Jim, > As I have stated many times on this forum: the US Federal > Government is the single largest purchaser of goods and services > in the entire world. If it simply metricated all of its > operations (e.g., the BLM), and then required metrication of > anyone who gets its money (e.g., if you get a development > contract you must do the work in metric), the metrication of the > USA would speed up 100 times, without imposing a single law on > private individuals or businesses.
The example of the UK, where they tried to do it on a voluntary basis, undermines your argument. Compare how Australia handled metrication compared with the UK. The UK metric association has an interesting web page on this: http://www.ukma.org.uk/press/ausvuk.htm That is not to say I'm advocating enforcement directly at a personal level, in other words invent a new crime for "failure to use metric in a public place" or something silly like that, but use existing legal controls to change or introduce a requirement for metric only, like units for trade etc. It's quite reasonable that commercial enterprise be the subject of this so long as it is in a normal regulatory context, it has to be balanced against the danger of over regulation, but it's hard to see how requiring universal use of the best system of measurement around can be that harmful. The end game is that all business uses metric which has got to be better commercially than some using it and not others. I fully agree with your point that the US government should metricate and that will help a great deal, but again as the UK example shows, it isn't sufficient by itself. Phil Hall
