Talk:United States/Archive 11

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Previous archive page is Talk:United States/Archive 10

Next archive page is Talk:United States/Archive 12

Contents

Article title: United States or United States of America

Forgive me if I've missed something here, but why is this article called United States? Isn't the actual state (eh?) called the United States of America or the USA?--Alun 20:48, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

There has been extensive discussion of this and a vote (please see Archive 9). The outcome was that the article remains United States. Sunray 21:43, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

This article is almost twice the recommended size

This article is 61k that is almost twice the recomended size. See Wikipedia:Article_size. I am not seriously demanding that the article is shortened but I request that people who think that the USA can exceed the size limit allow this for other countries too, for e.g. Germany. Please express your support at talk:Germany. Andries 18:32, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

--Let's not overreact to the issue of the article size. The recommended size is a totally outdated suggestion based on the fact that some very early browsers could not support articles over 32k. This issue is no longer relevent, and thousands of articles of lesser importance than the United States have gone way over this amount with little notice. --Jleon 19:25, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

That's not at all what the "article size" article itself says, however: it cites stylistic considerations, as well as (not very compelling) technical ones. Also see Wikipedia:Summary style, which waxes further lyrical on similar issues. Incidentally, on the "thousands of articles" point, this would in fact be about the #324th largest article, if none of the others had changed size in the meantime. And as Andries says, the real problem is the "precedent setting" one: users who wish to add large amounts of marginal material to a given article will say "but look, it's nowhere near as big as United States, and this is an Important Topic, too". And there's really no need for it: all the material in over-long sections of this article is already covered in the various "main articles" on that sub-topic: why have such long sections on Politics of the United States, Demographics of the United States and Holidays of the United States? Alai 00:49, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Because they have pretty much the most basic amount of info. The other logical end is that the article gets so long that several sections end up being only a "see also" link, which is horribly unuseful. This article is pretty much as short as it functionally can be, and some areas can still be expanded. However, only as an outline - detailed info belongs in the proper articles. There's no reason for the 32k limit except for a natural breaking point, and perhaps it should be doubled. I have no problem with setting precedent, this has become a good article. --Golbez 06:37, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • perhaps I'm a little late to this discussion but I say shorten it if possible. I think sometimes people fall in love with the u.s. page. all I can say is if you really love it set it free. I suppose you could say the same thing to the people who want to shorten it but I think shortenists aren't motivated as much by undying love for u.s. McVonn 17:52, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
As a non-editor of this article, and as a non-USian, I have to say that far from a "basic" amount of info, they contain a horribly extraneous quantity, and in places read as positively waffly. Every other country could also not merely list its national holidays, but put them into a great stonking table -- but how many do? (I dare say lots of us self-indulgent Europeans would have yet longer such lists.) I strongly urge against "but the US is an important country" arguments, since inevitably they'll end up being replicated elsewhere, and before one knows it, article size standards are totally gone. If you want to argue for that, or for a larger limit, then that's another matter, but let's not simply start with United States (or Germany...) as special cases. Alai 13:21, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
Care to share what you think can be changed, apart from the "great stonking table"? And maybe there needs to be a precedent. --Golbez 14:13, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
I don't want to be a nuisance, and yes, this is a good article, but I changed my opinion a bit and I request that this article is shortened to prevent setting a bad precedent. What am I going to say to enthusiastic editors who complain that Wikipedia has double standards with regards to article size? See talk:Germany. Andries 06:56, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
Why are you so scared of Germany breaking the barrier? --Golbez 14:13, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
The trouble there is that Germany has had it history section disportionately lengthened (in search of "balance") by one user, who's specifically cited this article as "precedent" for not shortening it again (among various other assertions in an incredibly long-running edit war over this). You're more than welcome to come over and help sort it out! Alai 16:05, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
Part of my inspiration in expanding this article was Japan, which has a long and robust history section. However, you'll noticed we've managed a concise history summary for this article, but then again, America is a lot younger than Japan or Germany. I looked at Germany but honestly I don't know enough about it to properly edit it. Looking... okay, I see a major problem already - it spends four paragraphs on a 12 year period. That, and lots of other stuff in History, rightly needs to be split out. It's not my style to get involved in edit wars, though. :/ --Golbez 16:27, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

I strongly recommend that country, city and other such location-based articles remain under the 30 kb limit. (The warning appears at 30kb). When one reads such articles an overview of the subject is needed, not detail. Articles on countries are made of discrete units (as opposed to a continuous section based article such as history), which can very well be shortened, and the extraneous details moved to the main articles. ~32 kb also is a sweet spot for readers; it becomes more difficult to read a lengthy article (particularly on screen) if the size is allowed to swell like this. And as far as I've seen, a precis/summary of the topic is usually better written than a longer article which tends to expand on details. Take a look at India, a FA. On an 800x600 resolution on Opera v8, the length of the page is 21 scrolls whereas the US article is 32 scrolls. Comparing the length of both the pages, the India page is ~29.5 kb as opposed to 61kb (double) for the US. (its a vague metric, but it does point out how information is sewn into the India page) One way of reducing the size, is by adding information that is resident in markup such as tables relegated to a template. See also Wikipedia:Wikiproject Countries.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 09:54, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

It is entirely possible to OVERshorten. Shortening should be done for form, not to reach some arbitrary number. No one here has yet stated what they think should be shortened in this article; until you do, your concerns are merely aiming towards a number, rather than a solution. I agree that the 32k barrier is a useful figure for readability; however, an article should not be sacrificed to meet it.
Looking at India now to compare... Politics can be shortened, it's entirely possible I overexpanded it. Demographics! That's where a major part of the bloat is. (And I can say that because it's not my baby), you could lose a few k there, particularly in "race". Same deal for social issues - India doesn't even have a social isssues section. (Maybe it should?) How best to elegantly remove this? Changing these wouldn't drop it to 32k, but it would help shorten it, and not even for shortening's sake either. Lemme see what I can do. --Golbez 14:13, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

The quest for shortening

Bear in mind I am shortening for readability, not for shortening's sake. I've identified two further places where it is unnecessarily wordy - Race, and Social Issues. The Race section has more information than the main article! And Social Issues seems to be a unique segment, if the PRC's page doesn't have one, then really, it's there only to attack the USA. Race needs to be MOVED to the main article and some kind of short mention left behind, and Social Issues, I don't know, turn it into a two sentence section whose only purpose is to introduce the main articles. I'm putting this here because I'm about to leave for the day, so someone else take up the work. Thanks :) Sorry if I sound harsh above, but most of the comments at first sounded like shortening for shortening's sake, which is a really bad motivator. Shorten for readability and usefulness, which is what I'm doing. --Golbez 14:28, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

Try and see what text is really needed here. I would suggest a radical cut down of the text on the page. Get the page to 22kb. After that inclusion can always be there. See Wikipedia:Wikiproject Country for what headings are recommended. A precis of the text would get the bulk of the matter here, while removing the extra details.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 16:29, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
22k? I'm assuming that's a typo for 32k, and no, again, shortening is not the motivation here. Getting to 32k is not my ideal; cleaning up the article is. It just happens to be that many sections need shortening or moving. There is no reason whatsoever to simply chop off the article at the knees purely to get it to 32k. --Golbez 17:13, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
By the way, I'll point out that India cheats - they use a template for their infobox, which saves them several kb. :) They also have much better pictures than we do. Again - 32k is not the ideal, readability is. --Golbez 17:15, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
I know the India page cheats. :) But I've already suggested the same above. I believe quite a lot of kb will be saved. Yes it was 22 kb.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 17:27, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
We USED to do that; I think the current standards are to NOT use a template for a one-time-use in such a fashion. And that is again focusing only on the size, and not on the actual article. By saying 22k, I think what you're saying it, chop it down to the 100% bare bones, and then add in as needed? --Golbez 17:41, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
1)I'm not sure if there is a "no one use policy". The Main Page has a couple of one use templates. Many countries have infobox templates too. It keeps unnecessary markup away from the page. 2) Exactly, you've got my point. Trust me, I've used this methodology many times. Precis is the way to enrichen the page. (A vague analogy again: a 5 hr movie won't sell as well as a 2.5 hr one, lots of edits are done to reduce the film length). Best of Luck,  =Nichalp (Talk)= 20:12, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
Main Page, Current Events, etc. are special pages and not regular encyclopedic pages. There must have been reason the editors of this page abandoned the one-use template, I don't know what it is. --Golbez 20:18, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
Its a good start. Now 56 kb. BTW the infobox takes just 2kb.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 18:00, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

From a readability standpoint, 30KB is just the starting point where an article may be getting too long. Reading an article of that size takes about the same amount of time as the average person's attention span, so going past that point has its costs and those costs need to be justified by the need for the article to be comprehensive (expansive topics simply need more space). The likelihood of being too long to efficiently cover its topic steadily increases as an article grows past that point so such articles should be closely examined to see if they still efficiently cover their topics in spite of their size. I personally do not think any topic is so expansive that it needs 60KB of space, but there are many topics that need 40 to even 50KB of space. I think this is one of those topics (the closer to 40KB the better, though).

