Posted by
Andrews on Monday, January 07, 2008 9:22:40 PM
I think the arrogance of government can best be summed up by one simple idea: daylight savings time.
Think about it. Not content with ordering around their fellow citizens, controlling every imaginable facet of their lives, directing the flow of a multi-trillion dollar economy, the government has decided that they want to try to control TIME ITSELF.
That has to be the best example of government hubris imaginable.
Of course, it also shows the utter futility of government activity, because, no matter what they say, they do not "make more daylight" through this law. They may manage to shift around the hours during which it is light, they may disrupt everyone's schedules and deprive us all of sleep, but, despite their claims of unlimited power, there are still the same number of daylight hours as there were before the law was passed.
Now, on a more serious note: Can anyone tell me why we still have daylight savings time? Perhaps before electrification was quite universal there was some argument for it, but today, what is the purpose?
And, I know it is a horrible thought to suggest we solve ourselves something we could cure by government edict, but if we want to use less electricity, can't we just CHANGE OUR SCHEDULES, rather than changing the clock? It would avoid the headache of manually adjusting every clock in the house, depriving everyone of sleep twice a year, scheduling problems, log file conflicts on computers, etc. but it would require voluntary action on our part. And, which will upset the government, some may choose not to obey. So I am certain this voluntary option will never be accepted. For if the government thinks something is "good" they cannot rest until they have compelled everyone to adopt the practice, whether we want to or not.
And so we are forced to pretend that the US government has control over time itself and dutifully alter our schedules twice a year just so they can feel good about dubious claims of energy savings.(Though if the number of hours of light stays the same, I am not sure how we save power, especially as I seem to be both waking up and going to sleep in the dark, clearly making claims of power saving pretty suspect. But I will keep quiet for now, as it makes them feel good, and keeps the government from engaging in more mischief for the moment.)
Well, I just had to ask. And having written my obligatory fluff piece for the day, I will return to my slightly more serious writing.
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For those who care, there is quite a lot written on the topic. I have lost the links I once accumulated (including one or two short pieces I wrote on other sites), but there seems to be a fair number of people who feel pretty strongly on both sides. From my own reading, I see that there is some evidence for some very small benefits from daylight savings (a slight accident reduction, and some very small energy savings), but the evidence is not that strong, and, of course, the same benefits could be gained by just changing our schedules rather than changing the clock.