by: Josh Guckert
“Every morning, as soon as the sun rises, let all the bells in every church be set ringing; and if that is not sufficient?, let cannon be fired in every street, to wake the sluggards effectually, and make them open their eyes to see their true interest,” said Benjamin Franklin sarcastically in reference to what we now call daylight saving time. Franklin had been awoken by the sun at 6 am, and therefore penned this satirical essay to suggest changes in sleep schedules. Daylight saving time has since been wrongly attributed to Franklin, but he was actually a major opponent of the idea.
The time switch was first implemented in Germany in 1916 and was later introduced in the US on March 31, 1918, during World War I. The sun, not the clock, dictated farmers’ schedules, so daylight saving was very disruptive, leading agrarian interests to fight for the 1919 repeal of national daylight saving time, which passed after Congress overrode President Woodrow Wilson’s veto. Rather than rural interests, it has been urban entities that have championed daylight saving.
Today, the U.S. Department of Transportation says the practice conserves energy, as a later sunset means households use less power for lights before bedtime. However, several studies have suggested that this is not true, and Americans have simply grown less and less fond of the idea over the years. According to a March 2013 Rasmussen poll, only 37% of Americans believe that daylight saving time should continue, and 45% say that the practice is pointless and is not “worth the hassle.”
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Furthermore, the practice has been linked to many major adverse effects, including more car accidents due to drivers’ sleep cycles being disrupted, negative impacts on physical and emotional health, and a more general interruption of sleep schedules because of sudden 1-hour shifts in our daily routines. In addition, a 2004 study in the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention found that eliminating the time change could annually save up to 366 lives, and a 2011 study in the Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics found that SAT scores in counties where DST was observed were 2% lower than those in counties which did not spring forward or fall back.
All told, daylight saving time is yet another power-grab by big government. An unattributed quote states accurately that, “Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.” Today, hardly anyone understands why we observe this arcane practice. Yet it has become so entrenched in our lives that it has become unthinkable to protest the time change. Perhaps it may not seem to be an important issue at all, but we must recognize it for the imposition of power that it is. If government can control time, what else is left?
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As lovers of liberty, we have an obligation to speak out against wholesale government intrusions into our daily lives, even when they such policies may seem trivial. As can be seen by the studies and observations listed above, what was once considered an innocent and beneficial change has shown itself to have adverse and disparate impacts on the freedoms of citizens. By attacking tyranny on a much simpler level, we can conceptualize liberty for a broader audience in a manner which is easier to comprehend.
Liberty is never a simple, one-size-fits-all battle. Individual victories must be had along the way in order to advance our causes. Where no controversy is detected, we must attack such apathy by springing into action. Perhaps we can start by giving back to Americans their simple freedom to live under the same time pattern throughout the entire year.
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