The beauty of a hypertext encyclopedia is that more detailed treatments of sub topics can be covered in separate articles that are just a click away. Print encyclopedias, such as Encyclopedia Britannica, tend to jam everything into monolithic articles due to the fact that cross referencing other articles is such a pain. Others, such as Encarta, only cover topics in a mid level of detail. We should take full advantage of our hypertext environment and be able to cover topics in a mid level and a high level of detail - all in one encyclopedia. That is the aim of Wikipedia:Summary style (oh, and lead sections should also serve as concise articles in their own right - so that is three types of encyclopedias we can be at the same time by using Summary style). --mav 14:55, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Protection?

Page protected to discourage graffiti. I suggest it remain protected until the fuss over the Koran desecration controversy of 2005 fades away.

Till then, I hope critics of the US will add neutral, balanced text explaining the reasons for their anti-American sentiments to whatever article(s) they feel are appropriate. Wikipedia does not endorse OR condemn US policy. (See NPOV policy.) -- Uncle Ed (talk) 15:10, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

--Most of the vandalism on this page looks like it is either done by teenagers or the mentally ill, not necessarily from people overseas who are upset about recent news stories. I think blocking this page is unlikely to do much good. --Jleon 15:30, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Since the page is locked and I cannot currently make the edit myself, I'll put it down here so that it's not forgotten. Can somebody please make it clear that the President and V-P are elected on the same ticket. As the article reads it could be taken to mean that there are separate elections for the two posts. --Rednaxela 19:19, 27 May 2005 (UTC)- One more thing: Where's the 'This page is protected to deal with vandalism. -Please discuss suggested changes on the talk page' tag gone?

Agreed -- the protected page tag needs to be there. Earpol 20:56, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

can someone please add an interwiki link to [[mt:Stati Uniti]] ? thanks. Srl 09:18, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

--I still don't understand the purpose of the blocking- there's ALWAYS been vandalism on this page, and it always gets reverted within 2 or 3 minutes. Whoever put the protection did not bother to discuss this with us first, and if you're waiting for damaging news stories to fade away then the protection is likely to never get lifted. --Jleon 18:10, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

--I agree completely. Protecting the page was not even done properly -- there is still no "protection tag" on the main article. The page was protected, out of the blue. I believe the current protection on the United States page is in direct violation of Wikipedia protection policy -- read the following direct excerpt and justify the current lockdown:

A semi-permanent protection is used for:

  • Protecting high visibility pages such as the Main Page from vandalism.
  • Maintaining the integrity of the site's logo.
  • Maintaining the integrity of key copyright and license pages.
  • Maintaining the integrity of press releases.
  • Protecting certain "system administration" pages.
  • Protecting the often-used texts in the MediaWiki namespace.
  • User pages and their subpages that are subject to repeated vandalism.

A temporary protection is used for:

  • Enforcing a "cool down" period to stop an "edit war," upon request.
  • Protecting a page or image that has been a recent target of persistent vandalism or persistent edits by a banned user.
  • Preventing changes to a page while investigating a possible bug in the MediaWiki software.

The protection of a page on any particular version is not meant to express support for that version and requests should therefore not be made that the protected version be reverted to a different one.

Talk pages and user talk pages are not protected except in extreme circumstances.

When a page is particularly high profile, either because it's linked off the main page, or because it's recently receieved a prominent link from offsite, it will often become a target for vandalism. It is best not to protect pages in this case. Instead consider adding them to your watchlist, and reverting vandalism yourself.

Earpol 20:05, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

  • I've unprotected. I think there are enough vandal fighters here with United States on their watchlist to keep the various graffiti artists, POV pushers, and silly bastards in check. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 20:52, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Top ancestry map

If I may give my two cents... the top ancestry map in the article is very interesting, but it is also very misleading for people not familiar with statistics. The map tend to over-represent minorities. One example: take a county in Virginia in which 30% of people have Black American ancestry, 29% have German ancestry, 28% have English ancestry, and 13% have Irish ancestry. On the map, this county will appear as an African American county, although in reality white people are 70% of the population in this county. Same can be said about the Mexican counties on the map. It would make more sense to provide a map of races, based on Census 2000, with a colour for each county according to which race is the majority in the county (either non-Hispanic White, or Hispanic, or Black, or Asian, etc.). Such a map would better reflect the location of minorities in the country. Hardouin 21:24, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Criticism

Hmm, I wonder where the "Criticism" section is... Maybe such an imporant section as "Federal holidays" took its place? helix84 14:22, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

--Why does there need to be one when there aren't any "criticism" sections for other countries? We need to remember that these are encyclopedia articles, not internet blogs. --Jleon 15:31, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think there used to be a Criticism section, but it is now the enormous WP article on Anti-Americanism (with an equally huge talk page attached). I concur with Jleon. If people really want to read about criticism of the U.S., that's what the Anti-Americanism article is for. --Coolcaesar 22:03, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

recent supposed fix of photos

Important cities

Main.........HSTN......CHCGO.......LA........NY
article:.....HSTN......CHCGO.......LA........NY
List of......HSTN......CHCGO.......LA........NY
cities in....HSTN......CHCGO.......LA........NY
the..........HSTN......CHCGO.......LA........NY
United.......HSTN......CHCGO.......LA........NY
States.......HSTN......CHCGO.......LA........NY
.............HSTN..................LA........NY  
The..........HSTN..................LA........NY
United.......HSTN..................LA........NY
States has...HSTN..................LA........NY
dozens of....HSTN..................LA........NY
major cities, including several important global cities...


City names are where the photos (wider than here) are.

Now, was it worse before that?--JimWae 04:14, 2005 Jun 5 (UTC)

Obviously written by an American with no regard for the actual selfish reasons of the American War of Independence and gives a thoroughly biased view of the US as this kind of benevolent protector of the the world when in fact it is nothing more than an exploiter of under privileged country.

Government Type

Changed from "democratic federal republic" to "constitutional federal republic".

The Constitution guarantees to every state a
Republican form of government (Art. 4, Sec. 4).
As for federal, refer to the Pledge of Allegiance:
"...and to the republic for which it stands"
VS
Constitutional Republic:
this states that there are limits imposed on the
federal government, and an integralpart of how we
should define of our country.

Democratic and republic are directly contrasting terms,
and I feel I have well stated my case for the latter.
--Cuimalo 02:52, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)


All the above define who rules and how; how can they be anything but opposed?
I take it you agree?--Cuimalo
"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule..." --Thomas Jefferson


  • The Pledge of Allegiance also describes the U.S. as "one nation" and "indivisible", claimed characteristics that are hard to reconcile with the concept of a federal system of government. The federal government offers another definition of itself, in the CIA World Factbook, describing itself as a "Constitution-based federal republic; strong democratic tradition". If the federal government has the power to define itself, it has done so in a contradictory manner.
  • As for the idea that "democratic" and "republic" are directly contrasting terms, refer to the definitions for democracy and republic on Answers.com. They are two words that have varying means over time and place. Even the Federalist Papers definition of "republicanism" and "democracy" does not describes them as directly contrasting, but as 2 different types of popular government.
  • Mateo SA | talk 05:26, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Well put. However we are one nation of several states, see federal.

