In Missouri they have to solve one huge problem facing America. Women’s bare arms. That one thing will make the whole State of Missouri a better place to live. I hope you can see my sarcasm. What is immoral or improper about seeing women’s arms? I have never looked at a woman and said, “Look at those arms” or “I bet those arms would look pretty good unwrapped”. You have to be one special kind of pervert to see a woman in a sleeveless dress and think that you are looking at something improper. What are they going to do next? Make women wear scarves over their heads? Dresses down to the ankles? They used to have a commercial with a woman saying that they have come a long way baby. I guess women have not come as far as they would like to think.

When I first heard that the Missouri Legislature had created a dress code for women I thought that it was a joke. We have huge problems with guns in this country. We have the gigantic problem of global climate change. We have growing racism. We have all kinds of problems that need to be address but the first thing that the Republican led Missouri Legislature does is create a dress code for women. “If women do not have the right to bare arms then men should not have the right to bear arms” should be the battle cry for every women in the State of Missouri. I know that’s a ridiculous argument but so is a dress code for women in the Missouri Legislature. Missouri ranks 32^nd in economic performance. Missouri’s population has fallen from 13^th to 18^th since the 1970s. Missouri’s economic output has fallen to 36th from 18^th at its highest. The medium family income has fallen to 37^th from 17^th. Missouri ranks 43^rd in healthcare. This is a state that is not performing well at all. You could actually say that it is going backwards. It is a state with serious problems that did not elect people that want to tackle those problems. What do they want to tackle in Missouri? Women’s bare arms.

I remember the uproar when Michele Obama wore a sleeveless dress and I didn’t understand it then and I don’t understand it today. She look very professional, classy and beautiful, in my opinion, so what is the real problem? Is it a matter of a few trying to force their morals onto the rest of us? Is it a matter of control? When I was in High School over 55 years ago we had a dress code. That dress code was for both sexes. For boys, hair had to not touch the collar, no so called Beatle hair styles allowed. The girl’s dresses could only be so high above the knees and the administration would measure to make sure you were incompliance. Blue jeans were not allowed for anyone. This was the late sixties when hair was getting longer and the skirts were getting shorter. Blue jeans and bellbottoms were also the thing back then and they were banned. I remember at registration day alone 126 students were suspended for dress code violations mostly from long hair. It has been since ruled that dress codes that discriminate by sex, race or gender can be subject to legal action. By my junior year those dress codes had been done away with.

Can you control a group of people without taking their freedom away from them? That is the question that always comes to my mind. In most cases I think that control is taking a person’s  freedom away from them. Whether it is freedom of expression, freedom to control your healthcare, or freedom to own a gun you walk a fine line when taking them away. With freedom must also come common sense.  A woman cannot walk around in public topless, in most communities, and making them put a shirt on a violation their freedom? I think not because they can still walk around. The same could be said about a gun. I own a gun and I have a conceal and carry license but I cannot walk around parading to the world that I have a gun. Just like people finding that women offensive with her shirt off they may find my gun offensive. We all have a right to feel morally safe and secure and in both instances I think it violates that right. I never feel safe when I see a gun and yes even though I personally  do not find a woman’s body offensive these should be at least a little bit of modesty.

There is another thing that always bothers me and that is government interference in our personal lives. I get the argument that too much government in our personal life is bad but why does that only apply to the Federal Government. Why do States have a right to try and control my personal life? Why does a State feel that it has a right to take away a woman’s personal freedoms? Why do States have a right to make it so a person’s vote doesn’t count?  That is what gerrymandering does.  Why does a state have a right to make it harder for one group’s voices to be heard more than others? States should have no more rights to suppress groups than the Federal Government. The separation of Church and State should not only apply to the Federal Government but the State and Local Governments too. I don’t care what you believe and I feel that is your right but you have not right to force that on me.

When it comes to freedom, real freedom, we are falling behind much of the world. Look it up. According to the Human Freedom Index which measures freedom based of board measures that encompasses personal, civil and economic freedom have America as the 23^rd freest country in the world. By the guidelines set out by the UNs Universal Declaration of Human rights we are not in the top 10. Do not take my word for it. Go ahead and do the research yourself. Stop listening to that cable news and read what you should know. We can’t be the freest country in the world with the oppression that is all around us. Not demanding that a person be paid a livable wage is economic oppression.  Voter suppression is a form of oppression. Not letting a woman make her own healthcare issues in a form of oppression. Freedom should only be screamed if it is meant for all races, colors, religious beliefs and genders. There is a price for freedom and that price is fighting for the freedom of the person standing next to you, the person next to them, the person next to them and so on and so on and so on until is includes all of us.