The buc-ee's simping is so weird to me. It's just a gas station with a gift shop. Like, I get it, it's got nice bathrooms, nobody is disagreeing, but so many road trips with big groups somebody wants to go there and spend like 30 minutes shopping. I hate it.

It’s like a Walmart, Cracker Barrel, and a Sheetz had some unholy abomination of a child. I went exactly once to see what gives everyone such a hard-on, and couldn’t get out fast enough.

I don't find it surprising at all.

The whole idea of breaks during the work day came from early-day capitalists (check out Factory Act and how it came to be. And for those who don't want to/can't - it wasn't from the goodness of their hearts, they noticed that their workers were making too many costly mistakes, like getting themselves rolled into heavy machinery and dying, so they asked doctors to "figure this shit out". The Factory Act is the earliest iteration of what eventually became OSHA), some of whom showed at least a semblance of honour, and following the actual tenets of capitalism (giving back to the community).

It became the "everybody knows this" kind of thing.

Then times have changed. Today's capitalists are a bunch of babies with way too much power, who don't know how they came to be, or why the "gentleman rules" that were in place happened. All they see is that if someone takes a 30 minute break, they're not working for 30 minuts (making shareholders cry! :( ).

The federal government didn't need to mandate this, because "everybody did this anyway", and if one state was having issues, it mandated that on their own.

Yes, all states mandate meal breaks except Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming (source)