I thought Daylight Savings time ends in November?

[Citizen]

SNIP Sorry, but right now the prevailing consensus in time measurement includes a one hour shift in the spring and the fall...

Are you arguing the consensus, or the constitutionality?

Remember, the consensus of many, many Americans is that you should just hand over your ID to a cop when requested. You should cooperate with the police; if you are doing nothing wrong, you should have nothing to hide.

Again, fixing a standard of measurement is different from arbitrarily shifting.

 

[boyscout399]

Are you arguing the consensus, or the constitutionality?

Remember, the consensus of many, many Americans is that you should just hand over your ID to a cop when requested. You should cooperate with the police; if you are doing nothing wrong, you should have nothing to hide.

Again, fixing a standard of measurement is different from arbitrarily shifting.

did you read the quote from the Heritage? The clause was put into the constitution to allow congress to set measures "according to the prevailing consensus." Measures are supposed to be set according to the prevailing consensus. So yes I'm arguing that the prevailing consensus for measuring time includes an arbitrary shift...

Rights are not subject to the prevailing consensus, measures are, your argument about rights is not relevant to this subject.

 

[Citizen]

did you read the quote from the Heritage? The clause was put into the constitution to allow congress to set measures "according to the prevailing consensus." Measures are supposed to be set according to the prevailing consensus. So yes I'm arguing that the prevailing consensus for measuring time includes an arbitrary shift...

Rights are not subject to the prevailing consensus, measures are, your argument about rights is not relevant to this subject.

OK, I'm about to stop talking with you. Stop ignoring distinctions. This post. Or, else I walk away from the discussion. You can talk to the rest of the gang all you want; but I don't have to keep batting back your failures to think coupled with light insults.

Setting measures according to consensus means the setting happens after the consensus. An example in another area would be Thomas Jefferson declaring the dollar as the monetary unit. He did not just up and decide to call the unit a dollar. All he was doing was declaring what was already occurring--people were regularly using the Spanish dollar coin.

There was no goddam regular time shifting already occurring by consensus that congress and the president then codified into law. It was their forcing it on people by law that finally created the consensus that this is the way things are done in this country. And, even if there were, shifting is not setting a unit of measure.

 

[boyscout399]

OK, I'm about to stop talking with you. Stop ignoring distinctions. This post. Or, else I walk away from the discussion. You can talk to the rest of the gang all you want; but I don't have to keep batting back your failures to think coupled with light insults.

Setting measures according to consensus means the setting happens after the consensus. An example in another area would be Thomas Jefferson declaring the dollar as the monetary unit. He did not just up and decide to call the unit a dollar. All he was doing was declaring what was already occurring--people were regularly using the Spanish dollar coin.

There was no goddam regular time shifting already occurring by consensus that congress and the president then codified into law. It was their forcing it on people by law that finally created the consensus that this is the way things are done in this country. And, even if there were, shifting is not setting a unit of measure.

I did not mean to insult and I apologize if anything I said came across that way.

Can you site your source where you say that there wasn't already a regular time shifting occuring when the US codified daylight savings time into law because Link shows that before the US codified daylight savings time into law it was adopted by Germany and Austria in 1916. It was then adopted by Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Turkey, and Tasmania. Nova Scotia and Manitoba with Britain following suit three weeks later. Then in 1917 Australia and Newfoundland adopted the standard. Then it was formally adopted into the United States 1918 when they saw that the prevailing consensus around Europe and the world was that this was going to be the standard for time.

 

[Citizen]

SNIP Can you site your source where you say that there wasn't already a regular time shifting occuring when the US codified daylight savings time into law because...

I'm betting you already understand that consensus in other countries does not support making a law here, so I won't argue that point.

I did not have a cite; I made an educated guess. Ben Franklin proposed it, but I had heard nothing about it prior to the 20th century, and couldn't recall even vaguely when it might have been started. However, I could just see a buncha Maine or Iowa farmers' reactions to being told what time it was, as if a government dictate would affect when then they got up to milk the cows or went to bed. Remember that even into the 20th century America was predominantly a rural nation. That is an awful lot of rural folks being told when to get up or go to bed in a sense. Plus, I had never heard of any such thing--a consensus of setting clocks front and back twice a year. This last, coupled with my estimation that a population would just never make that tradition on their own were what decided it for me.

However, a quick google turned up a wiki article. Just as one might suspect, DST was sufficiently unpopular that Congress abolished it after WWI. "Unpopular" equals no consensus, or rather it equals consensus running the other way: against.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_in_the_United_States

Even so, consensus or not, shifting is not measuring. Even if a majority of US citizens wanted DST, Congress has no authority under the weights and measures clause. Only if one stretches the commerce clause all out of shape can one plausibly assert congress has commerce authority.

