Several of you (Marcus, Bill, Carleton) have posted arguing with
the legal
opinion I posted. Please consider (AM is shorthand for
"anti-metricationist"):
(1) For all the anti-metric fervor in England, there will
probably be 10
times that in the USA. AMs will pull out all stops if metric
mandates try to
force them to cease the use of colloquial units. All I have been
trying to
say for weeks now is that, if such legislation gets passed, it
WILL be
challenged in court, and the AM's MAY win.
You keep trying to argue with me about constitutionality, etc. I
fully
understand how YOU read the constitution. That's fine. What you
seem to be
refusing to do is understand that others WILL read it
differently, and there
is plenty of legal precedent for doing so. If you do not accept
this, you
are refusing to understand the enemy, which is a pretty poor way
to win a
war.
(2) Rather than address each of the points you bring up
individually, I'm
going to suggest you reread the four criteria the US Supreme
Court uses to
judge whether a restriction on commercial speech is
constitutional (I'm at
home today, so I don't have the exact reference; I posted the
email on
Sunday.)
Then remember this: those words are NOT mine, they are NOT from
my legal
advisors, they are NOT uninformed opinions. They are from the
United States
Supreme Court. They outline the case-law precedent the USSCt uses
to ensure
that regulations on commercial speech are not unconstitutional.
So, if you question whether the concept of the government having
a
"significant interest" in legislation is a reasonable
requirement, you are
questioning not me, not my attorneys, but the US Supreme Court.
If you argue that "cubits" are not allowed so we should be able
to prohibit
the use of "feet", imagine yourself in front of nine skeptical
justices
trying to explain the "government's interest" in prohibiting the
use of a
unit of measure that has been extensively used for hundreds of
years.
For those who favor mandated metrication, by having someone such
as me on
this list you get a much better "window" into how the AMs will
think. Rather
than trying to change my mind, I suggest you start thinking
about
strategies to counteract that kind of thinking. Even if I die
today, you
will have to deal with it.
Jim Elwell
P.S. Clarification: the four-point criteria from the USSCt I
posted on
Sunday is a paraphrase. I'll post the exact wording tomorrow so
you can
judge for yourself if I paraphrased accurately.