As for the types if government, once again, they are as mutually exclusive as a king and a dictator. They cannot exist together. I do agree with "constitutional federal republic" though.
Look into the Anti-Federalist Papers; they gave us the bill of rights. They are the other side of the conversation; co-authored by the aforementioned Thomas Jefferson.
Does anybody disagree with "constitutional..."?--Cuimalo 10:26, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)


  • "All the above define who rules and how; how can they be anything but opposed?" — Because they are terms which define imprecise concepts, concepts that often overlap. There is no government in the world that is a perfect and exclusive democracy, aristocracy, meritocracy, oligarchy, or republic. Many monarchies have had aristocratic or oligarchic aspects (e.g., Saudi Arabia), and today, many have democratic aspects (e.g., the United Kingdom). The ancient Roman Republic—the ancient source of the term "republic"—was strongly influenced by an aristocracy. Whatever the (often inconsistent) definitions given to democracy and republic by the "Founding Fathers", the most common definition of the word democracy today is simply "a government in which ultimate sovereignty lies in the people, and is exercised either directly or indirectly".
  • Another point about the Constitution. Article 4, Section 4 says "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government . . . " That is, the Constitution instructs the "United States" (the federal government) to guarantee a "republican form of government" to each state; it does not itself make the guarantee.
  • Mateo SA | talk 14:57, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you,
All governments are the submission of the people to the rule of a common force, I feel the definition is void.
These people vested in the constitution, the contract of the sovereign state and the government.
These people are guaranteed, in one way or another, a republic. This is all required of the federal government to retain this contract.
--Cuimalo 02:22, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)


  • All that being said, however, I think the best term to use for the infobox was the term it used originally: "federal republic". I believe that is the most commonly used label for the United States today. There is no way to completely and precisely define the government of the United States in less than a paragraph. "Federal republic" adequately describes the category in which the U.S. belongs. Mateo SA | talk 15:18, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)
No, the original was "democratic federal_republic", please read the title.
"Federal_republic" neglects the limiting power of the constitution and amendments, along with the source of it's power.
--Cuimalo 02:22, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Federal republic was the term used on this page from Jan 31, 2005 (when the section government type was 1st added to the infobox) to May 4, 2005, when John-1107 added the word democratic.
  • The Constitution is not the source of the government's power—the people are, as the Constitution acknowledges in the Preamble.
  • If a republic is something different from a democracy, then there is no need to add the phrase "constitutional"; limited government is part of that concept of a "republic". Constitutional itself doesn't necessarily mean a limited government—the People's Republic of China, for example, has a constitution.
  • The line in the infobox is not intended to describe all aspects of a country's government. It simply provides a short classification of the country in relation to other countries. The term "federal republic" is a simple, fairly accurate label used by many sources. Mateo SA | talk 23:55, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)

CONTINUED IN "Democracy?"

"The United States traces its national origin"

"The United States traces its national origin to the United Colonies of America".

I really hate these fuzzy statements we get in Wikipedia.
What does "traces" mean?
Next question: if "traces" means "believes that" then what exactly is the entity "United States" that believes it.
Next question: depending on what "traces" and "United States" mean I will ask what "its national origin to the United Colonies of America" means.24.64.166.191 07:34, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Instead of this meaningless fluff, why can't we just write what happened: "some politicians held a meeting and agreed to form a federal entity". 24.64.166.191 22:15, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Seizing vs. Stealing

There's a revert war starting between Gabrielsimon and some other posters. I've personally reverted twice, and I'm unwilling to participate in this further without some sort of discussion.

Gabrielsimon has repeatedly changed [...] the U.S. displaced most Indian nations, seizing their lands and destroying or forcibly relocating many. to [...]the U.S. displaced most Indian nations, stealing their lands and destroying or forcibly relocating many. (Actually on the last edit, he misspelled it. I'd appreciate it if someone else would fix that. I don't want to be reverting it myself again.) Others (including myself) have repeatedly reverted back to "seizing".

This has been briefly discussed on Gabrielsimon's talk page. Stealing is POV. It implies a moral judgement. As such, it does not belong in the article. Quite frankly, I think the early US government did steal land from the Native Americans, but opinion is not valid for article inclusion. What's factual is that the land was seized. I think the text should stay that way.

Gabrielsimon has already violated the three revert rule. I refuse to violate it myself. I'd like it if we could resolve this quickly, without extending this revert war, and without needing to resort to administrative involvement.

Comments? Gabrielsimon, I welcome comments from you as well.

-- Dpark 22:21, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I concur with Dpark that although some Americans would agree that "stealing" is an accurate description, the term is too loaded and controversial to be used in an encyclopedia article. "Seizing" is factually accurate and relatively neutral. --Coolcaesar 22:26, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've fixed the spelling, but I did not revert to "seized". I'd still like more input. -- Dpark 23:12, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
As every land was 'seized', i find it rather redundant.
This land was taken by force from England, where is the Kings credit? :) --Cuimalo 01:43, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The Israel article avoids this problem by not mentioning land seizure.24.64.166.191 22:31, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
How about "forcibly seized without due process or compensation"? No moral judgement involved.
It might help to make a distinction between land in the territory sense (conquered and annexed) and the real estate sense (land use rights denied).24.64.166.191 00:02, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)


Gabrielsimon, you're continuing to revert, even though not a soul has agreed with your opinion-pushing. You even reverted the compromise "taking". You're speaking of historical truth while pushing a moral judgement. Please stop. If you wish, we can further discuss the issue, but your continued POV-pushing is unreasonable. -- Dpark 22:23, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) (Same message posted on User talk:Gabrielsimon)

"Seizing" is much less POV than "stealing". Please give up this revert war. Gabrielsimon says "read the talk page" in his edit summary, but he has never taken the time to actually use the talk page himself. Rhobite 22:40, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Gabrielsimon, and I don't understand why everyone is so sensitive about using the word "stealing" when that clealy was what occured. "Seizing" could imply that they were justly compensated for their losses, like what we mean when things are "seized" under eminent domain today. What is so POV about using terms that are simply truthful? Personally, I believe trying to whitewash this country's history is unpatrioitic in the extreme. --Jleon 23:31, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It's not about whitewashing the country's history. (This has nothing to do with patriotism.) It's about remaining neutral. "Stealing" is immoral, whereas "seizing" carries different connotations. I might say that the United States stole the land, but that's pushing my opinion. I might also say that Nazis are sick, pathetic scum. Again, that's my opinion. Opinion and judgements do not belong in wikipedia articles. We should be presenting a formal style to the world. If you don't like the word seize, because you feel it's ambiguous, I'm sure there's another word, or we could simply add a qualifier. But "stealing" is definitely not the word we should be using. It's too loaded, too judgemental. -- Dpark 23:51, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)


Gabrielsimon, what would it take to get you to discuss this? You completely removed the discussion from your talk page, and despite repeated reverts, you haven't said a single thing here. I'm not saying that the government didn't steal the land. I'm just saying we need to pick a more neutral term. -- Dpark 23:51, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Also, could someone please fix the page? The latest revert is misspelled and confusing, and I don't want to violate the 3 revert rule. -- Dpark 23:53, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)


stealing is not POV stealing is exactly what happened, and in the interest of honesty, it is the term that shall be used, so say i. senstiivities be dammned, i say, for it is EXACTLY what happened, saying any other term is an attempt at sugarrcoating there issue.

yes Stealing has oimmoral connnotations, and guess what, what they did was immoral, so why not use that word? are you trying to dress it up fancey like? also it was Stealing before you changed it to siezing, Gabrielsimon 00:02, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Because, as has been said (N+1) times, your personal moral opinion (even though I agree with it in this case) should not inform the content of the article.. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. "Seizing" and "stealing" are both true (IMHO), but "stealing" implies a disputable moral judgment whereas "seizing" is simple fact, so the latter will be used, says I and everybody else. Nickptar 00:06, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


stealing is a simple fact, seizing is trying to get around the point that the thefts occurred, so stealing should remain, honesty and integrety, no? Gabrielsimon 00:08, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So whose land did you steal, Gabe? --Golbez 00:09, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)


i stole no ones land. my culture is one of those that were displaced in canada, if you want to know more then that, you sould IM me, Gab the shaman on AIM. Gabrielsimon 00:13, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


