Throughout America’s long, illustrious history our nation has consistently shown a remarkable, nay, unique talent for gathering, amassing, and otherwise collecting stuff. We’ve been particularly good at land acquisition (number one in the world 200 years running!). Although, the accumulation and exploitation of human capital/resources is probably a very close second. Either way. We’re the best. But lately, the greatest nation in the history of nations has taken a few hits. Perhaps some would even dare say…setbacks. The Covid-19 pandemic, high inflation, loss of trust in institutions, this tool bag.
America is under siege by annoying ‘citizens’ protesting a racist judicial system, malcontents clamoring for free college education and universal health care, and modern day insurgents demanding equal rights for all Americans regardless of gender or sexual orientation. We haven’t won a war in so long that some of us are beginning to wonder if war is even a good idea anymore. So in the interest of blind patriotism and fragile national egos, we should put and end to all this Daylight Saving Time nonsense immediately.
Now is not the time to talk about losing anything, let alone an hour of our invaluable time. An hour that could be spent squeezing out one more episode of The Great British Baking Show. An hour we could be devoting to doom-scrolling on Facebook, or trolling all those misinformed dullards on Twitter who appear to have a different political point of view. Losing an hour is just another failure we cannot afford. And that’s plain un-American.
We need look no further than the words General George C. Scott in 1970 quoting some old guy from WW II addressing the 3rd Army:
When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. Now, I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.
Okay, that quote curdled like whole milk on a hot summer day (A hot summer day that won’t see sunset until 9pm - ugh), but if you replace ‘marble shooter’ with ‘Tiktok Gaming Influencer’ his point is well taken.
America. Doesn’t. Lose…not on purpose, anyway. So why would we bend the knee to the fickle vagaries of Seasonal Affective Disorder and throw away the only commodity we can never buy or even earn back? Time. Think about the loss of productivity to businesses across this hallowed land. If we allow our people to just suddenly work a hour less once a year, it won’t be long before they won’t want to work at all. And that’s only the half of it. Not only is shaving 350 million person-hours from existence a blow to our fine corporate mega-lopolies, losing an hour can also affect the health of everyday Americans. Por ejemplo:
According to WBUR
Shifting back and forth between times has been associated with an increased risk of heart attacks and motor vehicle crashes — especially in the spring, says Charles Czeisler, chief of the Division of Sleep And Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Shifting to one time could cut down on these effects and increase productivity. But Czeisler says there’s a problem with the Senate’s legislation: It settles on the wrong time.
Any time change can cause a disruption in sleeping patterns, energy levels, and health in general. But Daylight Saving Time is dangerous, and basically, a scam.
Reasons for keeping the time change often involve some long-standing myths. Many people believe the misconception that daylight savings time was something that farmers asked for. But farmers advocated against it because the yearly change would mess with the natural circadian rhythms of their cattle.
And it’s not true that daylight saving time saves energy, Czeisler says. Author Michael Downing’s book “Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time” explains that the golf industry lobbied for daylight saving time to increase profits.
Arizona made standard time permanent in part because daylight saving time ended up causing increased energy use from air conditioners, Czeisler says.
So, while we’re ‘saving’ daylight, we’re spending more money on energy and cow-towing to Big Golf. According to the article, the so-called benefits of getting more sun later can actually contribute to people’s risk of liver and breast cancers. Are we really going to let the government legislate our health this way? Does any of this sound like ‘winning’ to you? And most of these morons want to make Daylight Saving Time permanent:
The Fake News runs deep, my fellow Americans. According to some sort of science mumbo jumbo, changing back to Standard Time in November causes the death of 33 people and up to 36,500 deer in car accidents. Firstly, deer are for hunting. And some folks can’t afford one of those Big Brother, government-issued hunting ‘licenses’ so slow your roll, science. There are plenty of fine, upstanding Americans that have to get their meat where they can. If that happens to be straight off the fender of a 1986 Buick LeSabre then God bless ‘em. But secondly, the entire premise is akin to gaslighting. Blaming the change back to Standard Time from Daylight Saving Time for these issues is like a heroin addict claiming his withdrawal symptoms are the reason he shouldn’t stop abusing heroin.
In fact, we’ve tried this dumb experiment before. The last time was in 1973. It was a disaster. Children were walking to school in darkness at 8am.
Permanent DST in the US was briefly enacted by president Richard Nixon in 1974, in response to the 1973 oil crisis. The new permanent DST law was retracted within the year. Year-round daylight saving time was initially supported by 79% of the public, but that support had dropped to 42% after its first winter.
There’s a good reason for this. It sucked.
And yet the early-morning darkness quickly proved dangerous for children: A 6-year-old Alexandria girl was struck by a car on her way to Polk Elementary School on January 7; the accident broke her leg. Two Prince George’s County students were hurt in February. In the weeks after the change, eight Florida kids were killed in traffic accidents. Florida’s governor, Reubin Askew, asked for Congress to repeal the measure. “It’s time to recognize that we may well have made a mistake,” US Senator Dick Clark of Iowa said during a speech in Congress on January 28, 1974. In the Washington area, some schools delayed their start times until the sun caught up with the clock.
And it will suck again if the people that have repeatedly failed to pass any laws that offer real, tangible benefits to the American people get their way. Because that is apparently all they can accomplish collectively. What would General Patton Oswalt say about all this?
Again, Standard Time. That’s where we should be all the time because it is the time…which is Standard. The time against which all other times are judged. It’s in the goddamn name.
This is America. Enough is enough. Miss us with that hour-loser talk. Save it for all those poor schmucks whose asses we kicked; Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, the Nord Stream Pipeline. It’s time we got back to winning. And a sunset that doesn’t occur a half-an-hour after my beddy-bye time. Besides, who doesn’t need a little more (the) Darkness in their lives?