Now, before anybody comes back and points out "the wiki article says the transportation industry requested federal law for uniform time zones" and "the standard for changing an area of the country from one time zone to another is convenience of commerce" let me point out that there is a difference between setting a time zone under commerce clause authority, and shifting the time around twice a year. One might as well say there is no human activity that is out of reach of the commerce clause if a connected something comes in reach just because the first something was found to be within reach.

 

[boyscout399]

I'm betting you already understand that consensus in other countries does not support making a law here, so I won't argue that point.

I did not have a cite; I made an educated guess. Ben Franklin proposed it, but I had heard nothing about it prior to the 20th century, and couldn't recall even vaguely when it might have been started. However, I could just see a buncha Maine or Iowa farmers' reactions to being told what time it was, as if a government dictate would affect when then they got up to milk the cows or went to bed. Remember that even into the 20th century America was predominantly a rural nation. That is an awful lot of rural folks being told when to get up or go to bed in a sense. Plus, I had never heard of any such thing--a consensus of setting clocks front and back twice a year. This last, coupled with my estimation that a population would just never make that tradition on their own were what decided it for me.

However, a quick google turned up a wiki article. Just as one might suspect, DST was sufficiently unpopular that Congress abolished it after WWI. "Unpopular" equals no consensus, or rather it equals consensus running the other way: against.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_in_the_United_States

Even so, consensus or not, shifting is not measuring. Even if a majority of US citizens wanted DST, Congress has no authority under the weights and measures clause. Only if one stretches the commerce clause all out of shape can one plausibly assert congress has commerce authority.

Now, before anybody comes back and points out "the wiki article says the transportation industry requested federal law for uniform time zones" and "the standard for changing an area of the country from one time zone to another is convenience of commerce" let me point out that there is a difference between setting a time zone under commerce clause authority, and shifting the time around twice a year. One might as well say there is no human activity that is out of reach of the commerce clause if a connected something comes in reach just because the first something was found to be within reach.

We'll have to table this and decide to disagree then because I still contend that setting the time and how it works is a form of measurement. Also as far as measurement of things goes I believe that a worldwide consensus outweighs a national consensus because of it's affect on international commerce. I mean if the whole world measures a kilogram according to the French Kilogram standard and the US goes and says, nope a kilogram is 17lbs, not 2.2 lbs. Then that's going to greatly affect our commerce with every other nation making conversion all the more difficult...

Furthermore, when the law was resisted as being unpopular and not within US consensus, it was repealed after WWI. I see no problem with this if it didn't follow the consensus of how time was measured... It went on and off throughout the decades until the 1960s... then By 1966, some 100 million Americans were observing Daylight Saving Time based on their local laws and customs US population was less than 200M, so more than half the US was in fact already using Daylight Savings Time when the Uniform Time Act of 1966 finally passed it into law. To this day current polling data shows general support for DST because people enjoy the light into the evenings as it allows them to do things later. I would therefore conclude that when that act was passed there WAS a general consensus in the US (of course there was some resistance, your farmer example was one such resistant group). And there is some resistance today to DST, but the general consensus is still that it's a good thing and the benefit to a uniformity of time standards throughout the country cannot be denied. Also built into the law is a State's ability to opt out of the DST standard if they so choose, so again I don't see the problem with the law if it allows for a state's ability to opt out of it if they so choose. The fact that they don't opt out I believe once again clearly shows a consensus in support of this standard.

 

[Bookman]

Then what's this? Apparently it ends tonight?

At two o'clock antemeridian Pacific Standard Time of the *last Sunday in April each year the time of the state of Washington shall be advanced one hour, and at two o'clock antemeridian Pacific Standard Time of the last Sunday in October in each year the time of the state of Washington shall, by the retarding of one hour, be returned to Pacific Standard Time.

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=1.20.051

This has been the standard for so many years that I set my clock back Sunday morning (10/31) and was a half hour late for work.

 

[eye95]

The current federal DST law standardizes the dates on which the clocks change. Prior to that, individual States could set their own dates, creating confusion in interstate transactions.

The current federal DST law still permits States to opt out of the change for the entire State or for entire portions of the State within a time zone when the State encompasses more than one time zone.

Measurement is used to quantify amounts of an entity and to establish points within entities relative to a reference point. We can measure the size of an object and we can measure its location relative to a point of reference. We have standards for measures of distance to facilitate this. We can measure elapsed time and we can assign a number to a point in time, such as 3 PM (3 hours past the reference point in time called "Noon.") We have standards for measure of time to facilitate this.

The Constitution charges Congress with setting standards for measures. Plain reading of this provision says that Congress has the power to set the standards for measuring time, whether the standard describes how to measure an amount of time, or the standard describes how to measure a point in time, including defining a reference point for measuring points in time.