You sound biased by your history. When two governments oppose each other and take land by force it is not generally referred to as stealing. We had a war with a group of lesser military capability. This has happened over and over throughout history. Just b/c it was wrong (the article as you claim it was originally) does not mean it should be maintained in this page. JShultz

i dont use my cultural history to make judgments here. i simply do not think that sugarcoating the issue is a good thing. it is BECAUSE it was wrong that it should be maintained, lest your attempting to erase the mistake in some fashion as for how people sound, you sounded insutling on the earlier post you made. Gabrielsimon 00:16, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why not use that word? Because it's not neutral. If the United States government had been convicted of stealing the land, then it might be appropriate to say it was stolen (even more appropriate to mention the conviction, though), but that hasn't happened. Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral. "Steal" is not neutral. You yourself admit that it has moral connotations.
And no, it didn't say stealing until you added it. Your change to theiving You change to stealing
-- Dpark 00:19, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


no one will ever chrge anyone withthe theft of lands that were here before , but that doesnt hcange the fats, changing the facts or how you say them makes things less neutral. if you wish to change Steal to sieze your bending the truth, and that is unacceptable, your only trying to change it to soften the truth in my estimation, based on your words. what areyou afraid of america being fallable? deal with it and leave steal in. Gabrielsimon 00:21, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't see my earlier post as it appears to have been removed so I will restate: the majority here feel that what you are doing is inflammatory and that you are using an approach of reversion that is against common Wikipedia standards. That is immature so lay off. If I took your TV, that would be a valid use of the term "stealing". If Canada takes your TV they "seize it". That's all I have to say on this.JShultz


theft is theft, if canada, as a country were to take anything ffrom me by seizure it would be compesated, none of what was taken in this case was compesated in anyway, hence THEFT. im not being inflammatory, you only see it that way if your bias takes over. Gabrielsimon 00:24, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm not trying to soften anything. I turned your trail of tears comment into a link so everyone can see it. I support your "forcibly relocated" change. I'm all about telling the truth. It's both true and neutral to say that the US seized the land. It may also be true that the US stole the land, but it's not neutral. I think a well written article can convey the truth without conveying opinion. -- Dpark 00:26, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


its not my opinoon i am pushing for i am pushing for unadulturated raw truth. lies and bending truths in the name of not upsetting a minority of people isnt the intent of an encycplopedia is it?aas i said above, if they had compensated the people they took the land from in some way it woul;d be al right to say hat it was a siezure, but no accomadations for restitutuin or compesation were ever made, hence theft. Gabrielsimon 00:29, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


Because you claim that seize is improper usage, I will quote from the dictionary for the word seize:

seize

1 a. To put (one) into possession of something. b. To vest ownership of a feudal property in. c. To grasp suddenly and forcibly; take or grab: seize a sword. d. To lay sudden or forcible hold of.

Steal

1a.To take (the property of another) without right or permission. b. To get or effect surreptitiously or artfully: steal a kiss; stole the ball from an opponent. c. To move, carry, or place surreptitiously.

From the above it can be regarded that Seize is in fact a MORE appropriate term if referred to 1b. You have no grounds to stand on the semantics of Seize as a term used whereby compensation is required Gabrielsimon . I can’t believe I’ve wasted a half hour on this talk page! JShultz


governmentally speaking as is what you started with, seizure is taking and compensating for, stealing is not compesnating, therafore stealing is in fact more appropriate, in context, which the definitions you posted arent. Gabrielsimon 00:38, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well then back it up, or is that just the "feeling" you have about it? I've tried to present a thoughtful rebutal using a known authority on the subject (a dictionary). You can have drugs, weapons, articles of clothing or whatever seized by the police and never returned or even auctioned. I believe you are using your own beliefs and bias throughout this debate. -JShultz


that is law enforcement, not political. your comairison holds no wieght.

Gabrielsimon 00:45, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why do you feel that seizing implies compensation? Neither wiktionary nor Webster's say so. What reference are you using? -- Dpark 00:47, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

political and intenrational law. Gabrielsimon 00:49, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I say give it up, this kid is beyond help. "that is law enforcement, not political" You don't think it applies to the millitary as well? The police are the domestic branch of the GOVERNMENT! Your posts and edits are also rife with spelling errors so you don't hold to a very high standard. JShultz


there are diffeernt definitions for different branches of differen cocieties, also, quit being a jerk, my spelling aint the best, irts not my fault that i was hit by a car when i was younger, and the nerve damamge steadily increases, making it harder and hard er to do anything with fine motor skills, but hey, if your just goiing to use that as a paltry exccuse to insuilt me, i suppose you sdont neecd to know anything about my personal history. Gabrielsimon 00:53, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Gabriel, what political and international law reference are you using? You still have not produced any kind of reference. I'm afraid you're making it look as though you're intentionally trolling. If you can produce your reference, please do so.
Or, perhaps there's some alternative to both "seize" and "steal" that we could use as a compromise.
-- Dpark 01:03, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

mount allison universities law departments books is wherei get my definiintions.

Gabrielsimon 01:07, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

regarding spelling; I mention it because one of your reversions to Your change to theiving (which is even more inflammatory and further points to your deep seated bias) contains spelling errors. I don't know about your hands but they could at least make sure the eyes proof-read before hitting submit to the main article. JShultz


i dont use my bias to make edits here, if i did i woud go off on a tangent about the resitdential school system and the perverted black robes. ( yes ill try to make better judgements for self corrected spelling) Gabrielsimon 01:07, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


Which law books are you using, is what I meant. Specific titles or ISBNs. If our use of the word "seize" is legitimately incorrect, then by all means, I wish to correct it, but I don't yet have evidence of that, beyond what you've said. -- Dpark 01:12, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


i do not have ISBN's o give you, becuase the mount allison university is in a different city, along with all thier books, and i do not have the finances to go back there. Gabrielsimon 01:16, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Don't expect us to take pity on you because your finances are insufficent to find a reference - no reference means you're making it up, by default. Surely there's something online, if you are actually correct. Nickptar 01:22, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

who is deleting responses in this page and for what reason?

Probably Gabrielsimon, becuase he's been known to do this, and what he deleted (everything not written by him, actually) is critical of him. Nickptar 01:22, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


Gabrielsimon, please refrain from deleting others' comments:

Cite one definition of "seize" that says it necessarily implies compensation. Nickptar 00:56, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
By the way: WP:AN3#User:Gabrielsimon. (If Gabrielsimon is blocked, when it expires can he be blocked for repeating the offending revert even once?) Nickptar 00:59, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

-- Dpark 01:27, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

i wont delete comments if, they are not insulting or rude to me, it is not a palce for such things, this site. sound fair? Gabrielsimon 01:29, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

OK, talking in front of you about the length of your block was probably out of line (though it's still nice to leave a (personal attack removed) or something of the sort, and not touch the non-attacking part of the comment), but how is it insulting or rude to question your definition of a word? Nickptar 01:34, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


the rest of that by voldomort is what i beleive you are questioning, well, he was rather rude and insulting, please read the deleted words to see why i think so.

Gabrielsimon 01:37, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


How about using the word "taking" as a compromise? Monkeyman 01:39, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


Lets just let him have his way already. "Seizing" is just as POV as "stealing." Whoever said above that these lands were just the spoils of war between two nations really needs to revisit their American history and look at the widespread deception and, in many cases, pure theft of land that occured. There is absolutely nothing POV about the word "stealing" when land was obviously stolen in many instances. --Jleon
No. Articles should be NPOV. "Stolen" implies judgement. Seizing implies no moral judgemens. Besides, the word "stolen" is never used to refer to governments. Governments seize. Citizens steal. The government doesn't steal your car if they catch you selling drugs, they seize it. That's what governments do. -- Dpark 02:05, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
We already tried "taking". I was fine with that. He changed "taking" back to "stealing", too. -- Dpark 02:05, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • You want someone who ignores 3RR 3 times over to get their way?
  • We are frequently told (at least once by GS too, I think) that the American natives did not believe that land could be owned, only used. If this interpretation is true that natives did not believe they owned the land, title to it could not be stolen from them. What did happen was that they were denied use of the land - it was "taken" & they were prevented access to it.
  • There is the other point that there is some evidence of people in the Americas before those genetically related to the native Americans. If that be the case, then the native Americans/ First Nations could very well have taken the land from others
  • In a number of cases there was some compensation - they were given new lands (much further away) to which they were forced to move - not fair, I agree
  • the word "stealing" is unnecessarily inflamatory
  • --JimWae 02:07, 2005 Jun 15 (UTC)
Just to throw in my two bits: I agree with Dpark and JimWae's analysis. It's like the difference between killing and murder. Most people agree that killing is always wrong, but when it's in self-defense, we call it justified and don't prosecute it as the crime of murder. However, Gabrielsimon has admitted that he has neurological damage which may prevent him from understanding the subtle technical difference between stealing and seizing, so arguing with him any further is futile. It sounds like he lacks the financial resources to visit a law library, so directing him to specific legal references wouldn't help, either.
If he keeps vandalizing the page, you guys will probably have to take this issue to ArbCom. I hope some admin is reading this and is prepared to block the page accordingly if necessary! --Coolcaesar 22:02, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Democracy?

