At Monday, 07 October 2002, you wrote: >At 05:41 PM 7 October 2002 +0100, Tom Wade VMS Systems wrote: >>He was not punished for using pounds, he was punished for not providing the >>approved units AS WELL. ... >>Isn't it the case that packaged goods in the US must be labelled >>in *both* metric and colonial ? So the UK situation is slightly less >>bureaucratic and heavy handed, isn't it ? > >(a) We're dealing at two levels here. From a fundamental moral level, the >guy was NOT trying to rip anyone off. He wanted to deal in pounds and only >pounds. He was subjected to legal action because he did not want to have >anything to do with metric. He was not prosecuted for fraud because he was >not committing fraud. He was prosecuted for not providing metric units. >That is fundamentally the case, and it is, in my opinion, a travesty.
Jim..sorry bud, but I've gotta say you're wrong here. With all due respect to your Libertarian ideals, you're incorrectly reducing the problem to a simple set of circumstances.....the guy wanted to deal in English units. HE COULD HAVE DELT IN ENGLISH UNITS had he owned a dual standard APPROVED scale. All scales for trade have to be approved by a govenrment agency. Our gas pumps are approved, scales are inspected. All to provide some sort of accuracy for our trade based economy. Otherwise, if everyone had the freedom to use whatever scales they wanted, and there was no government oversight, abuses would soon follow...and even now I'm sure they do occur. This guy refused to use a government approved scale system. Plain and simple. The issue of English vs metric was only secondary. Sure...it sounded good to call him the "Metric Martyr" but the guy simply was engaged in trading commerce with unapproved scales. Simple as that. Quit trying to read more into it than has already been read into it...wayyyy too much I say. B
