Pull up your pants!

We have a new law in town boys, and it goes like this:

Uniforms won't be required of Lake County students next year, but state law will prohibit them from wearing droopy drawers.
A new law that will take effect July 1 requires all Florida school districts to add the so-called "droopy drawers" measure to their codes of student conduct for the 2011-12 school year.
Lake County School Board members Monday night approved their Code of Student Conduct for the coming school year. The code book must go to print immediately. But the law won't take effect for another few weeks.
Therefore, on the recommendation of Superintendent Susan Moxley, board members will add language to the code next month that reflects the state law.
The measure came from state Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, who's been pushing the idea for years.
It requires school boards to adopt a dress code policy that prohibits a student -- while on school grounds during the regular school day -- from "wearing clothing that exposes underwear or body parts in an indecent or vulgar manner or that disrupts the orderly learning environment."
Another revision to the Lake County student code that will come next month will address what board member Kyleen Fischer calls "unnatural hair color." Fischer said she's talking about the variety of hues she sees on school campuses around Lake.
"I'm talking about the fluorescent colors," she said.


--
Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - Read the full article at http://www.dailycommercial.com/localnews/061511droopydrawers
Read the mobile article at http://mobile.dailycommercial.com/061511droopydrawers

Here is MY rebuttal -- I felt a need to vent.  

Beware - this could turn into a politically charged rant.

Well, you know - this new law is going to most likely be deemed unconstitutional. So, yea, let's make this LAW to what, generate revenue from fines? Or lawsuits from harassment claims? You can bet there will be frivolous lawsuits in regard to it..  oh I see it happening now.

This very same dress code has actually been in the school's code of conduct, dress code section for Eustis/Mt Dora middle and high schools since about 1999 or before! I don't know about other schools, I only know about the ones my kids attended.  I remember reading about the dress code when my boys were in middle school. (They are 23 and 19 now).  It wasn't fully enforced then because the teachers just didn't have the time or resources to keep on top of such requirements.  Teachers and principals have enough rules to enforce... how are they going to police the dress code, especially in our overcrowded schools or in the tougher neighborhoods? Maybe there should be a check point for attire right beside the metal detector entryways. Lets go ahead and get TSA in here to do pat downs while we're at it. Maybe there should be an unlimited supply of belts to those who can't afford one? Is there really a way to help these kids keep their pants up, or is this another attempt at making the world a prettier place to those who look down their noses at it?

Rest assured, there will be the lower morality bunch, that just doesn't give a damn and wear whatever they want, suckah, and will claim to have constitutional issues with the dress code law. There will be many that claim they can't afford new or fashionable clothes. There will be some that have to rely on hand-me-downs or ill-fitting clothing because of body type, or subjected to take whatever they can get via donations, etc. How do you decide who follows this law??  And what about all of our indigent homeless people?  Some people are lucky to have clothes on at all!  Oh, I can see this getting ugly. Sure, we'd like to single out the ones who do it because they think it's cool, but isn't that freedom of expression?  Like it or not, it's their personal opinion of what they feel makes them look good. How can you challenge that? I don't like it either, but who am I to judge?  Who are you to judge?

The hair color thing will not hold up either...  what if someone has unusually bright orange hair, naturally... there are people out there with it you know.  How can school administration prove it's not their natural color? How do you classify "excessively bright"? Who says hair color is disruptive?? I personally think body odor is more disruptive AND offensive, but how can you police THAT?  

Who has the deciding vote on the "so black that it's blue" hair (Asian) yellow-white hair (Albino) or bright orange (Irish), how can you discriminate based on color?  What if administrators are color blind, and really can't tell what color someone's hair is?  What if a teen's hair color is ok with the parent because THEY themselves have unnaturally colored hair?  How can you disallow a parent's authority? Sure, maybe the young gent with neon green hair is getting your attention more than the auburn haired lady, is their moral character compromised because of it, probably not, it's hair for gosh sake! Maybe law makers should just mind their own business!  Sometimes, people change their hair color as an artistic expression. How can you put laws on that? What if their job required a hair color change? Will they get a ticket if caught in school with it? What about the parent with shocking pink locks that picks up the kid from school? Are they not allowed on campus? 

If the work place doesn't allow unnatural hair color, then people look for an employer that doesn't care about hair color. You can't just up and change schools. Then how do you allow for one's artistic expression without breaking the law?   

So now our civil liberties are infringed, our freedom of expression is snuffed out, and we're crying out as a people to just leave us the eff alone! Find something more important to write laws about! Let's revisit that body odor issue, shall we?  peeee-eeeewww!

 What about private schools? How did they enforce dress codes all these years without it being in the law books? Because they say so, not because some big shot in the school board office said it!  Because if you want to go to a "good school" you gotta pay for it, and look presentable. It's a different set of values. Isn't that how and why we have "classes" of people to begin with? Lower class, middle class, upper class... it's all about means and attainability. How do you enforce laws that segregate classes?

There is a fine line that will constantly be challenged with these new laws  - and the majority of those challengers are probably the same ones that want to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance.  I'm not against the new laws, I just don't see how these laws can be enforced without civil unrest. I have respectable values that I try to instill on my children, to dress appropriately, to not stand out excessively or create unwanted attention, but I also don't want to stifle their self-expression, to grow into who they want to be. That is a value seeded decision, in the hands of me,  the parent. And I have to keep my kids in check. Maybe we can come up with better ways to encourage proper dress, without making it a punitive offense?

 In our times of increasing poverty, some people do whatever they can just to get by. Hell, the way things are going, I may be scrounging for clothes and food in the coming months. My kids may be forced to unwillingly break these dress code "laws" due to a loss of financial means of the parents. What will happen to us, then?  I'm an upstanding, old fashioned, God loving, natural born citizen of these here United States, but I can't afford new clothes and I've lost so much weight from the lack of nutrition, that my pants fall down! What's going to happen to me then? It's gonna be hell trying to enforce this new law. 

Let's get real with the legislation, people, and stop immorality all around - like pornography and adultery amongst our Senators, Presidents and Congressmen, molestation by the Priests and Bishops, thievery and embezzlement of the people from Big Corporations, and the poisoning of our children and elders by Big Pharma. How are our laws against those offenses being enforced?  Our nation is quickly becoming a cesspool for immorality because of our pathetic role models and froo-froo laws that can't be enforced. 

We've become a nation too diverse in its beliefs. Nobody knows what anybody stands for anymore! We've lost the ability to tell right from wrong. When someone is arrested for breaking the law, they cry, "Constitutional Rights!"  while at the same time, dissecting the very Constitution they are trying to stand on! Law makers that make up laws against people because of what they are wearing, what color their hair is, or because someone publicly expressed their unpopular opinion, is unconstitutional. 

It's a shame people have lost so much self-respect to the point that legislators have to impose laws on things as common as what to wear in public. For real, people, let's get our self-respect back, stop whining about how unfair life is, and become respectable citizens again. It's not a perfect world people, grow up, toughen up, pull up your pants, and quit yer bitchin'!  Let God back in the game, and we'll all be straightened out! He's been sitting on the bench watching us flounder and flail long enough!