Democracy is not mentioned once in entire article - even single mention repeatedly removed. --JimWae 00:13, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC)

I've added several mentions of democracy to the article, in the intro, history section, politics section, and the infobox. We'll have to see if they stay. I have to question whether those editting out the mentions of democracy are simply ignorant of the meaning of democracy, and assume it refers only to direct democracy and are actually acting in good faith, or if they are intentionally pushing their anti-American POV.
-- Dpark 01:15, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Please refer to the discussion "Goverment Type".
Also, democracy is spelled with a small "d" when refering to goverment.
Can you name instance of democracy in the u.S.A constitution?
----Cuimalo 01:38, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Why don't we just continue here, since it doesn't look like the previous discussion resolved the issue? We'll just start fresh.
* A democracy is a government controlled by the people (literally people government from the Greek). This can be direct or indirect (through representatives). It is entirely correct to refer to the United States as a democracy. A republic is a government in which the power rests with the people, as opposed to, for example, a monarch (literally the public thing from the Latin). In modern times, "republic" tends to be more specific to representative governments. However you want to look at it, both "democracy" and "republic" apply to America.
* Democracy is spelled with a big "D" when it's at the beginning of a sentence. Other than that, I'm not sure exactly where you saw democracy spelled with a big "D".
* As for finding the word "democracy" in the constitution, we can play that game if you want. Why don't you go find the word "nation" in the constitution? For that matter, why don't you find the word "federal"? Do we need to remove the words "nation" and "federal" from the article as well? The fact that the constitution doesn't use the word "democracy" doesn't mean that the term doesn't apply, and more than it means that the terms "nation" and "federal" doesn't apply.
-- Dpark 02:11, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

We are not a nation, we are a federation; nation means one, we are many. So yes, we need to remove nation. As for Democracy, my mistake. I ask you for your opinion on the issue at hand. What are we? --Cuimalo 03:46, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The United States government is a single entity, composed of smaller entities. My body is composed of smaller entities, but the whole still comprises only one entity. My question about the use of "nation" was not an attempt to actually say we should not use the word, but instead an attempt to point out that the United States constitution does not explicity state everything about the United States. The United States is a nation. It is also a democracy. -- Dpark 04:06, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Can we please end this?
IN A DEMOCRACY majority rules. Solders cannot garrison in our homes, no matter the majority vote.
We would have to pass an amendment and change the makeup of the goverment.
I submit that we, the Americas, are not a democracy.

IN A REPUBLIC there are partially autonomous territorial units belonging to a sovereign federation.
The Constitution Article 4, Section 4 guarantees to every state a republican form of government.
(Art. 4, Sec. 4) We have states, states rights and a guaranteed republic.
I submit that we, the Americas, are a republic.

A FEDERATION (federal government) is a union or league of smaller bodies (states).
This is by definition the head of a republic.
I submit this is a redundant statement under republic.

IN THIS CONSTITUTION a contract is formed, a charter is stated.
The contract was ratified by the sovereign states, forming a trust for the people.
This is basic contract law, and an important part of our identity.
Republics can exist without a constitution.

I SUBMIT that we are a "constitutional republic."

The true workings of the legal system and the government are sadly out of the reach
to the people with the education the govement supplies. I suggest Badnarik's constitution class, free online format and relativity correct.

Supported by Blacks Law, 6th edition (not quoted)
Please reply in the same form: quote, evidence, point.
--Cuimalo 03:36, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Please dont modify this page before discussion on the issue completes.
JimWae, you started another thread on the same subject, why? --Cuimalo 03:57, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)--Cuimalo 03:56, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

My replies seem to have been lost in the reformatting. I'll repost them here.
IN A DEMOCRACY majority rules. We have this in the United States. Citizens elect officials to make laws/enforce laws/etc. Housing soldiers in homes is entirely irrelevant. The United States is a liberal democracy, which means our constitution limits the government. That's why soldiers cannot be forcibly quartered in homes. It does not mean we are not a democracy. Wiktionary: Democracy Dictionary.com: Democracy
IN A REPUBLIC, sovereignty rests with the people. Wiktionary: Republic Dictionary.com Republic In the United States, citizens elect the government. The United States sovereignty rests with the people, and America is therefore a republic. Being a republic has nothing to do with a union of smaller entities.
IN A FEDERATION ... no argument with your defition, except that this is not redundant with republic, because it has an entirely different meaning (see REPUBLIC, directly above).
A CONSTITUTION is simply the structure of a thing. In terms of a government, a constitution lays out its powers and limits. This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with protecting the states. Not all government's constitutions are set up to protect the states (or other smaller governmental units). Dictionary.com: Constitution Wiktionary: Constitution. It's technically correct to call the United States a constitutional government, but that doesn't imply protection of the states.
IN A LIBERAL DEMOCRACY, a constitution limits the government. [Liberal democracy] This is what you were looking for when you called the United States "constitutional".
The United States is a democracy. The United States is a republic. The United States is a union (federation). The United States has a constitutional government. The United States is a liberal democracy. The United States is all these things. They are not contradictory.
I added comments in Talk:United_States#Democracy? as well. -- Dpark 02:39, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
You've also changed your comments a little bit (which is fine), so I'll re-address a couple of things as well.
"We" are not "the Americas". "The Americas" are not a country. Americas. I just feel it's necessary to clarify that point.
I feel that my definition of democracy above is still quite correct. In addition, I feel it's worth pointing out that if the majority truly wanted to allow forced quartering of troops, it would be possible through an ammendment, as you said. That's majority rule right there. Democracy.
In an emergency situation, the military, forest fire fighters (e.g.) or police can commandeer any vehicle, building or anything else they need and even draft people on the spot. 24.64.166.191 04:38, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Again, republics needn't have anything do with federations. The constitution guarantees a republican government to the states. That doesn't mean that a republic need be a union of states. Instead, this is a promise that the union will be comprised of a republican government. A union of states could also be composed of an absolute monarchy, which would be the opposite of a republic.
Yes, republics can exist without a constitution. And your assessment of the United States constitution is basically correct. My earlier comment addressed your statement about constitutions in general, which did not speak specifically to the United States constitution. As to your comment about the "true workings of the legal system", you came off as insulting publicly educated citizens. Maybe that wasn't your intention; I don't know. What I do know it that the full text of the constitution is readily available to those who wish to read it. For the most part, the constitution is quite straight-forward.
I submit that we are a constitutional, federal, confederated, liberal democratic republic. I don't expect that to be written in the article verbatim, but currently, all that information is in the article. I feel it needs to stay.
-- Dpark 04:06, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If they were, its my fault. Sorry.
--Cuimalo 04:12, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Not a problem. It was simple to retrieve them. -- Dpark 04:17, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thx, I will try one at a time. What did they mean by a form a more perfect union? Why are we the "united States of America?" --Cuimalo 05:03, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)


A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article04/18.html
[Footnote 323] Thus, Randolph on June 11, supporting Madison's version pending then, said that a republican government must be the basis of our national union; and no state in it ought to have it in their power to change its government into a monarchy. 1 id., 206. Again, on July 18, when Wilson and Mason indicated their understanding that the object of the proposal was merely to protect States against violence, Randolph asserted: The Resoln. has 2 Objects. 1. to secure Republican government. 2. to suppress domestic commotions. He urged the necessity of both these provisions. 2 id., 47. Following speakers alluded to the dangers of monarchy being created peacefully as necessitating the provision. Id., 48. See W. Wiecek, The Guarantee Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Ithaca: 1972), ch. 2.
*Clearly there is strong evidence here that at the time they contrasted "republic" with "monarchy", but I'd agree they thought a constitution pretty essential to a republic - rule by law rather than by individuals - --JimWae 05:24, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC)


I could not imagine two more diffrent things.
Rule by the people and rule buy the king.
Demo has a latin root, and I doubt that changed.
--Cuimalo 05:36, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)


The UK is both a democracy & a monarchy, so is Canada, Australia,...Movements to do away with the monarchy in those places are called republican movements :::--JimWae 05:40, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC)


I'm not quite clear what you're asking. By "more perfect union", I believe they meant either more perfect than other unions in the world, or more likely, more perfect than the United States had previously been. "We" are the United States of America because the government is still a union (or federation) which binds together (theoretically) independent states. -- Dpark 06:20, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Just to throw in my two bits into this debate: Michael Badnarik is not exactly the most reliable source to consult as to the meaning of the Constitution, since he is not an attorney. In law school, one has to take several courses and read about 150 U.S. Supreme Court cases (and the Federalist Papers, and John Hart Ely's Democracy and Distrust) to develop a deep understanding of both the Constitution's original meaning and its meaning as elaborated upon by the Supreme Court over the years.
Also, Cuimalo, I highly recommend that you take basic classes in logic, linguistics, and political science at a community college. It appears to me that you are having difficulty grasping the crucial difference between democracy in its original form (what we now call direct democracy) and democracy in its modern form (which encompasses both direct and representative democracy). For me, I think what helped with learning that concept in political science class was my previous training in object-oriented programming, which taught me a great deal about logic (especially the programming concepts of encapsulation and inheritance).
Finally, democracy comes from a Greek root, demos, not Latin. I should know---I studied Latin for four years. --Coolcaesar 22:23, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This whole discussion seems rather sidetracked and navel-gazing to me. The point of "Goverment type" is to give a quick picture of how the US is ruled in comparison to other countries in the world. Historical and specific meanings of "democracy" and "republic" are completely out of scope in that context. Only the broadest definitions should be used. Domestic views on what the government type is or should be isn't really relevant either. The USA is a Federal (as in: composed of states with power to make their own laws) Republic (as in "not a monarchy). The USA is also a democracy (as in: the political power is in the hands of elected people). But the use of the term "democratic" is inconsistent here. France and Finland have "Republic" as its "Government type". They are not federal states. But certainly democracies. Germany, Russia and India all have "Federal Republic" as their government type, not prefixed with "democratic". Only this page has added the term "democratic". That is confusing and inconsistent, since the US is not less "democratic" than these countries. Countries which are democracies (with parliaments) and have monarchs are usually Constitutional Monarchies with Parliamentarism. Such as Norway, the United Kingdom and Canada, who are all considered to be democratic countries as well. As for the non-democratic countries, it is far more difficult to define "democracy" in an NPOV way. There are plenty of dictatorships which are democratic 'on paper', but not in practice. So since the term is impossible to define, and no other country seems to use it under "Government type", there is good reason the page should get rid of the "Democratic" and stay with "Federal Republic".

Photos in "Important Cities"

-- I'm trying to prevent a revert war from opening up, by starting a discussion on this matter. While Houston may be the fourth largest city in the U.S., most people would agree that it is not the fourth most important (maybe not even among the top ten in that regard). The three largest cities are also undisputably the three most important, and the only three with real claims of being "global cities." Therefore, I believe we need to agree on keeping these three, and only these three, among the pictures in that section. Otherwise, you're going to have a never ending dispute with people trying to jam pictures of Boston, Philly, San Fran, Dallas, and Miami onto here. --Jleon 18:22, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Plus every time a 4th photo gets added, the text margins get mucked up on wider screens that have room for 4 photos but only very little left for text - resulting in one or two words per line of text. It's much better to have the photos underneath one another - without going into the next section.--JimWae 18:48, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC)

Actually, with just the three, it still gets mucked up on large screens. The bottom photo runs over the "section line" for the next section on my monitor (1600x1200). I'm going to see if I can clean that up some. Personally, I don't care whether there are three or four. -- Dpark 22:27, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I added a couple of clearing breaks: (<br style="clear:both;" />) to resolve the runover. -- Dpark 22:39, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Well, I tried a (reverse) L-shape with the pictures, with the fourth hanging to the left of the others at the bottom. It worked great, until I turned my resoluton down to 800x600, at which point it became painfully obvious that there should be only one line of pictures. I now say to only have the three pictures. Leave Houston off. -- Dpark 23:00, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

While you reformatted the pictures, which is great by the way, I reformatted the text slightly. I also reworded the language for better flow and also to expand the section just a little bit so that we don't have that problem of runover with the images. --Gerald Farinas 23:06, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

--I agree that the section should be expanded slightly, but we need to be more careful with the wording we use. Honolulu is in no way the economic or cultural "center" of the Pacific Rim. I can easily name a dozen cities (Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney, LA, etc.) that are far more important to the region. Also, what was the point of repeatedly listing the top three in the first paragraph as "Chicago, LA, and NY"? I can see no logical purpose in listing these alphabetically. On a brighter note though- I think the new photo of Chicago looks really great. --Jleon 13:57, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The "economic center" and "cultural center" of the Pacific Rim is how the East-West Center and its dignitary visitors have described Honolulu for decades now, including the current Presidents of South Korea, Philippines, Taiwan and the Prime Ministers of Australia and Japan during their last meetings in Honolulu. Honolulu has been quite known as such by international relations academics and students, like myself in Chicago.
The East-West Center [1] has become the principal meeting place of nations in the Pacific Rim on issues of economics and culture since President Lyndon Johnson's administration. It was used for peace talks during the Vietnam and is currently being used for peace talks between the Koreas. The U.S. Department of State defers Pacific Rim cases to its offices in Honolulu. Honolulu is frequent host or headquarters of several major intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, the NGO Cooperation Network, Mayors' Asia-Pacific Environmental Summit, Permanent Secretariat of the Mayors' Asia-Pacific Environmental Summit, Pacific Islands Environmental Symposium, China-U.S. Conference of Mayors and Business Leaders, Japan-American Conference of Mayors and Chamber of Commerce Presidents, Asia Pacific Urban Technology Institute, among others. Honolulu is the defacto military center of the Pacific Rim throigh RIMPAC, which has its international headquarters in Honolulu. --Gerald Farinas 15:46, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
The dude is right. I'm a part time university professor in international relations. Honolulu is considered the economic/cultual/military, et al "center of the Pacific." And if I remember correctly, Mr. Farinas here was an advisor for a former United Nations Ambassador? So he should know. --Jamie 16:02, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Is my name that recognizable? --Gerald Farinas 16:08, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
Dude, you were in the newspapers in Illinois, Hawaii and who knows where else during the last election. --Jamie 16:10, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

Someone alert the Sock Puppet Police!!! What an amazing coincidence that Gerald Farinas is from Hawaii and now lives in IL., and Jamie claims to have seen his name in newspapers in both HI and IL! Jamie must read a lot of newspapers and memorize a lot of names for that to happen. They also managed to post several messages on here in the space of just 2-4 minutes of one another! WoW, great minds must think alike! --204.126.251.118 17:45, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)



--Ok “dudes”- I don’t know how anyone can possibly compare Honolulu to the incredible importance (both economically and culturally) of Tokyo in the region. Just compare the economic output, or the number of international banks and trans-national corporations based in these cities. Of course I’m not surprised that many international meetings are held in Honolulu on account of its central location and abundance of hotel rooms, but international relations is far different than international finance and culture. I think so-called “symposiums”, “conferences”, and “summits” hardly qualify as important activities at all, because they could happen anywhere and tend to gravitate to places with nice beaches. --Jleon 16:18, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)


OK, this is getting out of hand. There is no reason to have a section called "20 biggest cities", that's not relevant. What matters is the important cities. The world cities ARE the three largest; the rest of the top ten is mostly important. Then we can mention others - Honolulu, Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, Boston, Baltimore, Washington, St. Louis, New Orleans, etc. But let's not make it a digest of cities, either. We need an "important cities" article maybe. But let's keep some perspective here - a list should not be the central part of this section. We HAVE an article that lists cities, let's not duplicate info. --Golbez 20:34, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
I concur this is getting out of hand. It was my bright idea to enhance the important cities area by adding pictures of the three biggest cities, and now all of a sudden everyone wants to squeeze their own favorite city in, one way or another. I think the section should be limited to the three biggest cities, and then state that the U.S. has many other cities which are listed in an "Important Cities of the United States" article. --Coolcaesar 22:30, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

-I think the section looks pretty good right now, the top 20 list helps provide a lot of perspective about the relative sizes of the cities in the U.S., and if we deleted it we' be hard pressed to write a section long enough to fit the three photos into. Also deleting the list will probably only intensify the lengths that people will go in order to see their own hometown mentioned in here. --Jleon 23:46, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

