A blurb from last year, re-run to teach about the European Union and its struggles when its bureaucratic rules, backed up by legislation from the European Parliament, challenge national sovereignty, sparks fly. What's a sovereign nation to do?In this, the latest example involving the EU and its members, the EU bureaucrats, using their wide range of discretion, seem to have backed down.The defenders of pints, miles, and pounds (as weight, not money) are not entirely satisfied. By the way, those of us not in the UK (or the Republic o Ireland) might not understand that the pint is the most important of these traditional measures.
The European Union is set to confirm it has abandoned what became one of its most unpopular policies among many British people."It is proposing to allow the UK to continue using pounds, miles and pints as units of measurement indefinitely..."Under the plans which have now been scrapped, even displaying the price of fruit and vegetables in pounds and ounces would have become grounds for a criminal prosecution."The decision to back down was made by Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen... 'I want to bring to an end a bitter, bitter battle that has lasted for decades and which in my view is completely pointless.
We're bringing this battle to an end.'..."John Gardner, director of the pro-imperial British Weights and Measures Association, said: 'If a trader tries to conduct his business in just imperial measurements that will be illegal.'"The UK Metric Association said the statement does not mean that traders can go back to weighing and pricing in imperial measures, and it will be 'business as usual'..."
Ken Wedding on his blog, Teaching Comparative Govenment and Politics, http://compgovpol.blogspot.com/ goes back on some Minnesota history when metric rationalists seemed to have been gained the upper hand and even in the US people saw km/hr speed limit signs, learned that a dime (part of a metric system) weighed about a gram, and that a meter was about a yard long.
In 1977, the NCAA sanctioned a Division III metric football game between Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges here in Northfield, Minnesota. But the enthusiasm for imposing metric (even in Europe)uniformity may be waning.Yet another victim on nationalistic pride. The Brits and Irish will raise a pint to that.
2 comments:
When it comes to systems of measurement I don't see why we all shouldn't just immediately adopt the metric system. It's a lot easier and is used in almost all instances of precision measurement.
I also don't see how traditional systems of measurement can become so important in nationalism and traditional thought. It's not as if the quantity of the good will be different if measured with an equal-by-conversion metric scale.
Because, Corey, no matter how much it's for the better, people are always slow to change. Many see the pint as a tradition, and the EU symbolizes a break from tradition. The reason for that is the British hate seeing the EU as their way out of their current economic slump, especially compared to the US economy. The pint is just something small they turned into something big. Made a mountain out of a molehill, and actually won a small victory.
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