might work in Louisiana, but it would never work here. Furthermore, I say it every week and nobody ever listens: Get rid of the homeless. That’s what matters here. Get the police to tackle that problem.” ☎ “I don’t know about Louisiana, but I know that the City Council regulates too much in Santa Monica and they don’t regulate the things they should. They regulate traffic too much, they regulate businesses so they cant do business, they regulate property owners so much they can’t live. Why don’t they regulate the bums? They should regulate where they can and cannot go to the bathroom, where they can and cannot sleep. They mess all over the place, especially the Promenade, and it stinks. They stink. I am amazed every day that nothing is done.” ☎ “What good is showing your underwear if you can’t smoke on the beach?” ☎ “Yes, that is going too far. Fining for low-riding pants? Ninety percent of the plumbers, electricians, and mechanics in Louisiana would be fined out of existence.” ☎ “You can’t legislate class, decency or a sense of propriety. Either you have it or you don’t. This is only a symptom of the general breakdown in taste in every level of society.” ☎ “Wearing one’s britches at half-mast is nothing more than a fad. If no attention is paid to this fad, it will sail off into the wild blue yonder much like the mohawk haircut. Rep. Shepherd should find other issues to twiddle his thumbs over.” ☎ “I think this proposed law for a fine on people who wear low-riding pants is completely ridiculous. There are quite a few more serious things going on in this world of ours.” ☎ “I do think the law is kind of silly, but just a side note. While eating in a restaurant, a waitress had on low-riding pants and it was a little un-appetizing.” ☎ “I don’t think the government is going too far. I mean everyone knows that Big Brother and various other committees of self-appointed busybodies know best. On the other hand, most people routinely demonstrate that they need the jackboot of authority on their necks.” ☎ “What the government should get involved with, and regulate, is this disastrous power crisis caused by the oil companies’ obscene profits and the shenanigans of Enron and the like. Bush and Cheney should get off their record-breaking political fundraising junket and use their good relations with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to lower crude oil prices. After all, it is the United States that props them up.” ☎ “In our not-so-free country, this so-called democracy, that was not intended to be a police state, it is not a function of government to dictate how Americans should dress.” ☎ “You can’t regulate what young people wear. This is ridiculous. Back in Egyptian times, they were up in arms over what young people should wear, and in my day too. Total hypocrisy in this country. Let’s have naked prisoners being abused all over, but don’t forget to cover up that young girl’s hip. Ridiculous.” ☎ “Freedom and liberty are what supposedly make this country beautiful. That means we all get it for whatever reason. Judging people by what they wear or stating that they can’t wear something infringes on every and any rights we have or hold dear. What could be next?”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 22, 2004. Read the original PDF.