So Rhode Island is considering getting rid of the last vestiges of its colonial era "blue laws," which used to prohibit most commerce on Sundays, but which now restrict most retailers to operating between 12 noon and 6 pm, and which still prohibit automobile sales all together, to the great consternation of Rhode Island’s car dealers. Those who have lived in Massachusetts as long as I have will recall that we, too, used to be unable to transact business on Sundays, but recently, with the opening of liquor stores on Sundays, almost all of our blue laws have been eliminated.
The sooner Rhode Island gets rid of these dreadful laws, the better, IMHO. I have always hated these things – they strike me as a particularly clear example of writing religious dogma (namely, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," often shown as number 4 of the 10 Commandments) into law, thereby imposing it on everyone, believers and non-believers alike. Yes, yes, I know, the Supreme Court said in 1961 that blue laws do not constitute an "establishment of religion." They were wrong.
So go forward with righteous purpose, o ye legislators of Rhode Island! Free your auto dealerships from the yoke of religious oppression!
So, do you also argue against time-and-a-half on Sundays in Massachusetts?
The less draconian the religiously-based regulation, the less it bothers me. That said, if you’re asking me to choose between fer and agin’, I’m agin’ it.
^ Out of curiosity, are you paid hourly or ‘weekly’? If hourly, do you ever work Sundays?Personally, I’d like to see “Sunday” protection expanded to Saturdays (and I’m Christian, not Jewish). Society has placed more value on weekend days — kids are home from school, fewer shops are open, etc. So, if you want to leverage your hourly associate into working on the weekend, you should have to pay more.Sure, you could argue that this should simply be a contract between associate and employer. However, it seems a little ridiculous to claim that a person is going to go to the table against Home Depot or Wal*Mart and negotiate himself a little extra for weekend work.I’d advocate reducing it to 1.25 pay, and putting it on both Saturdays and Sundays.
I have no major objection to your proposal – it’d be a substantial improvement over current law. It’s the “Sunday only” laws that really irk me, coupled with content (“thou shalt not transact business”) that seems far more religiously-motivated than compensating parents for the inconvenience of having to work on days when their kids aren’t in school.As for my own work, I am paid either hourly or flat-fee; none of my compensation is salary, weekly or otherwise. And I routinely work weekends, including Sundays. I leave the rest to your imagination.
I was wondering why this was so attractive to you, I would have thought you’d have some sympathy with the workers. But, then, realizing you are liberal, I quickly remembered that the only sympathy possible is that which serves your self-image, and will quickly get ignored under the necessity of convenience. Since, 6 days a week aren’t enough to drive the mechanisms of capitalism, we need that last one unrestrained too.And, obviously, nobody could be sufficiently forward thinking to buy their beer and crap from Walmart on Saturday.Also, because we office bound people are more important than the pitifully paid retail people, who must be at our beck and call every single day, instead of just six of seven.And, of course, gross commercialism has taken the place of Church-going in our modernist gestault. And, God forbid anyone who does go to Church would spend more than an hour or so in that worthless endeavor, so they can just go to work afterwards.And don’t forget that nobody need make an effort to do ‘good works’ on Sundays anymore – visit the sick, feed the hungry, visit prisoners, get together with family, etc.And you have to do this at the state level, since, clearly, a particular city shouldn’t be able to determine such a thing for itself.So, let all the world rejoice! Sundays are safe for Moloch once again!
After “And don’t forget that nobody need make an effort to do ‘good works’ on Sundays anymore – visit the sick, feed the hungry, visit prisoners, get together with family, etc” – it should have read “, because the government will take care of that for us.” Sorry for the misedit.
Well, well, someone took his nasty pills this morning! I was wondering whether our local theocrat would jump in on this one – glad to see you couldn’t resist. FWIW, obviously no one HAS to open their business on Sunday. I just think it’s absurd for the all-knowing and beneficent state to FORBID it. I should think that conservatives would get that. You guys used to be for limited government, didn’t you?
And, obviously, nobody could be sufficiently forward thinking to buy their beer and crap from Walmart on Saturday.Of course, observant Jews would never shop on Saturday. So if the state forbids them from doing so on Sunday, that leaves only weekdays, with work, school, soccer practice, and the rest of it. Do you think that’s a problem?
^ Not in the winter, when sundown Saturday is still early enough for stores to be open for a few hours đŸ™‚
Remember when Republicans used to be pro-business instead of pro-theocracy?ne could imagine them arguing that since RI is so small and Connecticut and Massachusetts have gotten rid of their blue laws, they were actually hurting the economy of Rhode Island.