This link may or may not take you to an AP story about various local governments either using social pressure or legislation to prevent people from hanging up their laundry putside to dry.
What's the problem? Neighbors complain that they don't like the sight of it. Some say the whole practice makes the neighborhood look like (their words here) "trailer trash." Others simply object to seeing underwear in public.
A southern radio conservative named Robert D. Raeford coined the phrase many years ago "The United States of the Offended." He objected to the growing tendency of Americans to conjure up a "right" that they do not have to see or hear anything that might offend, bother, or irritate them. Apparently this now extends to the old American tradition of hanging up laundry.
Some just like the smell of sun dried laundry. Others see this as a way to conserve energy. Certainly it reduces one's electric bills. Regardless of the reason, the message by the city to "concerned neighbors" ought to be "if you don't like it, go inside." Even if nine out of ten neighbors oppose the hanging of laundry, American traditions of freedom and property rights mean that you can keep hanging those old underwear over your yard if you darn well please.
Freedom is important and the basis of that is the recognition of individual rights. Also we also have to accept (and this used to happen before people became adults in this country) that we will not always like everything we see. Sometimes we have to simply ignore it and walk away. As for me, I think every freedom loving American in such a snotty neighborhood ought to continue to hang up their mentionables and unmentionables. Take a stand for freedom.
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