On July 14, by a vote of 308 to 117, the US House of Representatives passed the “Sunshine Protection Act,” which would end our twice-yearly ritual of “springing forward” and “falling back” by making “Daylight Saving Time” the permanent national standard for timekeeping.

Getting that done seems to be one of president Donald Trump’s priorities — one of his few such priorities with which I wholly agree. Unfortunately, the US Senate recessed before voting on the law and it’s unclear whether they’ll get around to it before January and the seating of a new class of Senators.

Various polls show the public broadly in support of ending the “spring forward / fall back” nonsense, but not necessarily in agreement on whether the standard should be “Standard Time” or “Daylight Saving Time.” I’ve seen good arguments from both sides. My own position is: Pick one and make it happen.

For whatever reason, such measures always seem to bog down in Congress. Unable to decide which direction to go in, they always end up punting and putting us through another year of those annoying clock changes.

There’s a third way for Congress to go about exercising its Article 1, Section 8 power to “fix the standard of weights and measures” that’s simple and sensible.

Of course, Congress hates simple and sensible things, but my proposal comes with a sweetener: It would let them permanently abdicate part of the aforementioned power in a way that no longer subjects them to pressure or blame in the matter.

The first part of the proposal is to make “Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)” the national standard.

UTC is, per Wikipedia, “a weighted average of hundreds of atomic clocks worldwide” that is “currently within about one second of mean solar time at 0° longitude, the currently used prime meridian, and is not adjusted for daylight saving time.”

To put it a different way:  Under UTC, absent any locally imposed “offsets,”  clocks show the same times in Los Angeles, London, Lisbon, and Lviv.

At first, it might seem kind of weird that your 9am shift in New York now starts at 2pm (better yet, just plain 1400), even thought it’s the same “time of day.”

But you’d get used to it, and it would actually make scheduling phone calls, Zoom meetings, etc. with participants currently living across multiple “time zones” much easier. Three people in Boston, Berlin, and  Beijing wouldn’t have to “convert time” to know when to show up for a conference.

The second part is to make the change a constitutional amendment, proposed by 2/3 of both houses of Congress and ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures. Proposed text:

“Effective as of midnight on January 1, [of the year after ratification], the government of the United States shall utilize Coordinated Universal Time in all official operations and communications, without application of daylight saving or other offsets. The states may, effective as of midnight on January 1, [of the year after ratification] adopt such timekeeping standards as their legislatures or people may direct.”

Upon ratification, Congress would be off the hook. The matter of timekeeping schemes would no longer be their problem to solve. I strongly suspect that most states would similarly move to UTC, but that’s up to them.

My  proposal comes with a second sweetener: “National security.” Military commanders in one “time zone” would no longer have to coordinate time differentials with  commanders in other zones when planning operations. The “time” at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri would be the same “time” as at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait and at Naval Facility Okinawa.

My personal position remains the same: Pick a single, not semi-annual, timekeeping scheme and implement it instead of just arguing about it.

The current scheme, especially the “spring forward” part, costs us money (more than half a billion dollars in lost productivity) and lives (via spikes in car accidents, workplace injuries, cardiac events, and suicides).

We can, and should, do better. It’s time to.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

At “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918,  guns officially fell silent across Europe and World War One came to a military end (the political finish came in 1919 with the Treaty of Versailles).

The following November 11, the winning nations commemorated the final ceasefire with the first “Armistice Day” events

Not celebrations as such, mind you: The observances were — and in some countries at least partially remain — somber remembrances (the UK now calls November 11 “Remembrance Day”) of 20 million dead in “the war to end all wars,”  driven by sentiment against ever returning to that kind of carnage.

That sentiment, unfortunately, proved insufficient to prevent World War 2 and hundreds or thousands of subsequent deadly conflicts, which is bad enough.

Worse, though, is what America did with “Armistice Day.” In 1954, Congress replaced the traditional “Armistice Day” observance with a celebratory “Veterans Day.”

Instead of mourning war, we now celebrate warriors. Parades. Air shows. Political speeches. Free meals, drinks, haircuts, etc. for veterans.  A lot of “thank you for your service” to everyone identifiable as a veteran of the US armed forces; quite a bit of mutual back-slapping among those of us who “served.”

