Blue Laws

Here in Massachusetts there is a brewing controversy. Massachusetts has a law forbidding most stores from opening on Thanksgiving. A couple of stores plan to defy this, CompUSA being one of them.

Now I was never a fan of blue laws growing up. In some cases they just seemed to be non-sensical; for example, in Texas you couldn't buy batteries or underwear. Note that they allowed stores to be open, you just couldn't buy certain items. I'm still convinced those particular laws were insane and in need of reform.

Now I try to keep holy the Lord's Day. I am not going to comment about whether if I had my druthers there would be blue laws in effect for Sunday today. However I will say that I think it is healthy for society to have a break from shopping on at least a few days of the year, and Thanksgiving is an excellent choice of a day on which not to shop. Really, folks, will the world come to an end if people can't shop on Thanksgiving? I mean I can see a certain argument being made against forbidding shopping on every Sunday, but do we really need shopping 365.2425 days of the year? Ever thought that maybe the employees would rather be eating Thanksgiving meals with their families than manning the stations at CompUSA? It would be a shame if people were coerced by their employers to not celebrate Thanksgiving dinner so their bosses can profit.