All arguments were written by me, Sam Soltero. All people consulted are fictional.

“America killed Napoleon at Waterloo, why should we still use his system of units anyway?” – Jim Dawes, army lieutenant

“The imperial system confuses the hell out of foreign spies.” – Roger Long, financial analyst

“It makes a good addition to the citizenship test to prevent all those acres of immigrants coming in.” – Jake Graham, firefighter

“Carter tried to do it, and I’ve hated him ever since he held all those people hostage at the Iranian embassy.” – Elizabeth Hurst, former attorney

“The metric system is a conspiracy theory to make people think the weather in London is worse than it actually is. Wake up! It’s not actually 18° over there right now!” – George Wool, college student

“It confuses me with all of the weird units, whereas it’s easy to just check my foot when I need to know how long something is.” – Helen Ember, farmer

“I prefer an originalist interpretation of the Constitution. I also wear a powdered wig and don’t recognize Florida as a state.” – Johann van Kartmann, author

“Metricism is the standard for the scientific community, and I don’t trust scientists. They built the Terminator, didn’t they?” – Ronald Loh, marketing consultant

“I like the mental workout I need to do when converting feet to miles.” – Elvira Glenn, waitress

“I like that you can say you have a ‘ton’ of something and be actually correct without having to spell it weirdly.” – Cash Daniels, trucker

“I’m still bitter from the time we lost that Mars rover arguing over this shit, and I’m not going to back down now.” – Nancy Cartagena, engineer

“We’re following the international standard set by other countries, like Liberia.” – Tom Berry, human resources manager

“It’s three times cheaper to produce a footlong sandwich than it is to make a meterlong sandwich, and don’t even get me started on the Quarter Pounder.” – Oliver Pine, fast food executive

“The imperial system has uses in real life, and it’s important to know so you can grow up to be a lifelong critic of the imperial system.” – Amanda Weissman, preschool teacher

“The imperial system is what makes America its own country, sets it apart from the rest of the world. Like eating waffles on Sunday. Like grilling hamburgers for a party. Like the Statue of Liberty. There is nothing more American than a confused, kludgy mess of old rules that don’t fit together in any way while the rest of the world moved on two hundred years ago.” – Paul Winter, senator

“Think of the children! Do you know how hard it is to pronounce centi – sensi – sennie – cento – you know what I mean!” – Bolton Rodriguez, retired speech therapist

“I just love Hedwig and the Angry Inch.” – Dusty Dalton, nurse

“I’m nothing without my ten-gallon hat.” – Sam Blank, entertainer

“It gives me something to argue about with my family when there aren’t any actually important issues for us.” – Melinda Konigsberg, actuary

“If America wanted to conform to international standards we would have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child or the Kyoto Protocol.” – Ahmad Calvin, aviator

“You get more points in Scrabble from playing GALLON than you do from LITER.” – Harrison French, real estate agent

“We would have to re-publish all of those books as Celsius 232.78, which just doesn’t have the same ring to it.” – Jacqueline Ross, marketing director

“If we increase our dependence on foreign units, it will hurt American entrepreneurship and weaken our economy. We should only use units made in our country.” – Kevin Derby, chef

“I’d sound a lot shorter if I was 1.88 meters, rather than 6’2”, and then nobody would hire me.” – Juniper Yamamoto, actress

“We wouldn’t be able to have that joke I tell my kids: ‘Why can’t a nose be 12 inches long? Because then it would be a foot!’ They love that one.” – Warren Gonzalez, plumber