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Cargo Shorts Are Great

the shorts america needs right now but not the ones we deserve
August 2, 2016

I think we all know that there is nothing more sickening in this day and age than female privilege. And there's no variety of female privilege more galling than their sneering at men who wear cargo shorts. "Oh, what do you need all those pockets for?" they snap as they carry around a gigantic purse with 18 quarts of cubic space in which to carry all their ridiculous crap. "How could you possibly want to look so ridiculous?"

We can see a very distinct version of this privilege manifesting in this grotesquely biased Wall Street Journal hit piece on the noble cargo short:

Relationships around the country are being tested by cargo shorts, loosely cut shorts with large pockets sewn onto the sides. Men who love them say they’re comfortable and practical for summer. Detractors say they’ve been out of style for years, deriding them as bulky, uncool and just flat-out ugly.

Mr. Hansen’s wife, Ashleigh Hansen, said she sneaks her husband’s cargo shorts off to Goodwill when he’s not around. Mrs. Hansen, 30, no longer throws them out at home because her husband has found them in the trash and fished them out.

"I despise them," she said. "There were so many good things about the ’90s. Cargo shorts were not one of them."

Some harpies are so awful in their hectoring that they give their poor husbands mental complexes:

His wife, however, isn’t a fan. Mr. Lommel, who often works from home, seizes opportunities when his wife is away at work to wear his cargo shorts.

"Every time I put them on, I am conscious of the fact that I am now being disobedient in my marriage," he said.

For some reason, people love to hate cargo shorts.

I've never understood this. Assuming you're not striding down a runway in Milan—thus necessitating a clean, straight-leg profile—you're probably wearing shorts because you want to stay cool. And if you're a guy, you're probably wearing shorts without carrying around a European man-bag. Which means you have a paucity of space to carry all your cargo.

This is where cargo shorts come in.

Now, every man's cargo is different. I'm not intending to suggest in the infographic below that this is what everyone carries or should carry. I'm just using it as an illustration to help you fashion Nazis out there understand why a guy might throw on a pair of shorts with a bunch of pockets on them when they exit the house.

Cargo Shorts

(Many thanks to Andrew Kugle for help mocking up this infographic.)

No other item of clothing comes close to being as useful as North American Cargo Shorts. Of course the elitist east coast establishment sneers at it with their dying gasp. America will be made great again not by these egghead losers but by men whose shorts sag under the weight of tools and electronics, books, and bottles. Don't come crying to us when you need an airplane bottle of gin, poindexters.