TheAgitator.com
Post-Reductio America
Wednesday, April 28th, 2004I told you it was coming.
The California state assembly is now considering a law banning you from smoking in your own car if your kids are riding with you.
Make no mistake, they’ll be in your home next.
In other jaw-dropping nanny news, we turn to Loo-sianah, where “House Bill 1626 would punish anyone caught wearing low-riding pants with a fine of as much as $500 or as many as six months in jail, or both.”
And it’s not the first time they’ve tried it!
And a year earlier, state Rep. Cynthia Willard, D-New Orleans, filed a bill requiring Louisiana’s 66 school boards to ban baggy pants that expose underwear or backsides. That bill, which was never heard by the House Education Committee, said the fashion “encourages youth to engage in inappropriate behavior and shows a lack of respect for others in society.”Shepherd, an attorney, said his bill aims to change the fashion sense of teenagers, who have adopted the “disrespectful, obscene and unprofessional” practice of letting their pants hang off their hips at school, at the mall and even on the basketball court.
“There’s a way to shoot hoops professionally,” he said. “You don’t have to shoot hoops with your pants below your waist.”
He admitted, however, that the bill does not target minors specifically and therefore does not directly mirror other laws that restrict teenagers’ curfew and the kinds of movies they may see.
Shepherd said that like Willard’s failed bill, his legislation aims to correct a fashion faux paus that has implications not only on a young person’s sense of style but also on his or her sense of self.
“Hopefully, if we pull up their pants,” he said, “we can lift their minds while we’re at it.”
What in the world does it mean to “shoot hoops professionally?”
I love the part where Shepherd says:
‘…such technicalities generally would be overlooked by police, who would only cite violators who deliberately wear pants low on their hips.
The only times I have ever been stopped/questioned by police have been on ‘technicalities’.
Does this mean that if a New Orleans Hornets player or opponent player is “shooting hoops with their pants below their waist”, an officer will be in their locker room after the game issuing citations?
Radley, you better hope Jermaine O’Neal is injured when the Pacers go into New Orleans.
Explain to me what’s wrong with a law that bans poisoning your children?
Radley, you are correct. There shouldn’t be any additional laws necessary regarding this. Assault it pretty straightforward and the kids could certainly sue concurrently or later.
I consider adults who smoke in cars or even in their homes with accompanying children to be a bit senseless, no to be quite stupid.
On the other hand, if it is a privately owned establishment that is clearly labeled as a smoking environment then consenting adults should be free to patononize or work there without any outside interference.
Smoking Assault
Radley Balko warns of creeping nanny-statism:The California state assembly is now considering a law banning you from smoking in your own car if your kids are riding with you. Make no mistake, they’ll be in your home next.Radley, you are correct. There …
I support a ban on baggie pants for kids as long as we get a ban on old women wearing spandex/pink feathers/sparkle makeup and old men from wearing tee-shirts that say “Sexy Grandpa.”
BAN! BAN! BAAAAAAAAN!!!!!
Land of the free…
Funny thing is, Loosiana is the home-state of Britney Spears, queen of the low-rise pants.
Even on the basketball court!!
Answer: It’s not a law that bans poisoning your children. It’s a law telling you what to do, in your car, purportedly for the sake of your children, with little or no regard for the differences between second-hand smoke and that directly inhaled, and with little or no regard for variances; for example, driving with the windows down versus up, one cigarette per day versus several, etc. Once you follow the line of thinking of this kind of legislation, there is no end to what the state can tell you to do, and thus no beginning to your own discretion. It’s silly really.
I want to know who’s funding these legislative outings and see if they’ll pay me to champion silly bills in Florida….
I think you’re all missing a very important component of this issue. Now, I don’t have any scientific documentation (as I am sure that not too many studies, if any at all, have been done on the subject), but I speak purely from firsthand experience.
What I’m talking about is what I call “second-hand repulsive deterrence”. Allow me to explain. My mom used to smoke when I was a kid. She smoked in the house, she smoked in the car, she smoked smoked smoked. And I HATED IT! It was a nasty, awful, repugnant stank. And you know what? Thanks to that experience, I grew up dispising, HATING, cigarette smoke. And to this day, I have never so much as put a cigarette to my lips, in all my years. And I attribute this directly to my mother’s irresponsibility.