List of Important Cities

--The list of cities needs to reverted back to the population within city limits. The name of the section is called "Largest Cities" NOT "Largest Metropolitan Areas." Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas (CMSA's) are not even universally accepted in the US as Metro definitions, because there's also Primary Metropolitan Statistical Areas (PMSA's). We can't just decide to redefine the word "city" because we want certain ones (Atlanta, DC, etc.) to be included in there. In the U.S., the word "city" refers only to a municiple entity with its own govermental institutions, and this would set a very bad precedent for articles on these cities. It also creates an enornmous amount of ambiguity, for instance, the Bay Area was listed as "San Francisco" even though SF isn't even the largest city in that metropolitan area. --Jleon 19:36, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The list has changed. I wish we would start reflecting that. San Antonio now surpasses Dallas as the 8th largest US city. [2] --Zereshk 23:35, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

We have only gone by the official 10-year census results up to now, I see no reason why we should note every interim estimate. Stick with the official census. --Golbez 00:21, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
We can stick to old census figures. Not much will give. But they are old. There are newer OFFICIAL estimates now: [3] --Zereshk 14:05, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
You emphasized one word. I'll emphasize another: ESTIMATES. --Golbez 18:42, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
So what? The figures you are pushing for are obsolete. Those 2004 "ESTIMATES" are so relibale that government agencies all across the United States use them, as specified by Section 183 of Title 13 of the US code mentioned in the US Census Bureau.--Zereshk 21:51, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
Close enough for government work? OK, go for it. --Golbez 21:55, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
Actually, where I live the estimates are notorious for being quite wrong, and I believe there was recently a controversy in Chicago about the estimates being inaccurate. Brendan OShea 08:18, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Smallpox Blankets

I'm not going to get into a revert war, so we can just discuss it here. As I understand it, there is exactly one documented case when someone attempted to infect Native Americans with smallpox. It was Jeffrey Amherst, in the the 18th century, and he was a British officer, not an American officer. JimWae, as the one who's supporting the addition, can you cite another incident, which actually occurred in the 19th century and involved the United States government? The effectiveness of the attempt is also debateable, and the text makes it seem as if a great many Native Americans were killed as a result of the attempt.

Population_history_of_American_indigenous_peoples#Deliberate_infection?

Discuss. Everyone else's input is also welcome, of course.

-- Dpark 21:40, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Even if it did happen, it's so minor an event that it doesn't warrant mentioning in this summary article. "Diseased blankets" will just bring up odd questions. --Golbez 21:43, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

No, you see, we need to mention every remotely offensive or terrible thing that America has ever committed against any nation or people in the US overview page in order to equally represent everyones problem with America. Any positive or uplifting stats should be removed promptly. (Sarcasm) J Shultz 02:58, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Anyone notice the revert war in that section is over?--JimWae 03:09, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

Golbez Economic Revert 06/15/2005

I inserted some information into the economic section which was reverted. It follows as:

  • The social structure of the United States is somewhat stratified, with a significant class of very wealthy individuals, who hold a disproportionate amount of economic capital. On one widely used measure of inequality, the Gini coefficient, the United States has the highest inequality of any wealthy country. Ideas of social mobility figure prominently in the American dream, which holds that someone born into a poor family can, through hard work, ultimately rise into the upper classes. There have been periods where upward mobility in the United States has been low, for example the Gilded Age of the 1880s and the latter part of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty first. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has faulted this recent emergence on a failing public education system and legacy preferences for children of alumni, often wealthy, at elite universities and colleges, which he considers to constitute a threat to democratic capitalism. [4] [5]

What is wrong with this? The United States does have Gilded Ages from time to time. I am reverting it back. Alan Greenspan even recognizes a new Gilded Age has arrived. 207.224.198.170 02:32, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What's wrong with this? It's eco-political discourse that doesn't belong in a factual article on the United States. For example, everybody agrees that there are 50 states, and that the country was founded in 1776. These are facts. But what you are writing is (1) Greenspan's opinion, and (2) is unrelated to the overall message of the article. Besides, anonymous edits are often suspect :-) Earpol 03:34, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The fact that it includes ext refs in the middle of the section indicates that this is an in-depth statement and belongs on the main "economy of the US" page. This is a summary article, please treat it as such. We can mention the Gilded age, but the rest is info creep. And I would heavily disagree that upward mobility was low "in the latter part of the 20th century". --Golbez 04:08, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
I'll also put my vote against including the info. It belongs on the full economy article, if anywhere. It's innappropriate to include one side of the "mobility is down" debate, without including the other, and that'll get too long to include here. Additionally, the text implies that wealth inequality and class immobility are linked, which is not necessarily the case. I think the text is somewhat misleading, and slightly misrepresents what Greenspan was actually saying. -- Dpark 04:29, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Here, Here! And in adition to Golbez above, the latter part of the twentieth and early 21st century are ripe with class transition and upward shifts in mobility. Keep this above information OUT of a factual encyclopedia entry on the US. Economist Christopher Jencks at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government argued against the view of some (Greenspan) that the "escalator of upward mobility" does not move as quickly today as before. "No, I don't see much evidence that that's the case, they've never moved that fast, but I don't think there's much evidence that they've slowed down." And then I found this quote...Nobel Laureate Gary Becker "I see no evidence that, at least in the past 50 to 60 years, the tendency for people who come from lower income backgrounds to be able to rise up has become any weaker in the United States. There is some controversy over how strong it ever was, but I think it remains fairly constant" J Shultz 02:50, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Columbia

People keep removing the reference to Columbia as a name for the United States; Columbia is a perfectly valid and used name (you know, "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean", "Columbia Broadcasting Corporation", "Columbia Gas", "Columbia Pictures", etc.) which is now somewhat archaic but still used poetically, and should remain. Note that it is NOT the same as Colombia the country, if that's what the editors are thinking. Earpol 20:56, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

  • Was it ever used in any way other than metaphorically? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 00:22, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

===>Columbia as America? I can't seem to find any references to this title. I see these coporations that include Columbia in their name, but I don't understand how that is to refer to the political entity of the USA. Can someone give me an actual reference? Justin (koavf) 19:12, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

Look in any reputable dictionary. Dictionary.com | Columbia (second definition) -- Dpark 21:53, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've reverted this once before, and I'm about to revert it again. Someone (anonymous) is removing "and (poetically) Columbia" from the list of names of the United States in the intro. A quick look in a dictionary will reveal that the term can in fact refer to America. A quick thought about the name of the United States' capitol will do the same. So, is there some reason not to include it, or is this just someone being wierd and thinking the nation of Colombia has a monopoly on the name? -- Dpark 00:47, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's probably just because it's never used anymore except in DC, but few people give much thought to that. So yeah, it should stay and hopefully whoever's changing it will get the hint. Ddye 03:01, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'm the user who originally added Columbia to the list of alternate United States names, and I have had to put it back more times than I can count. Most of the time, but not always, it's an anonymous edit that removes it, but without otherwise changing anything. I really, really, don't understand why it's a target! It is a perfectly valid alternate name, like America. Probably somebody who doen't know what they are talking about, confusing it with the country Colombia. Earpol 10:54, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I added the wiki link,hopefully to avoid confusion about that. Also, Columbia is historically accurate. --ThomasK 17:10, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Since it's now linked to the explanation on the Columbia page, maybe we could avert an edit-war by removing the parenthetical descriptor entirely? Ddye 00:36, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I feel the parentheses are necessary. The US is certainly not refered to as Columbia on a regular basis, and that should be made clear. -- Dpark 02:10, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, it was linked to the Columbia page for quite some time until the recent round of edits. Also, the parenthetical descriptor was present. Neither helped to avert an edit war :-) Earpol 15:13, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Political divisions box

--Why is the "Political Divisions" box colored purple? I've really never seen a purple info box stuck in the middle of an article, as they generally only appear at the bottom of a page. Shouldn't we chnage this to either plain white, or some other type of table? --Jleon 29 June 2005 12:45 (UTC)

