Precedent? Every nation that has adopted the metric system changed from its previous system.

As for the history, US President Ronald Reagan's victory in 1980 represented a backlash against Pres. Jimmy Carter's foreign policy, energy policy, and social policy. Moving the US toward metric (as had been done under Carter) was vaguely seen by Reagan supporters as another step toward European social policies and away from American Exceptionalism.

Lyn Nofziger, as adviser to the recently elected President Reagan, was opposed to metrication and saw that the government commission promoting it was eliminated in the Reagan budget cuts. Journalist—and adviser to several Democratic officials—Frank Mankiewicz wrote in Nofziger's obituary:

"in 1981, when I reminded him that a commission actually existed to further the adoption of the metric system and the damage we both felt this could wreak on our country, Lyn went to work with material provided by each of us. He was able, he told me, to prevail on the president to dissolve the commission and make sure that, at least in the Reagan presidency, there would be no further effort to sell metric.”

Refuse is a bit strong; sectors that see a financial benefit, like the auto industry or the military, have gone metric. Keep in mind that the metric system took almost 50 years to catch on in France. People have always resisted imposition of new weights and measures by government authorities. Though metric has great advantages in decimal calculation, that's not the only criterion by which to judge utility. The ease of halving and quartering measurements in traditional systems shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. Andros Linklater's book Measuring America has a fascinating account of the historic tension between folks who need to easily divide by 10 and those who more commonly divide by 4. A lot more everyday household calculations are dividing by 4 than by 10.

It'd be interesting for someone with knowledge of the UK to weigh in on the precedent part of the question because they still use miles for their roads despite the government deciding to adopt metric in 1965.

Hi there people!

I'm aware, few topics can generate such livid discussions of pros and cons as well as personal experience as a good talk on systems of measurement but I'd like to remind everybody here that we have rules about posting in this sub.

All answers need to be in-depth and informative and of a quality a historian would provide.

Personal anecdotes are not an acceptable source nor is the personal preference of system of measurements an appropriate topic for this sub. I'm sure there is a sub for that (/r/measurementdiscussions? /r/metrcvimperial? /r/metergonewild?) but this is not it.

Please adhere to our rules.

Thank you!