“BUSY BEING BORN. . .”

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #285

In the lyrics of one of his songs, Bob Dylan wrote that a person was either busy being born or busy dying. I believe that is also true for countries. Accordingly, although I fully agree this is not a matter of life or death, I believe our country should convert to the Metric System, which is demonstrably a better system than the system we are using now. In fact, I devoted part of a chapter about this in my A Voter’s Handbook: Effective Solutions to America’s Problems (The Forum Press, 2010). That will show ourselves and everyone else in the world that we are still busy being born. As I said before, there probably is no need to discuss the irrationality of our present Imperial System of weights, measures, distances and temperatures that we inherited from Great Britain. No one can argue that there is any logic in having 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, or 5,280 feet in a mile. The same is true regarding the relationship of ounces, pounds and tons. Furthermore, what is the logic in the Fahrenheit’s system of defining water as freezing at 32 degrees and boiling at 212 degrees? And how can we compete as optimally as we might in the rest of the world if we still measure volumes in fluid ounces, cups, pints, quarts, gallons and barrels? (And, by the way, exactly how large is a hectare or even an acre of land, or a peck or a bushel of grain?)

On the other hand, there is a natural beauty and logic to the Metric System. Does not a system where water freezes ay zero degrees Celsius and boils at 100 degrees make much more sense? As a result, the sciences of chemistry, physics and medicine in our country long ago made the shift to Metric. And we have also joined the rest of the world’s athletic communities by using the Metric System in our track and field events. So, what do you say, let’s show ourselves and the world that we are still busy being born. My wife Grace was born and raised in Canada, and that country converted to the Metric System many years ago. So, according to Grace, if her parents could make the switch and even be conversant in the Metric System within six months of the change, why shouldn’t we? Pretty short birth process, don’t you think?

Notice: My new book All Rise! The Libertarian Way with Judge Jim Gray (Gaudium Books, 2020) has just been released. This book traces Libertarian thinking, and my experiences with it, and then applies it in its 12 chapters to issues like Education, Healthcare, Declarations of War, Immigration, Religion, Raising and Mentoring our Children and more. If interested, please visit www.JudgeJimGray.com for more information.