To me, the best way to celebrate veterans would be stop making so many of us — especially, but not only, of the dead, maimed, traumatized, and homeless varieties.

Since the first Armistice Day, the US has fought a second “world war” and countless smaller wars — declared and undeclared — around the globe, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of American lives and millions of foreigners’ lives.

The US armed forces maintain a global network of military bases, remain bogged down in the Middle East after a quarter century of the “global war on terror,” and have now been at on-again, off-again open war with Iran for a year-and-a-half.

The US government constantly rattles its saber, actively seeks excuses to militarily intervene in other countries’ internal affairs and international disputes, and fuels even the wars it doesn’t actively participate in with foreign aid and arms sales.

Two-time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley Butler tallied up the cost in his book, available free online, War is a Racket: “Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.”

None of that is worth celebrating. It’s a cost, not a benefit.

The US armed forces’ oath of enlistment binds future “veterans” to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

Even if one accepts that as a worthy goal, when’s the last time it actually turned out to be the job?

Not during my lifetime, at least that I can think of, and I turn 60 the day before “Veterans Day.” The war I fought in was premised on kicking one tyrant out of Kuwait so another tyrant could return and rule again. Constitution? Nowhere in sight.

Commemorating “Armistice Day” — and making that commemoration a call for peace and a rejection of the American war racket — makes far more sense to me than celebrating “Veterans Day.”

If we want to thank veterans “for their service,” the first step is to bring them home and stop letting politicians put them in morally bankrupt jeopardy of life and limb.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

I’m writing this column on the morning of November 3, technically “election day” in the US even though, per the Assocated Press, more than 57 million Americans voted “early” (in person or by mail) this year. Chances are you won’t read it until later this week, after the polls have closed and most of the mail ballots have purportedly been received and counted.

In almost any US election of the 20th century, the election would have mostly been considered “over” late Tuesday or early Wednesday. Perhaps a few razor-thin races might remain unresolved, with recounts in the offing.

Not that there wasn’t any grousing about it. Many still living can recall the claims in 1960 that “the graveyards of Chicago” brought in late and fraudulent votes to put John F. Kennedy over the top versus Richard Nixon for president. But that grousing was after the fact — the election was “over” and by golly those deemed winners were certain to take office.

These days, elections don’t end when the votes are cast and counted. In every close race (and many not-so-close races) of consequence, the supposed losers and their supporters move immediately to screeching “Rigged! Stolen!”

They demand recounts. They go to court seeking to have ballot boxes seized and election officials indicted.

In one case, which you may remember, they even stormed the Capitol to prevent certification of the results and, potentially, to hang the vice-president of the United States as he presided over said certification.

In another, earlier case, the losing candidate immediately went to work trying to blame Russian meddling, rather than her lackluster campaign and well-deserved negative public image, for her loss.

How did we get here? I trace it all back to a presidential election which was arguably actually “stolen.”

In 2000, it came down to 537 votes in Florida. The courts halted recounts and declared George W. Bush the winner; subsequent analyses almost uniformly concluded that Al Gore would have won the presidency if the recounts had proceeded.

Attempts to undo the courts’ rulings failed, in part because Gore, himself vice-president, congenially presided over Congress’s certification of his loss instead of going to war over the matter. But Democrats never forgave, or forgot … and we entered a new era of bipartisan “fight them until hell freezes over, then fight them on the ice.”

No matter what happens today, expect Election 2026 to drag on into the new year.

If the predicted “blue wave” materializes, Republicans will contest every close election both in the courts and, quite possibly, by declining to seat newly elected Democrats in the US House and Senate. They’ll declare any and every unfavorable result “rigged” or “fraudulent.”

If the “blue wave” crests lower than predicted, Democrats will contest every close election in the courts and declare any unfavorable result “rigged” or “fraudulent.”

Those of us who expect (and usually get) business as usual from government no matter how elections come out can only shake our heads and note “play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

If you voted last week, or vote today, I won’t put you down for it. I voted too, because voting is one way of expressing my opinion and I like to express my opinion.

But voting is mostly just entertainment — and the Great Election Show, like Happy Days, has long since “jumped the shark.”

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY