Let me be clear: sleep had hobbled this great nation for too long. We know that when individuals are asleep they are neither consumers nor customers. An immobile person ensconced in their bed with eyes shut tight cannot purchase, click, nor scroll. These are lost minutes.
When sleeping, one is unreachable; functionally they are economic dead weight.
Still, even in this modern era, there are radical elements who would disagree. Despite my quibbles with their cause, up until now I had been mostly entertained by the antics of the Naptivists. Seeing a stumping candidate or bigwig corporate executive suddenly get whammed with a pillow mid-sentence is amusing.
However, in the past year, Naptivist tactics have escalated. Their menacing “Zzzzz” graffiti, which has taken over urban facades across the US, reminds us all of a less-conscious time when sleep was sanctioned.
But this past week’s “Cherish America’s Darkest Hours” sleep-in strike was truly sobering and stopped me in my tracks. It signaled critical momentum for the Naptivist movement. As an American, the growth of this fringe campaign has put me in a position where I can neither no longer sit idle. I am impelled by my patriotic values, to speak out against sleep restoration.
Last week, an estimated ten million Americans participated in the largest to-date coordinated sleep-in demonstration. These pro-sleep fanatics intentionally turned off screen devices and artificial lights, and remained in beds from 11 p.m. until 8 a.m. Some even used products of questionable legality in certain jurisdictions (ear plugs, eye masks, heavy window curtains) that they had obtained through dark web vendors. According to one Naptivist named Caitlin Demmer, 52, the protest could not have been implemented without these aids.
“In 2030, many of us need to, sort of, help the sleep…” she said.
Mason Vasquez, Vice President of Reach at InstaLOL, explained how we are betraying our national values when we sleep. “My company provides free content to users. We’ve bought attention and that means open, not shut, eyeballs for the advertisers.”
“A sleeper is a thief!”
In the past two years since the so-called “red-eye clause” was added to the general eligibility requirements to apply to become a naturalized US citizen, we’ve seen a proliferation of such awake-contract language. Now it is common to find red-eye wording in the documentation that must be completed for phone contracts, residential leases, and even for matriculation to colleges. Land-grant institutions that have weathered deep funding cuts from their state legislatures in the last decade argue the lavish telecom funding they receive is critical to delivering on student learning and that their enrollees must commit to full awareness to fulfill their commitment to these contracts.
Those on the Left question why Americans should be so committed to an austere sleep diet. But no one can deny that population-wide awakeness promotion has had a remarkably positive impact on the United States’ free market economy. Flying in the face of facts and sensibility, many other governments have actually taken a bewilderingly proactive regulatory approach to rest protection. Several European countries have effectively socialized sleep by outlawing red-eye clauses and an Old World-esque refusal to overturn 40-hour-workweek policy.
When asked at the recent G-10 summit, Armando Basta, a staffer from the Italian delegation, explained, “We have come to view sleep as a resource that the government must protect and ensure access to.”
But this is utter nonsense. Do not allow yourself to be seduced by either domestic Naptivist zealots or European mores. There is no such “inalienable right to sleep.” In fact, any argument for this flies against rights guaranteed to corporations by the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. A sleeping population infringes on companies’ rights to their property, in the form of your attention which they have fairly purchased.
Consider this: Do you hear any offer from Naptivists to pay for viewing all of the memes they smugly produce and enjoy? Are they offering up earned money to have their published manifestos broadcast so widely? How else would they propose that Americans’ First Amendment guaranteed right, free [of charge] speech, is to work?
The coastal elites who I think would generally like to slink away from modernity while eating foods they cooked and traveling by train, claim preserving sleep is a necessity for health, well-being, and productivity. The materials distributed for the “Cherish America’s Darkest Hours” sleep-in stated that sleep has become a luxury good and that the wealthy will ultimately be the only ones able to purchase access to sleep. With this they are perilously firing the opening round for class warfare.
Let us take a common sense approach to the issue. In a modern, developed society there are few compelling arguments why a person would need to regularly spend one-third of their day totally non-responsive in a bed. If tired, it is recommended that you take to a chair for 30–90 minutes with eyelids resting lightly. There is no need to mute or dim devices, as this will ensure that you would be easily aroused when content requires your attention. Practice responsible dozing.
The most credible concerns voiced about large-scale wake promotion at the end of the last decade related to safety. But these worries, in this age of self-driving vehicles and fully automated manufacturing, seem at best quaint and at worst just an emotional plea to a fabled bygone era of leisure. People working in job categories where they provide lifesaving or critical infrastructure functions (i.e. neurosurgeons, firefighters, telecom helpline staff) should be allowed to register for eight-hour sleep waiver permits.
Realistically, even the minor discomforts of fatigue are easily remedied by the latest energy beverages, with only minimal increases in symptoms of anxiety and cardiovascular risk. And of course, the recent proposals from the far-woke in Washington to outlaw the sale of beds and linens are an unnecessary overreach. Similar to people’s desire to continue purchasing stoves for kitchens, people will always want bedrooms in their homes for hominess, even if they go unused.
Stay awake and attentive, America. We can all feel comfortable, pursue happiness, and also be prosperous as we move beyond sleep indulgence.
