The US government has come dangerously close to doing something sensible that the public wants: removing the dreaded annual clock changes which make the warmer months “Daylight Savings Time.” However, seeing two paths diverge in the wood, they have, without any justification, decided to take the obviously idiotic one and make Daylight Savings Time permanent instead of standard time.
There are practical problems with this, particularly for us northerners, but my great issue is that, hippies and nihilists notwithstanding, time is an observable reality that humans across the world have spent thousands of years studying. I am sympathetic to the argument that “anything is better than changing the clocks,” but to me the heart of the matter is this: the government had already manipulated time via a ridiculous fiat, and instead of letting us return to something that approximates reality, they have decided that our understanding of sunlight must remain a fiction.
The core premise of time as a concept is that the middle of the day (noon) is when the sun is directly overhead. I would not take it as far as Brownstone Institute President Jeffrey Tucker and insist that the only time is what is on a sundial and we should get rid of all standardization. It ought to be obviously necessary that we have a shared understanding of what time it is.
Also, I was horrified by the suggestion of one of his followers that since phones have GPS, they could all always know our own solar times and auto adjust when we communicate. Time zones were a positive innovation—though not without their irritating flaws—particularly for those who live in the middle of a country dominated by the coasts. Looking at my own “solar time,” without DST, it is only about five minutes off, and I live on the edge of a time zone, though in theory this could go up to a half hour in either direction. It is important this is standardized.
For example, while I suppose it would be better if no one listened to the president speak, we can’t very well have a massive country of 340 million people and be told “the president will be addressing the country at 9PM Washington DC time, which is some random time for you.” Like most things which make society function, such as it does, time zones are based on a compromise between nature and the needs of society, but recognize that noon is when the sun is directly overhead.
Instead of living in this reality, the government has decided that the very light we see by must be their own fiction. While we have all grown used to the denial of reality and living by lies, this is too rich because they are not even trying to give meaningful justification to the policy, and those of us who oppose it are being called little more than spoilsports who are looking a gift horse in the mouth. To me, though, the categorical refusal of Congress to let reality reign should be the subject of more attention. I assume that, being full of dullards, the whole of them just figured “Daylight Savings Time is better.” Quite a lot of people assume winter is DST because it is the part of the year when daylight is in short supply. In fact, winter is standard time, which speaks to the stupidity of the entire endeavor in the first place, which is more or less based on the premise that people don’t turn electric lights on when the sun is out.
Supporters of permanent Daylight Savings Time, such as they are, insist that it is better to have light in the evening. I will grant that some of these people are presumably from Florida and Texas where it doesn’t really matter, but to northerners this is psychotic. What kind of person wants their kid to get on the school bus when it is pitch black for longer than necessary? In parts of Idaho, the sun wouldn’t come up until past 9AM when the kids return from Christmas break. What man in his right mind would possibly want to go to work in the pitch black with no sign of the sun rising, for the questionable benefit of being able to see the sun go down on the drive home, but without any usable sunlight by the time he arrives? It is also the case that the darkest (and coldest) hour really is before the dawn, and the safety implications of getting everyone on the road an hour earlier in colder weather with less ability to clear the roads are obvious.
On the other hand, there is little difference in road conditions an hour before or after the sun goes down for the day. It is often discussed how the time change, by discombobulating everyone, leads to increases in heart attacks and drowsiness-related road accidents, but there is every reason to believe permanent DST would be worse. True, as some say, businesses can adjust their hours as many do in the summer. But that is true regardless, and provides no justification whatsoever for a revolt against reality. Speaking of summer, while it is nice when it is light out until 9PM, and it would be annoying if the birds got active at 3:30AM, neither of these things actually matter compared to waking up to go to the office or school at 8AM in January.
What fascinates me most is that the government finally has an opportunity to do something very popular, and yet are insistent on doing it in the dumbest way possible. We really can’t have nice things in this country. The portion of the public they have sold on this idea appear to be stupid enough to believe “daylight savings” means more light, and also dimwitted enough not to conceptualize that seeing the sun go down when you go home in the winter is not actually valuable. Nevertheless, I do hold out some hope for the public, as when Idaho Representative Russ Fulcher (R-ID) posted about this on Facebook, the entire comment section was people saying they want the time changes to end but that permanent DST is idiotic.
I, for one, am proud to look this gift horse in the mouth, because that is a stupid expression and bad advice, given that a sick horse is useless and expensive to maintain and is worse than not having a horse at all—which more or less describes permanent Daylight Savings Time.
