In 1784, Ben Franklin wrote a satirical paper to a French journal extolling the financial benefit to be obtained by getting the French to arise at dawn and thus save vast quantities of money on candles. He suggested taxing shutters, rationing candles, firing a cannon, and ringing church bells at dawn to awake the public (did he intend something like the muezzin dawn call to prayer in Islamic nations?)

In 1918, to follow the lead of Germany in World War I (Germany originated daylight saving time in 1916, ostensibly to save fuel for the war effort; this kind of thinking may have had something to do with the outcome of the war?), the United States, under President Woodrow Wilson, initiated daylight saving time. This started in April and ended in October. Only in the progressive era could this have begun in the U.S., as, of course, progressives likely thought they were actually saving daylight. Maybe Wilson, scholar that he was, found Franklin’s paper and thought Franklin was serious. If so, it would have been the only idea of the founders that Wilson liked. Otherwise, he thought they were all crocks.

The main question was why progressives chose to save daylight in the summer, when they had plenty of it, rather than in the winter, when it was in short supply. But then, that’s pretty much the way progressives think. To wit, President Joe Biden thinks that spending a trillion dollars costs zero dollars. Of late, Republicans have tried to improve on the progressive idiocy by extending daylight saving all year round. Sen. Marco Rubio has championed this effort (Florida has the least need to save daylight of any state in the contiguous U.S. states — go figure). Rubio has had the chutzpah to title his legislation the Sunshine Protection Act. As if sunshine needed protection. Yes, yes, I know, Florida is the Sunshine State, but still … I thought it was the Earth that needed protection from global warming, er, “climate change.” Now we’re going to fix the sun as well? Again, progressives probably think we can achieve such a thing. Alas, such as Bill Gates is busy figuring out how to protect the earth from sunshine! Which is it that we need? Protection of sunshine, or protection from sunshine? Of course, with less sunshine there will be less photosynthesis, thus less incorporation of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) into plants, fewer crops, and perhaps mass starvation, and since there will be less removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, we would likely have global warming resulting from Gates’ plan to prevent global warming. If Gates’ scheme to prevent global warming actually worked, it would likely lead to global cooling, maybe freezing, if freezing hits a hockey stick moment like warming. Gates would then likely concoct some idea on the use of geothermal energy by tapping the Earth’s core to prevent us all from freezing to death, which would be fruitless if we had already starved to death from crop failures due to lack of sunshine and global freezing from his fantastic scheme.

But Rubio does have a point. This bouncing back and forth of the time is actually killing people. Some medical studies have suggested that the physiologic changes required to get the diurnal cortisol rhythms back in sync with the actual sun time are sufficiently stressful (some people experience the time changes as severe prolonged jet lag) that there is an uptick in fatal myocardial infarctions, strokes, and such. Yes, only the vulnerable would tend to be affected, and we could hasten their demise by admitting them to nursing homes filled with COVID-infected patients to see how long they last. But that seems a little Draconian.

When Wilson first imposed daylight saving time, farmers were adversely affected. They were not amused. They were already up at the crack of dawn with the cock crowing and didn’t need anyone to tell them when to work. They went to work as soon as there was sufficient light to permit them to work. And there were a lot more farmers then than there are now. Congress got off its duff and banned daylight saving time, with enough votes to override Wilson’s veto (Wilson didn’t want to be led around by the nose by a bunch of farmers — they were as deplorable to progressives then as they are now, but he lost on that one).

Of course, the entire rational for daylight saving time would not exist were it not for the progressive ideas that government should dictate the workday, start time, end time, amount of hours worked, etc., etc. Consider that famous U.S. Supreme Court case, Lochner v. New York. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. just about blew his reputation as a progressive over that one. Imagine, letting bakers negotiate their own contracts for working hours. How could Holmes have been so obtuse as to allow that? That meant there would be less impetus for bakers to unionize, cause labor problems, and use their leverage. (People unable to purchase their daily bread because the bakers were on strike?? Things like that started revolutions, such as the French Revolution — just what the progressives envisioned to fundamentally transform America into a workers’ paradise. Indeed, I think I would have been in the vanguard of the mob at the Bastille if I woke up one day and couldn’t get my hands on one of those marvelous French baguettes.)

Some states (New York) continued to use daylight saving time. Others did not. The situation was sufficiently confusing that boats, trains, and planes traveling between states lobbied for some uniformity. Of course, the federal government claimed the prerogative to intervene — interstate commerce, after all — and produced another act in 1966. Something about the Uniform Time Act. Now if a state wants to change and not use daylight saving time, or use more DST, that state has to get clearance from the U.S. Department of Transportation, I am led to believe. And states can opt out of daylight saving time, but they cannot opt out of standard time by making DST permanent. It requires an act of Congress to change daylight. As they say, Congress thinks its crowing causes the sun to rise.

Wikipedia has the remarkable line: “Ancient Civilizations adjusted daily schedules to the sun more flexibly than DST does … “

The mother of all NSS statements.

Nothing says “progressive” like mandating sunrise and sunset. Telling the heavens how to behave, for the benefit of progressive man. Vaccine mandates that won’t stop COVID are a mere triviality in the progressive pantheon of cosmic policy.