Kelly: Should government pull up sagging pants?

What is it we expect from our government?

Ten people with 10 different answers will be heard in these tumultuous days of conflicting political concepts.

As for myself, the ‘what is the ‘proper’ role of government?’ question leaped to the front of my own mind as I learned from a long distance the Florida legislature just passed a law – which the governor approved – demanding the end to baggy pants that play peek-a-boo with underwear in schools.

Yes, indeed! In the midst of near-Depression economics, record-high unemployment, state and federal budget crises throughout the land - indeed, throughout the world - housing prices and demand draining daily down the toilet trap, serious and severe cutbacks in education, public service workers, corrections and healthcare, environmental fears, increasing ethical violations and charges surfacing regularly at all levels of public service, the Florida legislature has made a law prohibiting baggy pants in local schools.

Oh, there is more to it, of course. According to the e-story I read from my home in Wisconsin (where “our” governor Scott Walker is taking a leaf from Florida’s leader Rick Scott’s playbook, and vice versa), this baggy pants law was the idea and pet cause of an Orlando legislator. (Perhaps things are so good in the Disney fantasyland that they haven’t noticed, or don’t just care what is going on in our real world!)

SB 228 “requires school boards to adopt dress codes barring clothes that ‘expose underwear or body parts in an indecent or vulgar matter.’” Senator Gary Siplin’s rationale for the intrusion into local school board policies and oversight was that “students should understand how to dress well and improve their employment prospects…”

Well, of course, they should! But is it the role of government to tell schoolchildren how to dress, no matter how necessary or appropriate the reason may seem? Does the end justify the means? Isn’t such a mandate, supervision and guidance the proper role and obligation of the local elected school boards, and/or administration in private schools, if not the parents who send those same children to schools? Why does the state senate feel justified in seriously considering, let alone passing, a bill such as this? And how much did it cost the taxpayers to ‘git-r-dun?’ Why aren’t our elected officials working to help ease and solve the real problems and troubling issues that affect us all every day? No time! In Florida, we have a new baggy pants law instead.

By the way, who decides “indecent or vulgar?” Will Sen. Siplin make state-paid junkets to local schools surveying conditions looking for “indecency and vulgarity?” And what are the penalties for students (perhaps only boys?) dropping their drawers? Suspension and removal from extra-curricular activities can be used to enforce this social dress standard. I would be furious if my child were suspended from school because their underwear rode up above their jean belt, in a manner much less objectionable than the stereotypical cartoon of the plumber bending over to expose more than you want to see…

But then, perhaps plumbers will be the next target of legislation? Will a new SB 229 be written to require suspenders for all tradesmen?

When a political party calls itself the “party of less government,” but then creates, endorses and passes such an intrusive and heavy-handed law, how can a promise of “less government” be justified? It doesn’t matter which party is responsible or who takes credit for this silly legislation. What really should matter to all of us is “Where is the sanity in government leadership today?

Carrabelle resident Mel Kelly is a frequent contributor to the Apalachicola and Carrabelle Times.