I originally wrote this in early June, long
before Donald Trump raised his hair into the presidential fray, and then promptly forgot
about it. If only I could forget about Trump’s hair.
You’d think
America would support a Presidential candidate who chose to be honest and bold,
as opposed to most candidates in living memory. Now the Democrats have a
candidate who took a bold statement, who’s absolutely right about his bold
statement, and who doesn’t stand a chance because of his bold statement.
Lincoln Chaffee—love that name—took
aim at Hillary Clinton’s knees, which is about as high as he’s going to get to
beating her. Maybe ankles. In his announcement he said America should become
internationalist, which is another of those ideas that’s excellent in the
perfect idealist world.
And as part of becoming
internationalist, Chaffee thinks it’s high time America went metric.
He’s right, and I’m not just saying
that because I’d vote for him over Clinton. I’d vote for almost anyone over
Clinton.
As Chaffee pointed out, the United
States is one of only three nations that don’t use the metric system. The other
two are Myanmar and Liberia, and they’re not exactly movers and shakers, are
they? There’s some question about whether Liberia’s even still there.
The metric system is simple and
logical, easy to follow increments of tens and hundreds. They even stuck in the
simplest possible way to measure temperature, with water freezing at zero and
boiling at 100. Easy-peasy. Simple to use, better for business and science, and
right in line with the rest of the world.
No wonder Americans hate it.
We’re a contrary people, and we
don’t automatically go along, whether it makes sense or not. If the rest of the
world jumped off the Empire State Building, we’d laugh and point. Also, in our
divisive political system, it’s impossible for someone on one side to make a
suggestion—no matter how reasonable—without the other side demonizing the idea.
Here’s an example of what happens instead of a reasonable discussion:
“Maybe, since we’re at war with
terrorist groups and being infiltrated by drug dealers, we should make more of
an effort to secure our borders?”
“Racist!”
There’s also a not-unreasonable
fear that some of the other ideas embraced by the rest of the world don’t work
so well here. Maybe going metric would help more than it would hurt, but what
would we be pushed to change next? After all:
Give ‘em 2.54 centimeters and they’ll take 1.6093 kilometers.
In my grandfather's day, he worked in the tulip industry in the Netherlands before immigrating. There was talk of installing the metric system. He liked it- he said everything divides neatly down by tens, it's so much easier than imperial.
ReplyDeleteThere's no doubt that it's easier -- once you get used to it. But nobody wants to get used to a new system!
DeleteLOL! I like our system, but then I'm used to it. I don't like Hilary, however.
ReplyDeleteI think that's the main thing -- people get used to their system, whether it's the better one or not, so they tend to defend it. I don't want to change systems ... only because I'm too lazy to learn the new one!
DeleteI seem to recall that the US did dabble with the metric system once. As much as I prefer Imperial, trying to remember what chains and tons and 100weights were always gave me a headache.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in high school there was a huge push on to get us familiar with the metric system. I remember one class where we put together displays of metrics used in advertisement ... but it just didn't take.
DeleteSome tools are metric. I know people have been trying to change it since the 1950's. See how far they've gotten.
ReplyDeleteI have a complete set of metric sockets -- complete because half of them are metric.
DeleteWhile I don't like Hillary, I also don't like the metric system. Why can't the world change to OUR system?
ReplyDeleteAs much as it pains me to say this, the metric system really is better, so I don't blame them for not wanting to change. Maybe we can compromise: We send them Hillary and ... well, we're happier.
Delete