And even though I hate smoke with a passion, I vehemently oppose all these bullshit bans in private establishments and, now, PRIVATE AUTOMOBILES.
These foolish lawmakers are inadvertently depriving these children of their god-given right to be repulsed by this awful habit, and thus, develop an abhorrance that keeps them away from it when they grow older.
Perhaps I’m just a bit crazy, and perhaps my experience was unique, but I just thought I’d add that little tidbit to the fire. I still oppose these bans on all the principled libertarian platforms, etc., etc., et. al. This is just another layer.
Evan -
I’m right there with you on “second-hand repulsive deterrence” (good name, too). The biggest deterrent to me smoking was my mother’s awful smoking when I was a kid.
Does this ban on low rise pants have a clear definition of what low rise pants are? Is there a certain distance from the belly button that they become “low rise pants”? Will police walk around with rulers, measuring the distance between each passer-by’s pants and their navel?
If low-rise pants are so bad for people, why don’t states just tax them for revenue like they do with cigarettes?
Kidding, of course.
I say we ban parents from feeding kids junk food. We need random (and not so random) home invasions by federal marshals in which cupboards and refrigerators are searched, junk food impounded, and the parents hauled away. It is for the good of the children afterall!
And let’s deputize cashiers at supermarkets, convenience stores, and Micky-D’s who can make spot arrests if parents buying things that they should not be feeding their children. Think of the children!
/sarcasm
Just because they are health fascists doesn’t mean they are not fascists.
If they aren’t going to prosecute Todd Bertuzzi for making meat pies out of Steve Moore’s face on a hockey rink, they sure as hell can’t prosecute a basketball player for wearing his pants wrong.
Now, I do live in S. California, and unfortunately, I do also smoke. And I am PISSED. I don’t have kids, and I would never smoke if I did. (If you are going to quit to have a baby why go back?)
But, first the restaurants, than the bars (of all places),beaches, public parks, and now my OWN CAR!!
On the issue of bars by the way, ALOT of bars went out of business completely when that ban went into effect. That is the ones that choose to follow the law at all, there are still quite a few establishments (mostly dive bars) where you can still smoke!
UNBELIEVABLE!
So, um, what about ‘beach-wear’? You can pretty much see whatever you want and the last time I checked, the world isn’t scheduled to end because of that.
On smoking:
I too am a successful example of the ’second-hand repulsive deterrence’ effect. Lucky for me I guess - too bad for those who will be denied that opportunity.
And another point to consider: if your typical teenager wants to ‘rebel against society’ will he/she take up smoking or decide not to do it, these days?
Garth,
We can’t just monitor what parents feed their kids, because they may slip them junk food when the government isn’t looking. I think we should ban parents feeding their kids at all, and require that they bring their kids to government run food distribution centers three times a day to be served government approved, nutritious meals. Any parent caught feeding his child would be arrested and his parental rights terminated. After all, how else are we supposed to protect the children?
Who will you call to fix your sink when all the plumbers are in jail for visible buttcrack?
…funny…I was in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia a few years back and they had these “morality” police (who were distict from the regular ‘beat’ cops) who wore long flowing robes and carried what looked like a riding crop…they would use it to swat passing women who showed a bare ankle or who looked to be dressed in an ‘immoral’ way. Strange that there would be parallels between our bible belt and theirs.
Evan -
Interesting point. My dad was a smoker back when I was a kid, and I think that had a lot to do with my aversion to smoking.
Plus, back in school, I always found the smokers looked like they were trying WAY too hard to be cool, which of course ended up making them look anything BUT cool. Thus, I never caved-in to the supposedly relentless peer pressure, either.
My entire family smoked and so did I, but my older sister hates it and has not ever smoked. I used to steal my step-dad’s cigarettes. How does that happen that my sister and I were so different in that and having the same influences?
Here’s a a good ban: “Ban on Internet Taxes” Woohoo! Four more years of freedom!