Even Colbert couldn't make stuff like this up.
Watch: Fox News host attacks "inelegant, creepy" metric system that America alone has resisted
"Almost every nation on Earth has fallen under the yoke of tyranny—the metric system," Carlson said. "From Beijing to Buenos Aires, from Lusaka to London, the people of the world have been forced to measure their environment in millimeters and kilograms. "The United States is the only major country that has resisted, but we have no reason to be ashamed for using feet and pounds."
(guest James) Panero called the metric system "the original system of global revolution and new world orders."
Carlson replied: "God bless you, and that's exactly what it is. Esperanto died, but the metric system continues, this weird, utopian, inelegant, creepy system that we alone have resisted."
It's one thing to have crazed, unhinged conspiracy theories about the metric system, but one should educate oneself before saying things that are factually incorrect.
"The metric system, meanwhile, is the product of the French Revolution. It was imposed at the business end of the guillotine," Panero said. "It's assumed to be progressive. It's assumed that everyone has gotten to be behind it."
Carlson characterized the metric system is "completely made up out of nothing."
"It's totally made up," Panero said. "Even worse than overturning custom has been the meter's imposition of ten. It's a ten size fits all mentality. Now here's how it gets crazy. The French Revolution went all in for 10. They tried to impose a 10 day week, 100 hours, 100 minutes, 100 seconds—they had a whole revolutionary calendar."
International System of Units - Wikipedia
>> The group, which included preeminent French men of science,
[32]:89 used the same principles for relating length, volume, and mass that had been proposed by the English clergyman
John Wilkins in 1668
[33][34] and the concept of using the Earth's
meridian as the basis of the definition of length, originally proposed in 1670 by the French abbot
Mouton.
[35][36] <<
So while SI did come out of the French Revolution, it was based on measurements proposed by clergymen and the base units were based on various known quantities like the circumference of the earth and the mass of a liter of water.
