On December 13, president-elect Donald Trump pledged on Truth Social that in his coming term the Republican Party will “use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time.”

It’s not very often I agree with US presidents, but I like to give credit where credit is due, and I’m 100% with Trump on this. It’s long past time to end the semi-annual American ritual of “springing forward” and “falling back.”

Trump characterizes that ritual as “inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation.” He’s right on both counts.

Every year, twice a year, Americans’ bodies spend days or weeks adjusting to a sudden one-hour real (as opposed to clock-designated) change in when we go to bed and when we get up.

That’s both annoying and costly.

Less annoying in the age of “everything connected to the Internet” than it was back in the days when every clock in the house had to be manually adjusted, but still annoying … and annoying in different ways to different people.

I know people who prefer their daylight “early” (for example, because they’re driving to work at 7am). They’d prefer to end Daylight Saving time and remain on “standard” time.

I know people who prefer their daylight “late” (I’m one of them — if I have outside work to do at home, I prefer to do it in the evening). They’d prefer that the current Daylight Saving Time become “standard” time year-round.

I don’t know anyone who likes hopping back and forth. If the idea ever made any sense, back when not everyone had electric lighting, farming wasn’t very industrialized, and most businesses ran fixed daytime shifts, it stopped making that kind of sense a long time ago.

As for the practice being “costly,” some economic analyses do posit costs to businesses — higher utility bills, etc. — from the changes, but the most obvious cost is counted in human life.

“Springing forward” results, according to a 2016 study, in an average of 30 extra deaths in car accidents each year — exactly the outcome one might expect from millions of tired drivers with discombobulated circadian rhythms  getting behind the wheel when it SHOULD be daylight but is instead still dark.

That cost in human life has economic consequences as well. According to the National Safety Council, each car crash death comes with various costs to various parties totaling $1.869 million. Traffic fatalities from “springing forward” cost $56 million every year. Injuries and “fender bender” costs probably total far more.

By comparison to a century, or even a few decades, ago, America has become a  flexible 24/7 society rather than a said daylight-to-dark society. Having the government dictate clock setting changes makes that fluidity more annoying, costly, and dangerous. Pick a standard and stick to it year-round.

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

In 2016, Donald Trump ran for president as a kinda-sorta, maybe-a-little-bit, “antiwar” candidate.

Once in office, however, he escalated every war he had inherited, ending none of them, “surging” US troops into Syria and Afghanistan, making a public head-fake at withdrawing from Syria before changing his mind, abrogating the Iran “nuclear deal,” and negotiating a withdrawal agreement on Afghanistan that he could have completed, but chose not to, leaving the task to his successor so as to shift blame for what a lost war looks like.

This year, Trump once again ran — and won — as a kinda-sorta, maybe-a-little-bit, “antiwar” candidate, mainly on his claim that he could negotiate a “deal” with Russian president Vladimir Putin to end the US proxy war in Ukraine.

Should we have believed him this time? His prospective appointees to office are a mixed bag on the subject of foreign military entanglements, but a recent event in Congress provides strong evidence that the answer is “no.”

On December 9, Republicans selected US Representative Brian Mast of Florida to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mast was considered a dark horse candidate for the position, entering the race late. How did he win?

“Insiders,”  the Jewish Telegraph Agency reports, “say that President-elect Donald Trump lobbied the Republican Steering Committee, which names committee chairs, to choose Mast.”

If you’re looking for a foreign military misadventure, Mast is your man in Congress to drum one up on demand and with enthusiasm.

He’s most notable for being pretty much the most “pro-Israel” member of the House — so much so that, after the Israel-Gaza war broke out last year, he wore his Israeli Defense Forces uniform to the Capitol.

No, I’m not kidding. In 2015, Mast volunteered with the IDF in a non-combat role (he’s a double amputee, wounded in Afghanistan as an explosive ordnance disposal technician). To each their own, I guess, but a congressman wearing the uniform of a foreign power’s army to the Capitol probably wouldn’t fly if it was any foreign power other than Israel, Washington’s favorite welfare client.

In 2016, Mast called for “an all-out military effort” in Syria.

Last year, supporting Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, he opposed humanitarian aid, claiming it was “not a far stretch to say there are very few innocent Palestinian civilians.”

While he did vote against additional US military aid to Ukraine earlier this year, his reasoning wasn’t that US intervention is a bad idea as such, but rather “because Europe has all the money it needs to ensure Kyiv’s survival if only it would open up its wallet to the extent it expects America to do.”

Mast isn’t just a “hawk.” He’s a warmonger of the first order. And while he’s turned out to be a Trump toady on most issues, his bellicose foreign policy positions are what he’s primarily known for.

Trump’s backing of Mast for a key foreign policy position establishes, to a high degree of confidence, that Trump has no intention of a second term that’s even kinda-sorta, maybe-a-little-bit, “antiwar.”

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

In late November, by a vote of 330 to 275, the British House of Commons supported a bill which will “allow” doctors to assist terminally ill patients, facing prognoses of death within six months, in ending their own lives.

Responses in the United Kingdom and elsewhere range from gratitude to outrage.

Oddly, much of the outrage comes from supporters of a “right to life” who oppose abortion and, when they’re consistent, capital punishment.

Consistency would also dictate recognition of your personal rights of ownership over your life.

Decreeing that you  may not be killed in the womb, or by another person, but that your rights end if you want to end it all, is a claim that you are property without inherent rights.

The “right to life” these advocates assert is, in this context, no different than a “right” to not have their cattle stolen or their slaves escape. It’s not about the opinions of the cattle or the slaves. It’s about exercising ownership rights over the cattle and the slaves.

The basis of any plausible “right to life” — or any other right — is self-ownership. It’s your life. You own it. It’s yours to do with as you wish, so long as you don’t infringe the equal rights of others.

It’s also yours to end, when and how you wish, so long as — again — you don’t violate others’ rights  with the way you end it.

There are obvious areas of reasonable disagreement on when that’s true or not, such as in cases of diminished mental capacity due to youth, dementia, etc.  But there’s no reasonable argument for  conditioning your exercise of that right on the arbitrary whims of government.

Maybe you’re terminally ill and don’t want to face your final moments in pain.

Maybe you’re IN pain that’s incurable, intolerable, and unlikely to cease.

Maybe the love of your life died and you don’t relish living out years or decades in your partner’s absence.

Maybe your situation has you believing that your continued existence will impose undue hardships on people you love.

Those are all reasons. Maybe “good” reasons. But your reasons don’t have to be “good” for the decision to remain, by right, yours and yours alone. Maybe you flipped a coin. Perhaps your religious beliefs say that you’ve reached your permissible lifespan. Your call.

If you don’t possess the right to end your life, you possess no rights at all.

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