As Americans, we owe a great debt to our heroes. I’m not talking about soldiers and sailors, but the real heroes that protect us from harm within our borders. State legislators.

We have a new hero in Virginia by the name of Algie T. Howell Jr.

Besides surviving numerous beatings as a teenager for the name “Algie,” he has made a great contribution to American politics.

Algie is protecting us from our underwear.

A bill sponsored by Algie was well on its way to becoming law in Virginia. If it passed, anyone who “exposes his (or her) below-waist undergarments in an offensive manner” could have been fined $50.

This legislation prompts two questions.

First, why does Algie want plumbers to pull up their pants? And how will we ever be able to face the French when they find out we have a lawmaker named Algie?

Actually, plumbers and other tradesmen should be OK, according to one newspaper report. All the debate centers around how young people will be targeted because of the baggy pants and low-riding jeans that allow underwear to stick out the top.

“If you want to show your underwear in your private home, I don’t have any objections,” Algie told a newspaper, which makes you wonder how much time he has spent developing that theory, but that’s another column for another day.

Maybe Algie’s worried about exposed underwear because someone who thought Algie was a funny name made sure that the future lawmaker had a steady diet of wedgies in middle school.

I propose we ban wedgies instead of exposed underwear. Or give people who propose silly laws a wedgie in public.

I never knew that underwear had taken up such a big role in the moral decline of the country. I see people like this every once in a while, but I just avert my eyes.

Now I know that I should have been more vigilant. Algie – I can’t say that name without giggling – has set me straight.

“To vote for this bill would be a vote for character, to uplift your community and to do something good not only for the state of Virginia, but for this entire country,” Algie said.

Yes, stopping people from having their underwear stick out from their pants will change all of America. Wow.

What cracks me up is that the law doesn’t seem to address people who just wear underwear in public. Algie may open a Pandora’s box here.

I don’t know about you, but I worry about people who spend this much time thinking about underwear.

This is actually not the first time that a bill like this has been proposed. Louisiana looked at a similar measure last year, but common sense prevailed and the bill failed.

Algie at least succeeded in getting the bill passed in the state house. Luckily the Senate brought sanity back to Virginia and shot down the bill.

If they hadn’t, I say we shouuld have headed down and gave them all wedgies. Then we could call the cops and have them fined because their underwear was sticking out.

That would teach them a lesson.