Should your city have a dress code?

Isn't it just a little scary to see that question -- or to realize that some cities are actually passing or considering one?

To crack down on the prison- and gang-inspired fashion of wearing pants down around one's thighs, some cities around the country have either passed or are considering laws outlawing the practice. The cities having considered banning sagging pants include Atlanta and Charleston, S.C.

Warner Robins this month became the most recent Georgia community to outlaw the practice -- defining as "indecent exposure" the public display of more than three inches of underwear. Hawkinsville was the first to outlaw sagging pants, last October.

The Charleston ordinance would outlaw the wearing of pants more than three inches below one's hips -- if it can be determined precisely where one's hips begin and end, a more difficult proposition as the years go by.

It's all so silly. Let's get this straight. Under the "sagging pants" code, you can get arrested for showing a few inches of boxer shorts -- but a woman with a thong bathing suit could strut right by the arrest scene undeterred.

Moreover, is underwear indecent or just highly distasteful?

Should governments now regulate, with the power of the police and with the threat of imprisonment and fines, matters of taste?

And how could it possibly be constitutional?

Amazingly, that doesn't concern some people.

"I don't care if it's unconstitutional," Charleston Councilman Tim Mallard says. "It sends a message."

You know, having to choose between saggy pants and a councilman who doesn't care about the Constitution, we'll take the boxers anytime.

Besides, saggy pants can be their own punishment: A fleeing suspect in Atlanta this past week was shot and captured after he tripped over his falling-down pants.

There's no need to outlaw stupidity. Nature tends to take care of that.