Congress has wisely standardized that which needed to be standardized for interstate transactions (when clocks change) to avoid constantly changing relative times, and has not standardized that which would unnecessarily restrict States' Rights (whether clocks change).

We may not like the amount of control that Congress tries to exert over us (I don't), but, rationally, one has to appreciate that Congress walked the fine line between necessary governance and oppression perfectly in this instance.

One could argue the unnecessity of DST, but the way the federal law is written, that is a State issue. If you don't like DST, encourage your State legislature to pass a law opting out of DST. But, the Congress has the black-letter power to legislate DST and has show admirable restraint in not mandating it--although it constitutionally could.

 

[Coded-Dude]

But kids need more daylight to trick or treat in.........! /facetious

 

[Hunterdave]

" Only if one stretches the commerce clause all out of shape can one plausibly assert congress has commerce authority."



Congress would never do that!!!

 

[eye95]

" Only if one stretches the commerce clause all out of shape can one plausibly assert congress has commerce authority."

Congress would never do that!!!

Setting standards for weights and measures is its own clause. I am sure one of the reasons was to facilitate commerce, however Congress' power to set standards of measurement, including for time, does not rely on the interstate commerce clause at all.

If we want to be credible in criticizing Congress for overstepping its bounds, we need to recognize when they do manage to operate strictly within the enumerated powers. DST is such a case.

 

[Citizen]

We'll have to table this and decide to disagree then because I still contend that setting the time and how it works is a form of measurement.

Translation: "I can't support my contention."

You can try. I'm not gonna let you off the hook that easily. Support your contention by directly addressing two points, sticking to the exact points, and not reaching or stretching to accomplish it without a thorough explanation that makes good sense.

1) How is shifting time the same as defining a unit of time? How is shifting time a form of measuring it?

2) What does a pre-existing consensus about a unit of measure being used by government to define/set the units of measures have to do with a consensus about whether people like the idea of shifting time around?

 

[boyscout399]

Translation: "I can't support my contention."

You can try. I'm not gonna let you off the hook that easily. Support your contention by directly addressing two points, sticking to the exact points, and not reaching or stretching to accomplish it without a thorough explanation that makes good sense.

1) How is shifting time the same as defining a unit of time? How is shifting time a form of measuring it?

2) What does a pre-existing consensus about a unit of measure being used by government to define/set the units of measures have to do with a consensus about whether people like the idea of shifting time around?

I have already answered these questions, you just don't agree with what I said...

Shifting time is NOT the same as defining a unit of time. I never said it was. But the weights and measures clause is not limited to defining units. It defines how something is measured. here's an absurd example using another unit of measurement to display my point: lets say the prevailing consensus for measuring the kilogram is that a kilogram is 2.2lbs, but EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE WORLD also says that every 3rd kilogram is 2.7lbs. Would Congress not be authorized to follow that prevailing consensus and arbitrarily shift the size of a kilogram every third kilogram? I think that they would be authorized to follow the prevailing consensus considering everyone was already measuring that way anyway...

People were already using DST before it was put into law. And even once it WAS put into law, it was STILL optional!!! If you don't like it, why don't you lobby your state to opt out of it? The simply answer to that is because you wouldn't get anywhere because it's widely supported. It's the standard. Get over it.

As far as question number two I don't really know what you're getting at with it. Both situations happened and/or are happening. There was a pre-existing consensus. Most states and most other countries were already using DST when it was coded into law in 1966. Also, it was widely supported by a consensus of people liking the idea of using it in 1966 and that consensus still exists today. Yes, some groups such as farmers didn't agree with it, but they were for all intents and purposes, outvoted by everyone else. Once again I mention that the law is NOT a mandate. It has an opt out clause that allows states to decide NOT to follow DST... So what's the problem? This law is basically a suggestion that everyone agreed with.

 

[eye95]

I have already answered these questions, you just don't agree with what I said...

Shifting time is NOT the same as defining a unit of time. I never said it was. But the weights and measures clause is not limited to defining units. It defines how something is measured. here's an absurd example using another unit of measurement to display my point: lets say the prevailing consensus for measuring the kilogram is that a kilogram is 2.2lbs, but EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE WORLD also says that every 3rd kilogram is 2.7lbs. Would Congress not be authorized to follow that prevailing consensus and arbitrarily shift the size of a kilogram every third kilogram? I think that they would be authorized to follow the prevailing consensus considering everyone was already measuring that way anyway...

People were already using DST before it was put into law. And even once it WAS put into law, it was STILL optional!!! If you don't like it, why don't you lobby your state to opt out of it? The simply answer to that is because you wouldn't get anywhere because it's widely supported. It's the standard. Get over it.

As far as question number two I don't really know what you're getting at with it. Both situations happened and/or are happening. There was a pre-existing consensus. Most states and most other countries were already using DST when it was coded into law in 1966. Also, it was widely supported by a consensus of people liking the idea of using it in 1966 and that consensus still exists today. Yes, some groups such as farmers didn't agree with it, but they were for all intents and purposes, outvoted by everyone else. Once again I mention that the law is NOT a mandate. It has an opt out clause that allows states to decide NOT to follow DST... So what's the problem? This law is basically a suggestion that everyone agreed with.

We use measurement in two fundamental ways: magnitude and relative position.

In terms of distance, magnitude measures how large something is size-wise. He is two meters tall. The box is 36 inches wide.

In terms of distance, relative position, location, is measured in terms of a reference point, a direction, and a distance. Montgomery is 90 miles south of Birmingham. He lives in the third house from the corner on the left.

In defining a system of weights and measures, we have to define the sizes of our units and reference points.

For distance, common defined reference points are the Sun and the Prime Meridian. For compass readings, due North is the starting point. For time during the day, it's midnight.

If we don't agree on when midnight occurs for a particular time zone, measurements of locations in time (time of day) have no agreed-upon meeting. Therefore, not only should we have a defined length of a second in order to measure an amount of time, we also need agreed-upon reference points in time from which we can apply measurements of lengths of time to pinpoint a precise time of day.

When clocks are shifted, we are setting up a new agreed-upon reference point, a new midnight.

So while shifting time (picking a reference point) is not a unit of time, setting the two standards are integral foundations to being able to measure elapsed time and points in time.

So, I wouldn't cave on that point too easily.

BTW, I used to teach math and physics. I have a pretty good handle on units of measure and relative measurement using points of reference. Einstein and Newton kind of relied on both facets of measurement to explain their theories and laws. Both facets of measurement are necessary to conduct experiments that prove the usefulness of those theories and laws.

When Congress was given the power to set standards for weights and measures, they were given the power to set the size of units and to set various reference points needed so that not only could two people could agree on the size of things, but when and where they are.

 

[boyscout399]

We use measurement in two fundamental ways: magnitude and relative position.

In terms of distance, magnitude measures how large something is size-wise. He is two meters tall. The box is 36 inches wide.

In terms of distance, relative position, location, is measured in terms of a reference point, a direction, and a distance. Montgomery is 90 miles south of Birmingham. He lives in the third house from the corner on the left.

In defining a system of weights and measures, we have to define the sizes of our units and reference points.

For distance, common defined reference points are the Sun and the Prime Meridian. For compass readings, due North is the starting point. For time during the day, it's midnight.

If we don't agree on when midnight occurs for a particular time zone, measurements of locations in time (time of day) have no agreed-upon meeting. Therefore, not only should we have a defined length of a second in order to measure an amount of time, we also need agreed-upon reference points in time from which we can apply measurements of lengths of time to pinpoint a precise time of day.

When clocks are shifted, we are setting up a new agreed-upon reference point, a new midnight.

So while shifting time (picking a reference point) is not a unit of time, setting the two standards are integral foundations to being able to measure elapsed time and points in time.

So, I wouldn't cave on that point too easily.

BTW, I used to teach math and physics. I have a pretty good handle on units of measure and relative measurement using points of reference. Einstein and Newton kind of relied on both facets of measurement to explain their theories and laws. Both facets of measurement are necessary to conduct experiments that prove the usefulness of those theories and laws.

When Congress was given the power to set standards for weights and measures, they were given the power to set the size of units and to set various reference points needed so that not only could two people could agree on the size of things, but when and where they are.

Awesome post and very informative, thank you for showing the point so well.

 

[GWbiker]

Come to Arizona where we don't have no steekin' Day Light Saving Time - except for the Navajo Nation.

 

[PT111]

The government does set time standards and the shift to DST but remember you do not have to shift you time. You can use any time standard you want to and call it anything you want to. Only businesses and governments have to obey the time standards. You can report to work at 8:00 or 9:00 or noon by your time but it has to be at 8:00 by the company's time. An airplane takes off at 10:05 and lands at 9:45 by the airlines time but you can call it whatever you want to. Sounds to me like the government does have the authority to set time standards and makes perfect sense to me for them to. Time zones and standards actually only became necessary when the trains started running so that people could actually determine the schedules. Before then there wasn't a real need for standardized time.

 

[eye95]

It's silly not to follow standards. You cannot communicate with anyone following a different standard. If you agree to meet with someone at Noon, unless you are using the same reference points and the same length of a unit of time, the chances of Noon happening at the same time in the two systems is near nil.

We need standards, and, unless there is a groundswell of agreement to informally set a standard, the logical agent to set standards is the government, based on the best consensus they observe.

Setting standards of measurement is a valid function of government. Following standards of measurement is wise.