Personal Responsibility

I thought I had seen and heard it all, obviously I was wrong!
I recently came across a news story that explained that in certain states in the US they are enacting laws that will ban.......yes ban.........the baggy pants some of the younger generation wear these days. If that is not enough, one city within one of those states is adding to the ban. Not only will you get a fine but you will be taken in for counseling to make sure your life is on the right track, you are attending school and you have a life plan that includes goals for your future.

So if you are found sporting a pair of these pants and your boxer shorts, or lack there of, are visible, you can and will be fined and in the case of one city, counseled as well. I await news of the next ban. Surely it will be on thongs visible on the girls.

Don't get me wrong, I truly do not find either of these things particularly attractive. But, shouldn't the parents of these kids be responsible for how they let their children dress? I am sure many of my generations parents were not particularly fond of mini-skirts and hot pants or Elvis for that matter. Elvis was shot from the chest up during any television appearances in his early years. However, I do not recall laws being enacted to prevent such things. Imagine Elvis being fined each time he gyrated his hips! We would have been outraged!

We have, in the past couple of decades, allowed the govt. and regulatory committees dictate what our morals should be in life, what we should eat or drink, whether or not we can wear perfume, or smoke, or let our children eat peanut butter in school, how we must build our homes with artificial air systems because we have built them too airtight, what we can watch on TV, what our children can wear. Should that not be a personal choice? Where does personal responsibility factor in?

We have become far too dependent on govt. and regulatory committees to dictate what can be seen, experienced, worn or consumed. When will we become responsible for our own lives and choices again? When will the govt begin to use it's taxpayer paid salaries for something more productive than restricting the way we live our lives?

Govt continues to make laws like smoking bans, labeling, transfat obliteration and what we are able to watch on TV and listen to on radio, and apparently soon what we can wear that seriously hampers our own personal choices and responsibilities. One has to wonder why we would allow this or why they feel it is necessary.

We have become a personally irresponsible society that leans on govt far too much to do what we should be doing. The govt complies because to enforce these never ending rules and regulations on people's personal lives and responsibilities, they grow their own workforce and create their own job security and in the end cost taxpayers more.

Learn more about this author, Kristal Mcvicar.
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