I was not aware that Marcus was not a dues-paying member of the USMA. How 
about the rest of you (John "Kilopascal"? Wizard of OS? etc.)?

 From 1991 to 1995 I was the Chair of the Utah Libertarian Party, a 
volunteer, dues-collecting group like the USMA. For 4 years I had various 
"libertarians" telling me everything I was doing wrong, or that I was not 
doing what I should have been.

I eventually realized there are two kinds of people in these groups: (a) 
those who have lots to say and (b) those who gave money and time. And I 
realized that there was not much overlap between the two. Those who never 
paid dues but always criticized my work never actually did much. Those who 
paid dues were also the ones who pitched in to help and whose criticisms 
actually had merit.

Some of you (including, I think, Marcus) are looking for magic wands to 
metricate America. No such thing exists. We are going to metricate the USA, 
and it will be through the small actions of thousands of individuals such 
as Jim Frysinger and Bill Potts and Valerie Antoine and Lorelle Young and 
Chris Stone and Don Hillger.

These folks have real jobs, yet they donate time to metricating America. If 
my guess is anything, they each put in hundreds if not thousands of dollars 
worth of their time to this. The *least* the rest of you can do is put in 
$30 to help the USMA meet its expenses.

Then ask yourself, "where can I contribute time?" Read Duncan's most 
excellent post for some ideas (USMA:17630).

Jim Elwell

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