It's one thing to be a country that refuses to pay its bills, it's another thing to dress like one. Just because you haven't seen your genitals in 20 years, doesn't mean we want to see them. When did America's business casual become a t-shirt and shorts? Maybe no one has bothered to bring this to your attention, people of America, so let me see plainly, here and now: When you leave your house, we can see you.
Now folks, I am not saying that dressing nicer is going to fix all that bothers us, or patch up the economy. But I do think that we have to recapture a sense of pride and common purpose. The first step is to stop going to Target in pajama bottoms. I am not asking us to cure cancer or wipe out child poverty, just wear pants; ones that have belt loops. Call me a dreamer, but I think we can pull this one off....or up. It's like what Kennedy said about going to the moon, "We do this not because it's easy, we do because we don't want people to see our butt cracks."
Back in the 1990's, New York City tested the broken windows theory, which said that if you fix the little things that make people think that they are living in a crummy neighborhood, the big things will follow. If you fix the broken windows, paint over the graffiti and pick up the trash; a psychological barrier is broken. New York basically said that they were going to look good until they feel good: and it worked, crime plummeted.
Before you say, "Now Nathan, this is about poverty and not fashion." No, it's not. If you can afford pajama pants, then you can afford pants. They're sown in the same Bangladesh fire trap, out of the same human hair, by the same children. Walmart sells jeans for ten bucks. Target, on the other hand, sells pajama bottoms with the ESPN, Bud Lite and Duck Dynasty logo for 17 dollars. The holy trinity of slob wear.
This isn't about money, it's about pride. In the 1950's, a man wore a suit, a tie, and a hat just to go get the mail. And if a man were wearing a wifebeater, it was because he was actually planning to beat his wife. My god, even the Elephant Man wore a suit.
Did it make him look hot? No, but at least he made an effort. These days, people wear shorts and flip-flops to church. I'm not even a Christian and that offends me. There is now a website called People of Walmart and just looking at for 5 minutes, two questions came to mind:
1. Will I have to burn my eyes?
And 2. What are other countries saying? I bet they are starting to whisper, " Have you noticed how America has let itself go? They used to dress so nice and now it's just sad." So I am just saying to my fellow citizens, don't be a broken window. It can't be just a coincidence that when America had the respect of the entire world, the public's fear looked like this:
And now it looks like this:
