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What are blue laws? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:13
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and of
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Speaker 1: course the Greatest the Goat Jerry is with us as well.
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Speaker 1: It's just a quietly lurking in the background, the Greatest Goat, HM,
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Speaker 1: the Greatest. How you doing, I'm doing good, Chuck, I'm
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Speaker 1: I'm a little This was one of your picks, but
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Speaker 1: I think I might be a little more enthusiastic about
0:38
Speaker 1: this one than you. Why do you say that? Because
0:41
Speaker 1: I said this is boring, they fully recorded a little
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Speaker 1: bit that may have something to do with it, and
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Speaker 1: then me saying, oh, no, I think it's pretty interesting.
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Speaker 1: Oh I don't think it's really that boring. And it
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Speaker 1: was my pick, um, Yeah, what made you choose that? Well,
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Speaker 1: I mean we're talking about blue laws, and just very quickly,
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Speaker 1: blue laws are our laws from ancient times that have
1:02
Speaker 1: carried over still in some places to modern day America
1:06
Speaker 1: and other countries as well. I guess that restrict certain
1:09
Speaker 1: activities on certain days. But generally in the United States,
1:12
Speaker 1: we think of blue laws are things that you can't
1:15
Speaker 1: do on Sundays a lot of time. Their vices like
1:19
Speaker 1: you can't drink or buy alcohol until sometimes at all,
1:22
Speaker 1: or until certain times, or maybe restrict working or gambling
1:27
Speaker 1: or you know, just various things. But uh, we had
1:30
Speaker 1: our own blue law, one blue law at least on
1:33
Speaker 1: the books in Georgia until just a few years ago,
1:35
Speaker 1: you could not buy alcohol on Sunday at all. Yeah.
1:40
Speaker 1: I think Georgia was the last state to repeal a
1:43
Speaker 1: full Sunday prohibition on buying alcohol full prohibition. But then
1:49
Speaker 1: I mean it passed by a ridiculous measure, something like
1:55
Speaker 1: but you still can't buy booze before I think noon
1:58
Speaker 1: on Sunday. And that's weird. And it seems like if
2:02
Speaker 1: you step back, if you were an alien, let's say, right,
2:04
Speaker 1: and you came down and you're like, that's a great way.
2:08
Speaker 1: So let's say you're work from work, right, Okay, that's
2:11
Speaker 1: what you just reminded me of. And you show up
2:14
Speaker 1: with your super cool block color puffy vest and you say,
2:18
Speaker 1: I want to familiarize myself with laws. This would makes sense.
2:21
Speaker 1: This makes sense. What you can't buy alcohol before noon
2:24
Speaker 1: on Sunday, So that doesn't make any sense. That was
2:27
Speaker 1: my impression of mark Um. If he dug a little deeper,
2:33
Speaker 1: it would become obvious that it makes a ton of
2:35
Speaker 1: sense if you're coming at it from the vantage point
2:38
Speaker 1: of a Christian in the Western hemisphere who observes Sunday
2:43
Speaker 1: as the day of um worship and rest. Right outside
2:49
Speaker 1: of that context, it doesn't make sense. And there in
2:51
Speaker 1: lies the rub. There's the big push and pull between
2:55
Speaker 1: people who are like America is founded essentially on the
2:58
Speaker 1: idea and promise the separation of church and state. We're
3:02
Speaker 1: supposed to keep those two separate, So we shouldn't have
3:04
Speaker 1: the state making laws that enthusiastically support one of the
3:08
Speaker 1: tenets of this one particular church Christianity, which is you
3:13
Speaker 1: should not be doing a whole lot of stuff on
3:15
Speaker 1: Sunday and you should probably be going to church. And
3:19
Speaker 1: other people who say no, no, that's it's actually a
3:21
Speaker 1: really really good thing to do. This even if you
3:23
Speaker 1: don't believe in religion, even if you don't go to church,
3:25
Speaker 1: blue laws actually still help us out right. There have
3:30
Speaker 1: been arguments, including as we will learn, all the way
3:32
Speaker 1: up to the Supreme Court, that say, well, it may
3:36
Speaker 1: have started religious, but there are many secular benefits two, um,
3:41
Speaker 1: sort of forcing families to all be off work on
3:45
Speaker 1: the same day at gunpoint, go play together, right, take
3:50
Speaker 1: a walk. So I propose we talked about the history
3:53
Speaker 1: of blue laws first and then kind of get into
3:55
Speaker 1: some of the wackier ones and then talk about legality
3:58
Speaker 1: and so on, and so you could call what I'm
4:01
Speaker 1: doing now the table of contents? Do you agree to
4:03
Speaker 1: this table of contents? Uh? So? Are you saying you
4:06
Speaker 1: want to skip ahead to the where did blue laws
4:09
Speaker 1: come from? That is my proposal. Okay, I love you
4:13
Speaker 1: springing this stuff on me. I am flexible, though I
4:18
Speaker 1: know nimble, I know crazy. All I have to do
4:22
Speaker 1: is shuffle some paper. Okay, you're eighteen. I mean it
4:26
Speaker 1: makes sense because, yeah, if you are an outside observer,
4:29
Speaker 1: even if you're an inside observer, you might not realize
4:32
Speaker 1: how ancient that the Blue laws are and that they actually, um,
4:37
Speaker 1: conceivably they don't necessarily predate Christianity, but they weren't necessarily Um,
4:44
Speaker 1: they're pretty old. How about that? Well? Yeah, I mean,
4:48
Speaker 1: anyone who grew up going to church knows about the
4:50
Speaker 1: ten Commandments and knows that that fourth commandment says, remember
4:53
Speaker 1: the Sabbath day to keep it holy or and keep
4:56
Speaker 1: it holy. And depending on what religion you are, that
5:00
Speaker 1: could be a different day. Judaism Saturday. If your Seventh
5:04
Speaker 1: day Adventist, that's Saturday. But Christianity at a certain point
5:09
Speaker 1: between the second and fifth centuries were like, yeah, you know,
5:12
Speaker 1: let's distance ourselves from Judaism and let's move our day
5:16
Speaker 1: to Sunday. Uh that way we can have our own day.
5:20
Speaker 1: We can tell everybody they're observing the wrong day, and
5:25
Speaker 1: it's a win win. Yeah. There's also, um the knock
5:29
Speaker 1: on effect of taking over Sunday from the Pagans who
5:34
Speaker 1: um observed Sunday as the day to worship the Sun Sunday.
5:40
Speaker 1: So it was basically total and complete encroachment and actually
5:44
Speaker 1: moving the day, the Sabbath day to Sunday. That that
5:47
Speaker 1: caused that. It's pretty pretty interesting. I hadn't known that before,
5:52
Speaker 1: and it's it's so, let's so now we have like
5:54
Speaker 1: the Christians saying, okay, everybody change the plans like that
5:58
Speaker 1: guy on the Fidelity commercial change plants. I haven't seen that.
6:02
Speaker 1: Oh man, it sounds like a Bond villain. It's crazy.
6:05
Speaker 1: Uh So, So the point was that the Christians said okay, everybody,
6:10
Speaker 1: the Sabbath is now on Sunday. And then they followed
6:13
Speaker 1: that up with really enforcing that that originally Jewish um tenant,
6:19
Speaker 1: which was like basically, observe a day of rest and
6:22
Speaker 1: worship on the Sabbath and don't do anything else. Right,
6:27
Speaker 1: And um, we don't know exactly when the first laws
6:30
Speaker 1: were enacted, but it could have been. And this is
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Speaker 1: the grabster that helped put this one together for us.
6:35
Speaker 1: So thanks to add for that. But uh, possibly in
6:39
Speaker 1: three sixty three, a d at the Council of uh
6:44
Speaker 1: Ladocia does see you. I would say, Leo to see you,
6:49
Speaker 1: Leo to see you. That's my I thought that a
6:52
Speaker 1: might be silent. But weren't you raised Baptists. You don't
6:55
Speaker 1: know about the council of Leo to see you. I
6:58
Speaker 1: had never heard of it, truly, you are Joe King.
7:00
Speaker 1: I am Joey al right, Because that was a meeting
7:03
Speaker 1: of of leaders in the Christian religion who said we
7:06
Speaker 1: need to get some laws on the books. I'm surprised
7:08
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard of it, but I hadn't or possibly
7:11
Speaker 1: the first laws were from ancient Rome, uh, and I
7:15
Speaker 1: saw various Roman emperors who could have been responsible for these.
7:19
Speaker 1: I saw Constantine in three twenty one. Yeah, I think
7:23
Speaker 1: I saw one of the other dudes. But I got
7:25
Speaker 1: that from the Valdosta Times. Take that or leave it,
7:33
Speaker 1: that's right. So so you had a bunch of Christian rulers,
7:36
Speaker 1: essentially is the upshot of all this that kind of
7:38
Speaker 1: took over and started issuing these proclamations and new crees
7:42
Speaker 1: and stuff about observing the Sabbath. Right. Yeah, for like
7:46
Speaker 1: hundreds of years this happened in various ways, various loss thing.
7:50
Speaker 1: You can do this, you can't do that. Uh, it
7:54
Speaker 1: was I think the Protestants were a little less into it,
7:58
Speaker 1: but not real I mean, they were still into it.
8:02
Speaker 1: I think it would be disingenuous to say the Protestants
8:04
Speaker 1: were just fine with it, well supposedly with doing whatever
8:07
Speaker 1: on Sunday, supposedly, right. I think it wasn't that they
8:11
Speaker 1: weren't They weren't cool with just not having a day,
8:13
Speaker 1: a Sabbath day of some sort. It was Martin Luther
8:16
Speaker 1: wasn't big in following the old time rules, and he
8:19
Speaker 1: was saying, it doesn't have to be Sunday, don't be ridiculous,
8:22
Speaker 1: just but do a day a week. Um. But the
8:25
Speaker 1: irony of the whole thing is that Protestants would come
8:27
Speaker 1: to be like some of the biggest enforcers and writers
8:32
Speaker 1: of blue laws in America, especially as Sunday being the
8:36
Speaker 1: Sabbath day, like defending Sunday in particular, right, and so
8:41
Speaker 1: you know, these get enacted there. Obviously, when the colonies
8:45
Speaker 1: are being formed, they make their way over there. The
8:48
Speaker 1: Puritans were like, oh, great, this is perfect. We're all
8:53
Speaker 1: about restricting people whenever Sunday. That's fine, we'll restrict people
8:57
Speaker 1: on Sunday. And by the time the colonies roll around,
9:00
Speaker 1: they were pretty well ensconced, such that there's even a story.
9:05
Speaker 1: I think you can really do much of anything on
9:07
Speaker 1: Sunday's in the colonial times. But there's a story from
9:10
Speaker 1: Sight nine where supposedly George Washington himself was was tracked
9:17
Speaker 1: down or at least stopped by a sheriff for going
9:20
Speaker 1: for traveling on a Sunday, even though he was traveling
9:22
Speaker 1: to church. Yeah, because the premise was that um, saddling
9:28
Speaker 1: up your horse or connecting a team of horses to
9:31
Speaker 1: a carriage or whatever that constituted labor, and you weren't
9:35
Speaker 1: doing any kind of labor on Sunday. And and speaking
9:38
Speaker 1: of the colonies, chock I turned up something about James
9:41
Speaker 1: Town's Blue Laws. Um, they had their first blue law
9:45
Speaker 1: enacted in sixteen ten, like right out of the gate.
9:48
Speaker 1: One of the first things they said was, here's some
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Speaker 1: blue laws. Everybody gather around. So basically you couldn't do
9:54
Speaker 1: like you were saying, anything on a Sunday. And uh,
10:00
Speaker 1: tendency at church was mandatory on Sunday. So the blue
10:03
Speaker 1: laws actually made a lot more sense in that context, right, Like,
10:07
Speaker 1: but I'm guessing there was that there's probably some sort
10:10
Speaker 1: of like social you know, people snitching on one another
10:13
Speaker 1: kind of thing, like you notice who's not here, right, right,
10:16
Speaker 1: But in that context, the blue law makes more sense
10:18
Speaker 1: because it's like, you were supposed to be in church
10:20
Speaker 1: and if you do anything other than church, here are
10:22
Speaker 1: your punishments. Right, But the punishments were really severe, Like
10:27
Speaker 1: the first time you were caught doing anything but going
10:31
Speaker 1: to church on a Sunday, you would go a week
10:35
Speaker 1: without food. Like they you got your food from like
10:38
Speaker 1: the village. The village all gathered and shared food. It
10:42
Speaker 1: was super socialist, right, and you weren't you were disinvited
10:44
Speaker 1: from that party until the next Sabbath. You did not
10:47
Speaker 1: get food, and that usually was enough to straighten anybody out.
10:50
Speaker 1: The second time you would lose your allowance for a week,
10:55
Speaker 1: and then you would also be whipped at the stake.
10:58
Speaker 1: The third time, they just told you. The third time
11:01
Speaker 1: they caught you doing something other than going to church
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Speaker 1: on the Sabbath, even say after you'd been to church
11:06
Speaker 1: that day, you they would kill you. That was the
11:09
Speaker 1: punishment for So they were quite serious about that kind
11:12
Speaker 1: of thing. Um. But over time that kind of fell
11:15
Speaker 1: away fell to the wayside, especially as America took up
11:20
Speaker 1: this project UM that was led by people like Thomas
11:24
Speaker 1: Jefferson called um disestablishmentarianism, right, yeah, and that's from the
11:31
Speaker 1: original word disestablishment. And then of course the very famous
11:35
Speaker 1: longer word that every elementary school student knows and can
11:40
Speaker 1: spell is the longest weird Is it still the longest word?
11:44
Speaker 1: I don't know, anti disestablishmentarianism, yes, which I always thought
11:50
Speaker 1: was just like what does that even mean? Like is
11:52
Speaker 1: that a real word? But it's a real word, And
11:54
Speaker 1: now that we know what all this means, it makes
11:56
Speaker 1: perfect sense. Yeah, because disestablishmentarianism was that movement that basically said, look,
12:02
Speaker 1: we need to get the government out of the business
12:04
Speaker 1: of supporting churches because there's a lot more churches than
12:08
Speaker 1: there used to be when we when we were colonies,
12:11
Speaker 1: a lot of different Christian sects, and the government shouldn't
12:15
Speaker 1: really throw its lawt into one against the other. That's
12:17
Speaker 1: a really English thing to do, because the I think
12:21
Speaker 1: even in the nineties, there was a movement or there's
12:23
Speaker 1: still a movement of foot in the UK to basically
12:26
Speaker 1: be like, okay, state, stop supporting the Anglican Church. It's
12:29
Speaker 1: not you know, there should be a separation. The Americans
12:33
Speaker 1: picked up on that very early on, and so that
12:36
Speaker 1: led to this um like a bunch of laws and
12:38
Speaker 1: stuff that basically said, we're we're supporting religious freedom, not
12:42
Speaker 1: casting our lot with one particular sect or religion or another.
12:46
Speaker 1: So here in America you can practice whatever religion you
12:48
Speaker 1: want and the go you can you can expect the
12:52
Speaker 1: government not to promote some other rival religion, somebody else's
12:56
Speaker 1: team over yours, because that's not fair. All right, you
13:00
Speaker 1: know what, that's a great cliffhanger. Uh, we'll take a
13:04
Speaker 1: little break here and we'll talk about what that resulted in, right,
13:07
Speaker 1: after this, all right, So here's where we are. Uh,
13:39
Speaker 1: the United States gets hit into disestablishment, which basically was, hey,
13:44
Speaker 1: we can't throw all of our eggs in one denominational basket,
13:49
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of different denominations here and
13:52
Speaker 1: we respect them all long as they're Christian. Basically that's
13:56
Speaker 1: a parenthetical to that song title. And uh, you know what,
14:01
Speaker 1: what kind of happened was the I guess there's no
14:05
Speaker 1: other way to say it other than Evangelicals Protestant evangelical said,
14:09
Speaker 1: you know what, this is a great opportunity for us
14:12
Speaker 1: to really sort of grab the reins of power and
14:16
Speaker 1: to put our our morals and our values on everybody
14:21
Speaker 1: else through law. Yeah, because you know they're every single
14:26
Speaker 1: average American wasn't like, yeah, government, get out of the
14:29
Speaker 1: business of supporting churches and get into just freedom of religion.
14:33
Speaker 1: There are plenty of people and this is the late
14:35
Speaker 1: eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, first half and nineteenth century, Um,
14:39
Speaker 1: there are plenty of people who are like, no, I
14:41
Speaker 1: I you guys have supported my church forever. Let's just
14:44
Speaker 1: keep doing that. And so in that kind of sense
14:48
Speaker 1: of probably a certain sense of betrayal or loss of trust.
14:54
Speaker 1: A lot of religious leaders became political and and stepped
14:57
Speaker 1: up that that that amazing word anti disestablishmentarianism, which is
15:02
Speaker 1: fighting against that idea and basically saying, no America supports
15:08
Speaker 1: um Protestant churches. Basically America is waspy, is what they
15:13
Speaker 1: were trying to say. Yeah, and it's funny, like if
15:16
Speaker 1: you think that this sort of thing started happening in
15:20
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, that was just a re establishment, like
15:24
Speaker 1: it started happening in the seventeen eighties. Really, yeah, that
15:28
Speaker 1: was the anti disestablishmentarianism revival, that's right. Uh they printed
15:35
Speaker 1: t shirts for uh, for Christian universities, and they they
15:40
Speaker 1: sold like hotcakes, I think. But uh so, all right,
15:44
Speaker 1: here's what they're doing. They're trying to establish power. But
15:46
Speaker 1: there's a problem and that as America grew, the economy
15:50
Speaker 1: grew and businesses grew, and it didn't necessarily jibe with
15:55
Speaker 1: this shut everything down one day of the weak mentality.
15:58
Speaker 1: They were like, hey, there's there's money to be made
16:00
Speaker 1: on these days, and there are things to do on
16:03
Speaker 1: these days off that you're sort of making a stake.
16:06
Speaker 1: So there was sort of conflict even way back then
16:09
Speaker 1: between I guess the secular and the religious. Yeah, and
16:13
Speaker 1: I mean I think that's ultimately the thing that that
16:16
Speaker 1: is the greatest tension at the heart of this, at
16:19
Speaker 1: least in America, this idea like, no, the whole the
16:22
Speaker 1: whole purpose of government, the whole reason for everyone living
16:26
Speaker 1: is to make a lot of money for certain select
16:29
Speaker 1: group of people. Serverybody, get back to work. What are
16:31
Speaker 1: you talking about taking a the day off on Sunday.
16:34
Speaker 1: That's a full day. You could be making us profit.
16:37
Speaker 1: And so that that um became diametrically opposed to the
16:42
Speaker 1: idea of blue laws. And you had two really powerful institutions,
16:46
Speaker 1: the church or all of the churches that celebrated the
16:50
Speaker 1: sabboth On on Sunday, versus the captains of industry who
16:55
Speaker 1: were just now starting to really make on godly amounts
16:59
Speaker 1: of money during the Second Industrial Revolution in the United States,
17:03
Speaker 1: that's right, as well as Jewish people and Seventh day
17:06
Speaker 1: Adventists and just regular secular people who were just like, uh, no,
17:12
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be doing stuff like this at all. Like
17:15
Speaker 1: what is separation of church and state all about? If
17:17
Speaker 1: we're still going to do stuff like this. I'm really
17:19
Speaker 1: glad you said that too. Because one thing that blue
17:21
Speaker 1: laws do is make really strange bedfellows. So in league
17:25
Speaker 1: with the churchy types, you had labor unions and you
17:29
Speaker 1: still do. Actually, labor unions still typically tend to support
17:32
Speaker 1: blue laws because religious or not, their workers are still
17:36
Speaker 1: getting the day off on Sunday with their families. And
17:39
Speaker 1: on the other side, like you said, it's captains of industry,
17:42
Speaker 1: along with Seventh day Adventists and Jewish people, along with
17:45
Speaker 1: secular types. I mean, like those are those are not
17:48
Speaker 1: groups that you would normally put together on the kickball
17:52
Speaker 1: field or something, you know, that's right. And they had
17:56
Speaker 1: a couple of names. The Sabbatarians were the Evangelicals, the
18:00
Speaker 1: Protestant Evangelicals, Uh, and like you said, labor unions and
18:03
Speaker 1: groups like that. And then the Anti Sabbatarians were the others.
18:07
Speaker 1: And you know, they kind of battled it out for
18:09
Speaker 1: a little while, and in the end, it turns out,
18:12
Speaker 1: and this should come as no surprise, Uh, there were
18:15
Speaker 1: more anti Sabbatarians who were like, no, we should not
18:19
Speaker 1: have these days often, we should separate church and state.
18:22
Speaker 1: But the Sabbatarians were louder, and they were more um,
18:27
Speaker 1: they were more fired up basically, and they got people
18:29
Speaker 1: out to vote more, and they've got people to sign
18:31
Speaker 1: petitions more and to put more pressure on officials who
18:34
Speaker 1: decided these things. And so in the end what they
18:38
Speaker 1: did it was I mean, I don't know if it
18:40
Speaker 1: was a win win or a lose lose. The blue
18:43
Speaker 1: laws kind of stayed pretty firmly entrenched on the books,
18:46
Speaker 1: but the anti Sabbatarians were able to carve out certain
18:50
Speaker 1: exceptions basically like hey, we should be able to do
18:54
Speaker 1: this in this and maybe stores can be open. But
18:57
Speaker 1: then the Sabbatarians are like, yeah, but no alcohol what soever.
19:00
Speaker 1: So it kind of played out like this. I don't
19:02
Speaker 1: know calling in a negotiation is the right term, but
19:07
Speaker 1: a long drawn out battle, let's call it a compromise. Sure.
19:11
Speaker 1: So the the effect of all of this is that
19:15
Speaker 1: over time in the you know, it seemed like in
19:18
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, it really started to get to a road. Um,
19:22
Speaker 1: these little these exceptions got like bigger and bigger and
19:25
Speaker 1: carved out more and more of these blanket blue laws
19:28
Speaker 1: that remember originally started out is basically like you cannot
19:30
Speaker 1: do anything on Sunday, And then it was like except
19:35
Speaker 1: you can go and buy ice cream at the beach,
19:40
Speaker 1: or you can buy milk, but you're not allowed to
19:42
Speaker 1: buy anything to put milk in. Um, just all sorts
19:45
Speaker 1: of weird stuff that made the whole thing seem really arbitrary.
19:50
Speaker 1: And there's this idea like um like, Okay, if you
19:53
Speaker 1: were if you're going to the beach, you can buy
19:56
Speaker 1: ice cream at the beach, but if you went into town,
20:00
Speaker 1: you would not be able to illegally buy ice cream.
20:02
Speaker 1: How does that make any sense? Well, it does in
20:06
Speaker 1: a certain way depending on how you look at the
20:08
Speaker 1: role of government. And in this case, it is arbitrary.
20:13
Speaker 1: It is it does impact one group in town storekeepers
20:19
Speaker 1: in favor of another group beach side ice cream vendors. Right,
20:24
Speaker 1: But if you believe that the role of government is
20:26
Speaker 1: in part not just to support the economic activity of
20:30
Speaker 1: the citizens of the United States, but instead to support
20:35
Speaker 1: their well being as well, then it does make sense
20:39
Speaker 1: because what they're basically saying is, Okay, we want to
20:42
Speaker 1: encourage people to take that trip to the beach with
20:44
Speaker 1: their family on Sunday. And what makes a beach trip
20:47
Speaker 1: that much more enjoyable ice cream. I don't think I've
20:50
Speaker 1: ever had ice cream on the beach I haven't either,
20:53
Speaker 1: but apparently it was like all the rage during the
20:56
Speaker 1: thirties and forties and fifties. I get it. I mean
20:58
Speaker 1: it's I bet it's nice. I love ice cream and
21:02
Speaker 1: I love beaches. We gotta try it sometime. We have
21:04
Speaker 1: to go to a beach and eat some ice cream
21:06
Speaker 1: very soon, chunk. Yeah, sure, so it makes sense in
21:10
Speaker 1: that in that respect. But yes, if you're if you're
21:12
Speaker 1: one of those people who are like, no, these laws
21:14
Speaker 1: all need to make sense, they need to follow all
21:17
Speaker 1: the rules, then you probably have a pretty big problem
21:20
Speaker 1: with blue laws. Yes, should we talk about a few
21:24
Speaker 1: of these blue laws still in the books? I think so.
21:28
Speaker 1: So we mentioned Georgia, Like I said, up until just
21:30
Speaker 1: a few years ago, it was on the ballot to
21:33
Speaker 1: be allowed to buy alcohol on the Sundays. But still
21:37
Speaker 1: if you go to Sunday brunch, and this was the
21:39
Speaker 1: same in believe it or not in New York until
21:43
Speaker 1: if you go to brunch on a Sunday you couldn't
21:45
Speaker 1: buy booze at a bar or restaurant until noon. I
21:48
Speaker 1: think in New York they changed it to ten. But
21:51
Speaker 1: I think in Georgia, I don't really do brunch much anymore.
21:54
Speaker 1: But I think it's still noon. As far as I know,
21:57
Speaker 1: it's still noon. But yeah, I haven't done brunch a
22:00
Speaker 1: couple of years now. So if you if you get
22:03
Speaker 1: the jump on things and you're like, oh, we gotta
22:05
Speaker 1: beat those brunch crowds and get there at eleven, you know,
22:08
Speaker 1: there's a reason the brunch crowds come later. And it
22:11
Speaker 1: ain't church, no, but that is. But church is the
22:15
Speaker 1: reason why they set that time on Sundays to start
22:17
Speaker 1: around noon, because it's like, okay, everybody has a reasonable
22:21
Speaker 1: chance to go to the morning services and then they
22:23
Speaker 1: can get drunk. Everyone wins. Basically. It's funny. I remember
22:28
Speaker 1: growing up in the Baptist Church. There were it was
22:32
Speaker 1: just sort of this implied agreement between the congregation, most
22:37
Speaker 1: of the congregation, and the preacher that like you wrap
22:40
Speaker 1: it up by noon because of lunch and football basically,
22:46
Speaker 1: And it was you know, there were some Sundays where like,
22:49
Speaker 1: you know, the spirit was was raging within the church
22:53
Speaker 1: and things would start to you know, he'd be feeling
22:55
Speaker 1: it and things would start to go a little long,
22:59
Speaker 1: and uh, you you would really sense the shifting of
23:02
Speaker 1: bodies and the looking at watches and the unease among
23:07
Speaker 1: the congregation, usually like the dads that are like all right,
23:10
Speaker 1: like I'm glad everyone's feeling it and everything, but the
23:14
Speaker 1: Falcons kick off soon. We need to get out of here. Uh.
23:18
Speaker 1: And I remember being a kid, like being like twelve
23:20
Speaker 1: years old and sensing that and being on the side
23:23
Speaker 1: of football. Yeah, that's funny. I have the opposite experience
23:26
Speaker 1: where I'm I'm like, I always dread somebody tying it
23:30
Speaker 1: up and going into overtime and preempting sixty minutes on Sunday.
23:36
Speaker 1: It happened this past Sunday as recently, is that I
23:38
Speaker 1: could tell at the beginning of the fourth quarter that
23:41
Speaker 1: the Cowboys and the Patriots were going to tie it
23:43
Speaker 1: up and go over time, and I have course right
23:45
Speaker 1: to wait like an extra hour for sixty minutes. Do
23:48
Speaker 1: you still watch sixty minutes? Yeah? I watched them more
23:50
Speaker 1: than ever now. It's really great. I used to watch
23:52
Speaker 1: it as I believe it or not, as like a
23:54
Speaker 1: high school student. I was really into it, and maybe
23:58
Speaker 1: some in college, but I haven't really watched it in
24:00
Speaker 1: a long time. That's interesting then, because they had around
24:04
Speaker 1: that time, and like the early nineties, they had a
24:07
Speaker 1: very um a very famous piece on the Council of
24:10
Speaker 1: Leo to see you. Do they still use that stop watch? Yeah? Yeah,
24:15
Speaker 1: oh yeah, totally. Yeah. Alright, good crew they've got they've
24:18
Speaker 1: got a good crew together. Yeah. Are there any remnants
24:21
Speaker 1: anyone's still around from the old days? Scott Pelly's on there.
24:24
Speaker 1: He's been on there for a while. I think, right,
24:27
Speaker 1: Oh see, that's it shows how long it's been for me.
24:30
Speaker 1: I'm like, is Morley Safer around? I don't know. I
24:32
Speaker 1: think Morley Safer might be dead. I think they're probably
24:34
Speaker 1: all gone. And Indersting Cooper's on there though, he's great too, FONSI.
24:39
Speaker 1: Everybody on there is fantastic. They should have you on.
24:43
Speaker 1: There's no need for them to have me on. I'm
24:45
Speaker 1: just a fan. No, but that could be your next
24:47
Speaker 1: That could be like your retirement job hosting sixty minutes,
24:51
Speaker 1: doing pieces on sixty minutes. Yeah, you'd be great. I
24:54
Speaker 1: don't know if that's true, but I appreciate the voter.
24:57
Speaker 1: Cool would that be? I can hear that that ticking
25:00
Speaker 1: much behind you as you speak. I know it makes
25:02
Speaker 1: me tense, or it would make me tense if I
25:04
Speaker 1: actually worked for him, you know, I think I would
25:06
Speaker 1: ruin sixty minutes. For me, I'd just rather kick back
25:08
Speaker 1: and watch it, you know, all right, yeah, work so
25:12
Speaker 1: much some of the other really interesting blue laws. And
25:16
Speaker 1: we should say too that there are there are blue
25:19
Speaker 1: laws on the books in a lot of places that
25:20
Speaker 1: aren't enforced. And then there are blue laws on the
25:23
Speaker 1: books that are still enforced. Uh in Texas, Illinois, and
25:28
Speaker 1: I think North Dakota. I think it's North Dakota. You
25:32
Speaker 1: cannot sell a car or by I guess you. I
25:37
Speaker 1: guess you could sell one. I wonder if you're breaking
25:40
Speaker 1: the law if you sell one like on Craiglist or something.
25:43
Speaker 1: I think there's no car sales whatsoever allowed. And here's why.
25:49
Speaker 1: Here's why that one. I was like, okay, I do
25:51
Speaker 1: not get this one, and I have the search pretty
25:54
Speaker 1: far and wide for why. But apparently it was one
25:57
Speaker 1: of those things that's like a remnant from when you
25:59
Speaker 1: couldn't do anything. And then they started making exceptions and
26:02
Speaker 1: started making exceptions saying, Okay, you can open this kind
26:04
Speaker 1: of store, you can sell this kind of item, and
26:07
Speaker 1: cars just never got accepted because the car dealerships didn't
26:12
Speaker 1: want that any longer, Like it made sense, Like they
26:15
Speaker 1: wanted a day off. It's really hard work. They wanted
26:18
Speaker 1: to give time off to their employees. They also didn't
26:22
Speaker 1: want to have to pay to keep the lights on
26:23
Speaker 1: and all that stuff an extra day. But if even
26:27
Speaker 1: one dealership was allowed to stay open, then all of
26:33
Speaker 1: them would go to So if there was a state
26:35
Speaker 1: law that said no car dealerships can be open, then
26:39
Speaker 1: that gave the people in the car dealership industry that
26:42
Speaker 1: day off that they otherwise definitely would not have had.
26:45
Speaker 1: So it makes sense in that case, you know what
26:47
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like it makes would start selling exactly, and
26:51
Speaker 1: then everyone's like, you see what McIntyre is doing, we
26:53
Speaker 1: gotta open up now. And there's even there's In Texas
26:56
Speaker 1: in particular, they allowed for UM Jewish or Seventh Day
27:00
Speaker 1: Adventist car dealership owners by saying, okay, you can you can, UM,
27:06
Speaker 1: you don't have to close on Sunday, but if you
27:08
Speaker 1: don't close on Sunday, you have to close on Saturday.
27:10
Speaker 1: So one day out of the weekend your dealership has
27:12
Speaker 1: to be closed, which helped keep from promoting unfair competition. Right, well,
27:18
Speaker 1: it's football is big in Texas. I wonder if it
27:20
Speaker 1: comes down to you into college, you into pro I
27:23
Speaker 1: saw somewhere that the NFL played on Sunday because early
27:26
Speaker 1: on they couldn't compete with college games held on Saturday.
27:31
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure if that's true or not. That
27:34
Speaker 1: makes sense, and I think now, uh, they are almost
27:38
Speaker 1: expressly prohibited from having Saturday games in the NFL, yes,
27:42
Speaker 1: because of an agreement with the n c double A.
27:45
Speaker 1: But I think there's the exception. I think sometimes at
27:47
Speaker 1: one point in the playoffs they have like one weekend,
27:50
Speaker 1: whether it's a Saturday game in like December or something
27:52
Speaker 1: like that. They're all think that it's like a law.
27:57
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy, That's like a federal law. There's like
28:00
Speaker 1: has something to do with broadcasting or something like that.
28:03
Speaker 1: You know that the NFL plays in London, uh occasionally
28:06
Speaker 1: now to like um, and my buddy Justin from London
28:10
Speaker 1: was wondering. He was like, why are they playing these
28:12
Speaker 1: games at nine in the morning US time, because like
28:16
Speaker 1: they could have them at a more appropriate time in England.
28:19
Speaker 1: And I was like, dude, that means it's because of advertising.
28:23
Speaker 1: That means from nine am they can lock up the
28:26
Speaker 1: entire TV day. Yeah, they did, this past weekend, and
28:28
Speaker 1: they preempted CBS Sunday morning too. That's right, they can
28:31
Speaker 1: lock it up from nine am till four thirty or whatever.
28:35
Speaker 1: It was a hell day. Basically, this past Sunday was
28:38
Speaker 1: hellish for me. It was a hell sabbath. I thought
28:41
Speaker 1: you like football. No, no, no, I don't really watch
28:44
Speaker 1: football anymore. And I definitely have never been into pro
28:46
Speaker 1: I used to be into college. Yeah, all right, but
28:49
Speaker 1: that's final. I don't poop poo it or anything like that.
28:51
Speaker 1: I'm just not No. I got you. Uh, Maine, in Virginia,
28:54
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to hunt on Sundays. Um, Maine is
28:58
Speaker 1: sort of uh. We love our we manor friends. But
29:01
Speaker 1: they up until nineteen you couldn't shop in a department
29:05
Speaker 1: store on Sunday. That one makes sense because department stores
29:09
Speaker 1: sold so many different items that they said it's just
29:13
Speaker 1: easier for you to stay closed on Sundays. Yeah. And
29:19
Speaker 1: it's interesting because you know, there's the case of Bergen County,
29:22
Speaker 1: New Jersey, which, um, that's here's the deal. That's in
29:27
Speaker 1: Bergen County. It's a hold over from the old days,
29:29
Speaker 1: but it has more to do with um helping the
29:33
Speaker 1: mom and pop stores because in the I guess it
29:37
Speaker 1: was in the nineteen fifties, Bergen County was one of
29:39
Speaker 1: the first big suburbs outside of New York and it
29:42
Speaker 1: was I think one of the first big um areas
29:45
Speaker 1: of like kind of shopping mall retail experience kind of
29:49
Speaker 1: thing in the United States. And they I mean, I
29:53
Speaker 1: was trying to think of a different way to say that,
29:57
Speaker 1: and the idea was and and still is. And you know,
30:01
Speaker 1: when I said it a minute ago, we talked about
30:02
Speaker 1: mom and pop stores on Sundays, like having to pay employees.
30:06
Speaker 1: That's really what it came down to was mom and
30:07
Speaker 1: pop stores were willing to close on Sunday so they
30:10
Speaker 1: could rest and chill out with their family or maybe
30:13
Speaker 1: go to church, and they wouldn't have to pay their
30:15
Speaker 1: employees and they wouldn't have to pay as much electricity
30:18
Speaker 1: and just the cost of operating. But the big box
30:21
Speaker 1: stores moved in and they didn't care. They could afford
30:24
Speaker 1: to keep the lights on, they could afford to pay
30:26
Speaker 1: their employees, and they didn't want to lose that revenue.
30:29
Speaker 1: So all of a sudden, the mom and pop stores
30:31
Speaker 1: were getting crushed on Sundays by these larger chain stores
30:35
Speaker 1: and these shopping malls and so Bergen County still is
30:39
Speaker 1: the one holdout in the United States in Bergen County,
30:42
Speaker 1: New Jersey, where you you can't shop basically on a Sunday, right,
30:48
Speaker 1: And it's and it's come up time and time again,
30:50
Speaker 1: and they keep saying no. Yeah. I think as recently
30:52
Speaker 1: as two thousand thirteen they couldn't even get enough signatures
30:56
Speaker 1: to get it onto the ballot, let alone vote. I
31:00
Speaker 1: think they just like it. They do, and I saw
31:02
Speaker 1: it's not just because they know it helps mom and
31:04
Speaker 1: pop stores or it gives people a day off, but
31:08
Speaker 1: that UM apparently traffic around there is a living nightmare
31:11
Speaker 1: every other day of the week. So it's at least
31:13
Speaker 1: one day we're traffic this one day. Yeah. The North
31:18
Speaker 1: Dakota ban is really interesting. I think they had one
31:22
Speaker 1: of the last statewide bands on shopping known as Offenses
31:25
Speaker 1: against Religion and conscious Conscience repealed in UM. But they
31:33
Speaker 1: the exceptions are what's always strange. Their exceptions where ice cream, newspapers, cigars,
31:39
Speaker 1: medicine of course, restaurants, hotels, and owner operated stores with
31:44
Speaker 1: three employees are fewer. Yeah, that is strange for sure,
31:48
Speaker 1: but I think it's not necessarily um peculiar. Like I
31:52
Speaker 1: think that's how most blue laws ended up uh in
31:56
Speaker 1: states where they have prohibitions on shopping, because over time
31:59
Speaker 1: a lot abousts would show up and one of their
32:01
Speaker 1: friends would end up as governor or legislature and they
32:04
Speaker 1: would get their particular industry carved out as an exception. No,
32:08
Speaker 1: not that there are exceptions. I just think what's carved
32:11
Speaker 1: out is always really interesting to me. I found this
32:13
Speaker 1: article from when they repealed Texas as blue laws. They
32:17
Speaker 1: were in force from ninety five, and this article was
32:22
Speaker 1: just talking about how weird they were by and they
32:26
Speaker 1: said that you could go into a store and you
32:28
Speaker 1: could buy a blank video tape, but you couldn't buy
32:32
Speaker 1: one a video tape with something already on it, which
32:35
Speaker 1: is this just does a little so weird and interesting,
32:38
Speaker 1: and they made sense in some way. But then I'm
32:41
Speaker 1: sure somebody was like, you know that that exception was
32:43
Speaker 1: made before there wasn't even such a thing as videotapes,
32:46
Speaker 1: And then even now it's even funnier because there's not
32:48
Speaker 1: videotapes any longer. They're already come and gone, right, But
32:51
Speaker 1: like you're saying, it's all about who cares, like what
32:54
Speaker 1: lobby cares the most. Like the cigars thing in North Dakota,
32:58
Speaker 1: just obviously somebody with a steak in a cigar company
33:03
Speaker 1: grease the right palms. Yeah. Same in Maryland, Um, as
33:06
Speaker 1: we'll see, had a lot of laws, a lot of
33:08
Speaker 1: restrictions on it, but they had all tobacco products were
33:11
Speaker 1: exempted because it was a huge tobacco state in like
33:14
Speaker 1: the mid century, during the mid century, last century. All right,
33:18
Speaker 1: I think we should take another our final break here
33:21
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about, you know, whether these things are
33:24
Speaker 1: legal and what the Supreme Court and the Feds have
33:26
Speaker 1: to say about all this coming up. Okay, Chuck, So
33:56
Speaker 1: we're talking about legality because, like we said, anybody who
34:00
Speaker 1: takes even a cursory look at these laws can can
34:04
Speaker 1: make a pretty great argument that these should not be
34:07
Speaker 1: on the books. That number one, the government shouldn't be
34:09
Speaker 1: regulating anything that has anything to do with religion. Certainly
34:13
Speaker 1: shouldn't be telling people who don't practice religion to to
34:15
Speaker 1: observe this religious day. It's a big one. But then
34:20
Speaker 1: also they just don't really make a lot of sense.
34:23
Speaker 1: And that's another kind of litmus test for laws. They're
34:25
Speaker 1: supposed to be sensible and apply to basically everyone equally. Sure,
34:31
Speaker 1: because this is America. Yeah, so you would think then
34:34
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court would have taken one look at
34:36
Speaker 1: these things and been like, get these out of here,
34:38
Speaker 1: get them out of my face. And that is not
34:40
Speaker 1: the case, because not only did the Supreme Court get
34:43
Speaker 1: its shot at um ruling on blue laws as early
34:46
Speaker 1: as nineteen sixty one, it is pretty much consistently upheld
34:51
Speaker 1: the legality and the constitutionality of blue laws ever since then. Yeah.
34:57
Speaker 1: And you know, we should note that these none of
34:59
Speaker 1: these are federal laws. They are all at the most
35:03
Speaker 1: state laws, but many times even like local ordinances and
35:06
Speaker 1: city and kind of county laws. But I think it
35:10
Speaker 1: was McGowan versus Maryland v. Maryland in nine which went
35:15
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court and and this, uh, you know,
35:19
Speaker 1: it's interesting that Maryland is the one that kind of
35:21
Speaker 1: keeps getting talked about because of their um, I guess,
35:25
Speaker 1: their tobacco laws and then their beach their beach scene.
35:28
Speaker 1: They want to sell that ice cream on the beach definitely,
35:31
Speaker 1: and floaties and stuff like that, right, uh, And Supreme
35:35
Speaker 1: I think the they went eight one in Maryland's favor,
35:39
Speaker 1: saying that blue laws could stand, and Chief Justice Earl
35:43
Speaker 1: Warren wrote this opinion that basically says, yeah, you know,
35:47
Speaker 1: it may have started out as religious, but like we
35:50
Speaker 1: said earlier, it serves the secular society and there's a
35:53
Speaker 1: benefit to everybody basically to have a regulated day of rest.
35:58
Speaker 1: And William Douglas this, I think it was the lone
36:01
Speaker 1: dissenter and basically in his opinion was like, that's a
36:05
Speaker 1: load of horse manure. We all know what these are
36:09
Speaker 1: there for, and like, I'm not buying it. No. And
36:12
Speaker 1: Earl Warren, I don't know if his interpretation would be
36:15
Speaker 1: constructionalist or what, but in his opinion he basically said,
36:19
Speaker 1: the Constitution says that the government won't infringe on somebody's
36:23
Speaker 1: religious rights. And I don't see how anybody who is
36:26
Speaker 1: saying that they're being forced to take the day off
36:29
Speaker 1: has their religious rights being infringed upon. And Douglas is like,
36:34
Speaker 1: come on, man, that's not what anybody's saying. They're saying
36:37
Speaker 1: that the government is basically supporting this Christian worldview of
36:41
Speaker 1: Sunday being the sabbath by by allowing these laws that
36:46
Speaker 1: enforce a day off on the Sabbath and that that
36:49
Speaker 1: is just how that like, that's the government is supporting
36:54
Speaker 1: a religion and that's not okay. Um, But the the
36:58
Speaker 1: Supreme Court is just like consistently upheld Lawren's view that no,
37:03
Speaker 1: these are actually okay because even if you're not a
37:05
Speaker 1: religious person, you're benefiting benefiting from them anyway. Yeah, it
37:10
Speaker 1: seems like William Douglas also wanted to make a point that,
37:13
Speaker 1: like he was like, we're so firmly ensconced in this
37:19
Speaker 1: uh Christian nation that like we don't even realize, like
37:24
Speaker 1: Sunday shouldn't be different than any other day, and we don't.
37:27
Speaker 1: We don't we have all these things in our society
37:30
Speaker 1: that treats Sunday different because it was you know, it was.
37:33
Speaker 1: It's such a Christian nation and like even though their
37:36
Speaker 1: separation of church and state, like we don't even realize
37:38
Speaker 1: that we're biased either for or against Sunday for those reasons. Yeah.
37:42
Speaker 1: A really good thought experiment I stumbled on was imagining
37:45
Speaker 1: the government decreeing Tuesday is the day of rest for everybody. Yeah, exactly,
37:49
Speaker 1: and how bizarre that would seem to almost every single
37:53
Speaker 1: person in America. Yeah, our podcast would be over because
37:56
Speaker 1: that's when, Yeah, but that would be that like that
38:00
Speaker 1: that really kind of um supports Douglas's point, like no,
38:04
Speaker 1: like you guys are really coming from this, like it's
38:07
Speaker 1: so entrenched into your your worldview that you can't imagine
38:10
Speaker 1: Sunday is not a day of rest, like that's the
38:12
Speaker 1: day of rest. But that is a Christian belief. It's
38:15
Speaker 1: an ancient one, but that is at its root of
38:18
Speaker 1: Christian belief. And that that if you are a separation
38:21
Speaker 1: of church and state type like that will drive you
38:24
Speaker 1: up the wall. That there are such thing as blue
38:26
Speaker 1: laws and they have been deemed constitutional. But see, I'm
38:29
Speaker 1: that way too, Like that stuff drives me crazy. But
38:33
Speaker 1: as a as a secularist, Now, if I had a
38:36
Speaker 1: dollar for every time I complained about like, oh, come on,
38:40
Speaker 1: it's a Sunday. We all we all use Sunday as
38:44
Speaker 1: either as an excuse to not do something or an
38:47
Speaker 1: excuse to do something, like it's just become the national day.
38:51
Speaker 1: I feel like, well, you're a warrant fan and you
38:54
Speaker 1: don't even know it. I read this really interesting article
38:57
Speaker 1: in box that was basically endorsing Warren's opinion is by
39:02
Speaker 1: this economist named Lyman Stone. It's called why we Need
39:06
Speaker 1: Blue Laws. I think the title is a little longer,
39:08
Speaker 1: but if you search, that will turn this up. And um,
39:11
Speaker 1: Lyman Stone was basically saying, like what what Chief Justice
39:15
Speaker 1: Earl Warren is saying is actually a really progressive view
39:19
Speaker 1: of the role of government. And it was what I
39:22
Speaker 1: was saying earlier that the that that there's this interpretation
39:25
Speaker 1: that government can exist as help support the well being
39:28
Speaker 1: of its citizens. And one way to do that is
39:31
Speaker 1: to say, hey, you know, yes, Sundays a Christian day. Yeah,
39:35
Speaker 1: the churches are really making out like bandits with these
39:37
Speaker 1: blue laws. Bully for them. You over here, come, come
39:41
Speaker 1: talk to me over here. You're still getting a lot
39:44
Speaker 1: out of this because you get the day off and
39:46
Speaker 1: your whole family gets the day off all at the
39:49
Speaker 1: same time. And trust me, you do not want to
39:52
Speaker 1: work seven days a week. This is a really great
39:54
Speaker 1: way for us, in a roundabout way, to make sure
39:57
Speaker 1: you have the day off. And that is something that
40:00
Speaker 1: that is going to help you and we as the
40:02
Speaker 1: government interested in you not going crazy and shooting up
40:05
Speaker 1: your workplace because you work too much. Right Ed points
40:10
Speaker 1: out something too that I agree with a bit of
40:12
Speaker 1: a paradox though with the Blue laws. If you're giving
40:15
Speaker 1: people this day off together as a family, but you're
40:18
Speaker 1: also closing businesses that you know, if that's your day
40:22
Speaker 1: to do stuff or to get stuff done, even then
40:26
Speaker 1: that's a paradox because all right, I've got Sunday off
40:29
Speaker 1: with my family, but I can't go to the mall
40:31
Speaker 1: if that's what you want to do if I live
40:32
Speaker 1: in Bergen County. Right, So lyman Stone has an answer
40:36
Speaker 1: for that as well. What does the stoner have to say?
40:39
Speaker 1: Stoner says as follows. Basically, ts like, yeah, the post
40:44
Speaker 1: office is closed on Sunday, go go take some time
40:47
Speaker 1: and mail it another day, which, on the one hand,
40:50
Speaker 1: it's like there's a lot of people who have to
40:52
Speaker 1: take the bus and have to actually take time off
40:54
Speaker 1: of work and could conceivably get fired from their job
40:57
Speaker 1: for needing to go mail a package. Um. I think
41:00
Speaker 1: lyman Stone would say, well, you should keep the post
41:03
Speaker 1: offices open on Saturday. But the bigger risk, to liman
41:06
Speaker 1: Stone is that if you keep some stuff open, like
41:10
Speaker 1: restaurants or something like that, you actually create a second
41:13
Speaker 1: class of workers who exist to serve the upper class
41:18
Speaker 1: of workers who get Sunday off. And after all, isn't
41:21
Speaker 1: that like pretty undemocratic and terrible to to kind of
41:25
Speaker 1: separate people like that? Why not just close everything and
41:28
Speaker 1: and give everybody everybody the same day off. That's the stone.
41:33
Speaker 1: I feel that way sometimes when I'm doing something on
41:36
Speaker 1: a Sunday and someone has to work, and I remember
41:39
Speaker 1: having to work on Sunday and I hated it. It
41:40
Speaker 1: comes home for me most done like say like Thanksgiving
41:43
Speaker 1: or something where people have to work for Black Friday
41:45
Speaker 1: or stuff like that like that, that to me, it's
41:47
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. But but that's when it really
41:50
Speaker 1: sticks out to me. Well, this is something, my friend,
41:53
Speaker 1: that you would think that there are studies about commerce
41:56
Speaker 1: and economics, and surely they have proven one way or
42:00
Speaker 1: the other which is the best way forward, right right
42:04
Speaker 1: the end, Well, they have done some studies, and it
42:09
Speaker 1: kind of depends on what study you're looking at as
42:12
Speaker 1: as far as quantifying these effects and how they're measured.
42:15
Speaker 1: But when it comes to alcohol, they have shown their
42:19
Speaker 1: studies have shown that, um, there are not more car
42:22
Speaker 1: accidents happening because people can drink on Sundays. And that's
42:26
Speaker 1: you know, some people argue like, hey, people aren't drinking.
42:28
Speaker 1: They may not be drinking and driving and then getting
42:31
Speaker 1: in car crashes, but that hasn't really turned out that way. Yeah,
42:35
Speaker 1: now that's pretty surprising too, um, because a lot of
42:38
Speaker 1: these studies have turned up kind of counterintuitive things. Um.
42:42
Speaker 1: There was a study conducted in Georgia that, um looked
42:46
Speaker 1: like Georgia's a great test case because there's so many
42:49
Speaker 1: counties that have blue laws and other counties that don't
42:51
Speaker 1: have blue laws, so you can like just compare these
42:54
Speaker 1: really similar populations with one another. And they found that, Um,
42:58
Speaker 1: if you have a county that has a blue law
43:00
Speaker 1: and one that doesn't, there's virtually no difference in alcohol
43:03
Speaker 1: consumption between the two. But there are like little tiny changes, like, um,
43:08
Speaker 1: the employees in the county without a blue law might
43:11
Speaker 1: make slightly more money because they can work on Sundays. Um,
43:16
Speaker 1: Or in counties that do have blue laws, liquor stores
43:19
Speaker 1: make a little bit less than their counterparts and counties
43:22
Speaker 1: without blue laws. Stuff you kind of expect. But the
43:26
Speaker 1: difference in alcohol consumption, I thought that was a little interesting.
43:28
Speaker 1: I guess people just load up more on Saturday night
43:31
Speaker 1: than they would if they lived in the county that
43:34
Speaker 1: wasn't dry on Sundays. Maybe maybe they're hungover on Sunday.
43:38
Speaker 1: Maybe they just take it a little easier on Sundays
43:39
Speaker 1: after work on Monday. Another counterintuitive effect as far as
43:45
Speaker 1: shopping goes in places like Bergen County, UM is they
43:49
Speaker 1: have found that people it doesn't decrease the overall retail
43:54
Speaker 1: experience in terms of dollars. I love that term now,
43:58
Speaker 1: the retail experience. Uh, you know, because some people argue like, oh,
44:02
Speaker 1: if we close on Sundays, then you know, we're just
44:05
Speaker 1: gonna lose out on business. But I think they have
44:07
Speaker 1: found that when these laws are in place and people
44:09
Speaker 1: know that they're closed on Sundays, they just do their
44:11
Speaker 1: shopping Monday through Saturday, and they still buy the same
44:14
Speaker 1: amount of stuff. Um. I found one study from two
44:19
Speaker 1: thousand and eight from M I. T that was almost
44:21
Speaker 1: like cartoonish in its results. Are you ready for this?
44:25
Speaker 1: They studied fifty years of repeal blue laws, and they
44:28
Speaker 1: found that blue laws. Repealing blue laws decreases church attendance
44:33
Speaker 1: and church donations significantly, although there's no other change in
44:38
Speaker 1: charitable activity. It's just churches who are basically now competing
44:42
Speaker 1: against um other pastimes and activities, and the churches lose
44:47
Speaker 1: big time unless they have state enforced support for people
44:52
Speaker 1: to go to them in the form of blue laws.
44:54
Speaker 1: And they also saw that repealing blue laws led to
44:58
Speaker 1: an increase in drinking and drug use. And the increased
45:01
Speaker 1: drinking and drug use was most pronounced in those people
45:04
Speaker 1: who used to attend church but then stopped attending church
45:08
Speaker 1: after the blue laws were repealed. So basically everything that
45:12
Speaker 1: if you were into blue laws were afraid of this
45:16
Speaker 1: two thousand eight m I T study said like, yeah, absolutely,
45:20
Speaker 1: it's it's as bad as you think, maybe even worse.
45:23
Speaker 1: Isn't that interesting? That's super interesting. Yeah. I guess the
45:26
Speaker 1: last thing we need to cover is where the why
45:29
Speaker 1: they're called blue laws. Uh, there are a lot of theories.
45:33
Speaker 1: It says no one knows for sure, and I think
45:35
Speaker 1: that's probably true. But the one I've seen most often,
45:38
Speaker 1: although it is the Internet, so that really means nothing,
45:42
Speaker 1: is that the Puritans. I saw that they wrote their
45:45
Speaker 1: laws in general on blue paper. Then I also saw
45:48
Speaker 1: where they wrote their Sunday laws specifically on blue paper.
45:51
Speaker 1: That one makes sense more than the other. Yes, the
45:55
Speaker 1: thing is is no historian ever in the world has
45:58
Speaker 1: ever turned up example of one of these things, right,
46:02
Speaker 1: so that one might be apocryphal. There's another one that,
46:05
Speaker 1: um it makes a really good point that there's some
46:07
Speaker 1: slang terms that were in existence around the time that
46:12
Speaker 1: these laws started being called blue laws about the end
46:15
Speaker 1: of the eighteenth century, and the two slang terms were
46:18
Speaker 1: blue nose and blue stocking, and both of them basically
46:21
Speaker 1: referred to a prudish, rigid person who was so miserly
46:26
Speaker 1: that they just saved money anyway they could. The one
46:29
Speaker 1: had a blue nose because they wouldn't, you know, cough
46:32
Speaker 1: up money for like heating in the winter time, so
46:35
Speaker 1: their nose term blue, and the other was that they
46:38
Speaker 1: had blue stockings because they use blue yarn to med
46:41
Speaker 1: their socks rather than getting new ones. But either way,
46:44
Speaker 1: it kind of like paints a pretty pretty good picture.
46:47
Speaker 1: Something tells me, if you like, saw somebody's tip they
46:50
Speaker 1: left and you're like, nice tip, blue nose, right, that
46:53
Speaker 1: they would probably think that's super like offensive or something.
46:57
Speaker 1: Probably probably, and I'm not convinced there's not some really
47:01
Speaker 1: bad offense in there somewhere that we're just not seeing.
47:04
Speaker 1: It's possible isn't there some something to be taken offense too?
47:09
Speaker 1: And everything? Probably Blue knows ouch you got anything else?
47:16
Speaker 1: I do not, sir, Well, if you want to know
47:19
Speaker 1: more about Blue laws, start studying them. They are hilarious
47:22
Speaker 1: and entertaining. And since I said hilarious and entertaining, it's time,
47:25
Speaker 1: of course for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this
47:30
Speaker 1: follow up to I don't know about that. Yeah, I
47:33
Speaker 1: think it was during um the research bias episode. I
47:37
Speaker 1: talked about a certain breed. I'm sure it happens everywhere,
47:40
Speaker 1: but there's a certain breed of Southerner. When they're being
47:43
Speaker 1: debated and presented with literal facts, they just go on,
47:46
Speaker 1: I don't know about that, and that's sort of the
47:49
Speaker 1: end of things. And so this is from Rebecca. I
47:51
Speaker 1: was glad to see this email. Chuck talked about how
47:54
Speaker 1: much he hated it when people say I don't know
47:56
Speaker 1: about that when presented with evidence that contradicts their worldview.
47:59
Speaker 1: There's a term for that. It's called a thought terminating cliche,
48:04
Speaker 1: almost aid circle, which is a dismissive tactic as a speaker,
48:08
Speaker 1: and they will use it to end a debate when
48:10
Speaker 1: they encounter cognitive dissonance, or when someone presents them with
48:13
Speaker 1: facts that run counter to their established beliefs. Other examples are, boy,
48:18
Speaker 1: I hate all these let's agree to disagree. Yeah, that's
48:22
Speaker 1: sometimes it's like that's the only way to end a conversation. No,
48:27
Speaker 1: I think, just say it a different way. There's something
48:29
Speaker 1: about that that I just don't like. Oh so it's
48:32
Speaker 1: the cliche part you don't like more than the thought
48:34
Speaker 1: terminating part. It's both, but definitely if it was said
48:38
Speaker 1: in another way, I'd probably be more apt to accept it.
48:40
Speaker 1: How About let's continue to not agree on this forever,
48:45
Speaker 1: but both be okay, what's that? Yeah, yeah, there you can. Uh,
48:49
Speaker 1: that's just your opinion is another one, and it's all good.
48:54
Speaker 1: That's the worst, especially when that's followed by bro and
48:58
Speaker 1: said by somebody who has a sole path. I unfortunately
49:02
Speaker 1: don't know what what tactics there are to respond to
49:05
Speaker 1: such cliches and reopen discussion. But maybe an episode on
49:08
Speaker 1: intentional fallacies would be a great way to educate listeners
49:12
Speaker 1: on the rhetorical tactics the journalist, politicians, and debaters used
49:15
Speaker 1: to sway the course of an argument. Anyway, it's all good,
49:20
Speaker 1: and that is a great email. That's from Rebecca in Chicago.
49:24
Speaker 1: Thanks Rebecca, that was indeed one of the tops as
49:27
Speaker 1: far as emails we've received goes. Thank you for it.
49:31
Speaker 1: Uh and if you want to see if you can
49:32
Speaker 1: pull one up on Rebecca, let's hear it, you can
49:35
Speaker 1: send us an email to stuff podcast did iHeart radio
49:38
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
49:43
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49:47
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49:50
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.