BRING BACK THE BLUE LAWS
THE WORDWRIGHT WELCOMES back his friend in Cincinnati, Ohio, BILL VOLKART
BLUE LAWS 2008
by Bill Volkart
Copyright 2008
In these uncertain times the cost of energy has become a tipping point for most Americans. A do nothing Congress, no new drilling, no new refineries etc. etc. wow. No wonder the price of gas and electricity and lots of other stuff is so high. May a humble citizen of the Realm make a suggestion that no one will like but would certainly work? Bring back the Blue Laws.
Those younger readers may already be googling the term but I will save you the trouble. The original intent of the Blue Laws were dictated by the influence of the church, in a vain attempt to hold onto the concept of 'keeping the Sabbath holy', which dictated that all businesses would close on Sunday. This did not involve services such as hospitals, police, fire and other needed services, just retail mainly. It assured a quiet Sunday when people stayed at home and enjoyed their families and aside from a trip to church, people seldom went anywhere.
Today the same thing without the religious overtones could be applied once again. Imagine the savings in gasoline and electricity taking one day off could do. One seventh of normal gasoline consumption would be largely eliminated, the huge electric demands of shopping centers and strip malls and a thousand smaller retail outlets would cease for a day, saving untold millions of kilowatt hours and the fuel needed to generate said kilowatts. Best of all, people would still have six days to get their business done and be all but guaranteed of a day off once a week. With people all complaining about the lack of free time to unwind and the high cost of energy it seems like a win win situation to me.
Of course the naysayers will be all over this idea with their doom and gloom predictions of business failures, public resistance to not being able to shop on Sunday, ad nauseum. Had the same attitude existed in World War II we would likely be speaking Japanese or German now. You have to have faith that the American people would suffer the pain of having to take a day off once a week and watch TV or grill some burgers. Not so much to ask compared to ration stamps.
I will be the first to admit this simple idea might not work in the modern American society but it costs little to try it and no bureaucracy to run it, all we have to do as a nation is agree to stay home on Sunday and not go to work, shopping or adventuring. Just stay in a nice comfy chair with a cold beer and a ham sandwich (with ham bought one of the other six days) and don't go out. That is all you have to do. Is your life so screwed up that you can't manage to do such a simple thing? I hope not or we are all going to be picking trash piles for scrap metal and uneaten Big Macs.
So what will it be America? Can you manage to take one day off a week to save the life you live on the other six days? Can you find it in your heart to listen to the radio on the front porch drinking lemonade and watching the children play? If you can we might just all get through this with our skins. If not we deserve whatever happens to us. But I for one will not feel guilty if it does. I warned you.
THE WORDWRIGHT SAYS, "THANK YOU, BILL"