The Dozenal Establishment Act

Dozenalists are frequently challenged in their views; but on the merits of the issue, the superiority of the dozenal system, they clearly have the better of the issue. So many anti-dozenal interlocutors will respond, "Fine, dozenal is better. What difference does it make? How could you possible get the world to change?" This document hopes to help answer that question: a bill to establish the dozenal system as the official number system of the Republic. Download as PDF

This bill is loosely designed for the United States, though a real bill for a federal system such as ours would require a few more complications: e.g., incentives to states to follow suit, additional clauses about businesses and corporations operating in interstate commerce, and so forth. So while it uses terms like "the Republic" and has "the United States" at the top, it shouldn't be regarded as limited to the United States. With a few changes, its general principles should be applicable to many countries.

This is v1.0 (the version is clearly visible in the pdf metadata; it's not included in the facial document due to the deliberately bill-like format, which does not include a version number). Comments are, of course, welcome at the usual places. (E.g., the DozensOnline forum.) They are, in fact, eagerly awaited; like all bills, this one could certainly use some improvement, and many minds can improve it much better than only one.

Most dozenalists believe that the change to the dozenal system will necessarily be primarily a bottom-up transition, rather than a top-down one. That is, people will begin using dozenal because it's simply easier and better, and this will gradually diffuse across society until the decimal system is an all-but-forgotten relic, like Roman numerals or rotary phones. I personally agree whole-heartedly with this way of thinking; dozenalism should not be imposed from the top, the way the metric system was. It should be adopted as a popular measure.

On the other hand, that doesn't mean that government can't be involved in helping things along a little bit; and government will be absolutely necessary in at least three ways: (1) the dozenalization of the currency; (2) permitting the use of dozenal metrology(ies) alongside customary-imperial and Si; and (3) what is used in government work and taught in government schools. The above bill intends to address those three necessary arenas of government action.

So please, read and comment; I'm excited to see what people think of this.