  • The problem is that it's a template, which is purple everywhere else it's used. I agree tho, that these normally appear at the bottom of articles, and I, in fact, the other day, stopped scrolling when I got to the purple box until I realized that I was not at the bottom of the article. Perhaps what needs to be done is to take the info from Template:United States and stick it into a table or list instead of the rather "lazy" solution of just smacking the bottom template in there. Tomer TALK July 4, 2005 13:50 (UTC)
  • Nevermind. I took it and put it at the bottom of the article. There is already a link to the main article at the beginning of that section. The bottom of the article could prolly still use some rearrangement to make it a bit prettier, but with so many templates, it's prolly gonna remain a mess for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the template in question also appears at the bottom of the main article as well. Tomer TALK July 4, 2005 13:57 (UTC)

Population density

The population density on this page is listed as 176th but when you click on the link, the U.S. is listed as 143rd. Does anyone know the correct number or am I reading it wrong? maltmomma June 30, 2005 16:49 (UTC)

  • I don't know what the practice is wrt the figures, and I'm not going to actually sit down and count, but if you look at the list at that link, you'll notice that a lot of entries aren't numbered, presumably because they're not independent nations. My guess is that there are 33 non-independent "entities" in that list before #143 (US), making the US #143 on the list of independent nations, but 143+33 = #176 overall. Like I said tho, I'm not gonna count to make sure, nor do I know whether anything should be done about it if my guess is correct. Perhaps what should be done is to have someone add a column to the table showing raw "entity" rank, regardless of its state of sovereignty. Tomer TALK July 4, 2005 14:07 (UTC)
    • Thanks for your reply. You piqued my interest and so I went and counted. There are 34 non-independent "entities" (2 were tied) so that made 33. You are correct in your assumption. Again, thanks. maltmomma July 5, 2005 16:37 (UTC)


Republic or democracy

According to The World Factbook (of the CIA), the United State has a government-ttype of "Constitution-based federal republic; strong democratic tradition". Besides, "democratic federal republic" sounds quite similar to the old communist states such as the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, etc. So, changed the description in the article. Earpol 20:47, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

When the US was constituted it was not a clearly a democracy (instead of an aristocracy) - but democracy is not just a strong tradition, it is now constitutionally entrenched by 14th, 15th, 17th, and 19th amendments regarding the right to vote. Neither CIA Factbook nor Korea are an arbiter of wikipedia--JimWae 04:57, 2005 July 10 (UTC)

It's not just the CIA World Factbook, but many, many, many other references as well. Shoot, just do a Google search of democracy vs. republic. Encyclopedia articles should always be backed by references whenever possible -- practically all of the time. The 14th amendment may nail down certain citizenship rights, the 15th may ensure that race is not a bar to voting, the 19th may allow for the suffrage of women, and the 26th may allow for 18 year old to vote, but these do not change the basic federal representative form of government. Now, the 17th does change the manner in which Senators are elected to direct popular vote in each state. But even that doesn't change the basic governmental form -- it is still a representative model. There is no provision for any federal office or law to be voted on by "a majority of the people", even for the office of President, where the Electoral College is used. Earpol 14:14, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Democracy is not incompatible with representative government, in fact it's called a representative democracy. The United States is a representative democracy (that is it's more general form) as well as a federal republic (it's more specific system). However, I would argue that federal republic implies representation, so we need only add "democratic" (since you can be a federal republic without being democratic, as with the USSR). Alternatively, could we comprimise on the more wordy "representative democracy organized as a federal republic"? Ddye 17:10, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
The US is a representative republic, it is categorically not a democracy, eventhough many votes and the like are conducted democratically. As a glaring example of the (fortunate) fact that it is not a democracy, please review the outcome of the 2000 presidential election, where the will of the majority was not imposed on the country. There are a number of safeguards that specifically are designed to prevent democracy (a pretty term for "mob rule"). Tomer TALK 17:57, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Although many of us believe that the Electoral College's choice in 2000 was extremely unfortunate, I have to agree with Tomer that the United States is indeed a republic and not a democracy. Here are some specific references, from left and right, conservative and liberal, supporting the claim the the United States is a republic and not a democracy:

and, here is the best analysis that I found:

Unfortunately, what I think has happened over the years is that the original meanings of the words republic and democracy have eroded, so that in colloquial speech, there is no longer an essential difference. Earpol 19:09, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I think republic is preferable to democracy. The state has evolved into a democracy (2000 notwithstanding) but thoughout its history it has been a republic. So republic is a better overall word to describe its system of government. FearEIREANNImage:Animated-union-jack-01.gif SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF LONDON\(caint) 19:27, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

The most common meaning of "democracy" today is "Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives." (see Answer.com). That is a general definition of the type of government to which the U.S. belongs, though the U.S. government is a very specific type of that (it is often described as a "liberal democracy"). It doesn't necessarily mean a government of pure majority rule, it does not exclude the concept of representation, and it does not exclude the concept of limits on government. There is no magical fixed meaning to the terms "democracy" or "republic" that makes the use of one or the other "wrong". (See republicanism, democracy, representative democracy - and actually read these articles before falling back on snap judgments.) The use of the term "democracy" to refer to the U.S. goes back many years—Democracy in America was published in 1835 and the Democratic-Republican Party began calling itself that around 1820. While you may personally think that the use of "democracy" to describe the U.S. is evil or wrong, that is a generally accepted use of the word. The point of Wikipedia is to describe existing knowledge and concepts, not to be a soapbox. Mateo SA | talk 19:41, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
Did you actually read the cited references?:
  • www.emetindustries.com
    • Definition (2) of "republic" says, in part "A commonwealth in which the people as a whole legislate...either (1) directly, as in some of the ancient Greek states in which the sovereign powers were exercised directly in popular assemblies, and many towns in the United States (pure democracy), or (2) through elected representatives, as in every State of the United States (democratic republic)"—this refers to U.S. states as both "democratic" and "republican"; how does this "prove" the U.S. is a republic instead of a democracy?
  • answers.google.com
    • "The best analysis that [Earpol] found" says "A web search for the terms "democracy" and "republic" finds many essays where writers passionately insist that the United States is a republic and not a democracy. Since they typically define "democracy" as either direct democracy only, or direct democracy without law, also known as "mob rule," their statements are quite true, but the word is also used with other meanings, which overlap the second definition of "republic.""
The above two cited references are generally NPOV discussions of the topic. The rest (which follow) are advocates for a particular point of view, mostly from that of particular type of conservatism. They are most certainly not taken from "left and right, conservative and liberal" sources.
Mateo SA | talk 20:29, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Yes -- of course I read the citations, but of the few I offered (of hundreds), I didn't cherry pick ones that exclusively supported my point of view. Actually, you are correct -- I did cite 2-1/2 conservative references. But please note that I am not a conservative. I may have some libertarian leanings, but I am mostly a progressive liberal. The general gist is that the more formal way to describe the government of the United States is republic or maybe representative democracy -- for all intents and purposes these are the same. In less formal contexts, it is more likely to be called a democracy. In current usage, the two terms overlap quite a bit, but aren't exactly the same thing, either. There are lots on off-line sources to check, such as printed encyclopedias, textbooks, etc. Don't confuse my line of thought with that of conservatives out who equate republic with the concept of liberty, which aren't the same thing at all. Our liberties are embodied in the Constitution -- hence the use of the term constitutional; a mere republic (or democracy) could exist without much regard for liberty. Earpol 01:10, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Religion

I edited the religion table, but using the same set of data as originally used. What was done was the following: "Refuseds" were "divided out" (e.g., if one religious group had 40% for a given year and refuseds were 5% that year, it became 42% because 40/95=42), this was done because "refuseds" skewer the data and both sets of data need to be out of the same percentage. One year's refuseds were much different than the other year, and in effect this skewers the data by making one set out of 97.7 and the other out of 94.6, by editing out the refuseds they are both out of 100 which is obviously best. Many publications, newspapers, magazines, etc. do this when publishing poll results and tag on a note to the poll results saying "not sures omitted" or something similiar, if someone wants to add a note saying "refuseds omitted" then that is ok. Other changes made were to re-arrange some of the Christian groups as some were in the wrong places, Mormons are not Protestants nor are JWs, they were each given their own categories under the Christian section. "Christian - no denomination supplied" was added under the umbrella group Protestant. - BSveen 17:24, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Religion Table

The Religion table is set up something like this

1990 2001 Change
in %
Total Christian 88.3% 79.8% -8.5%

The table caption is incorrect - an 8.5% decrease would actually be 80.8%. The decrease is in percentage point, not "change, in %", which would actually be 9.7%. Guettarda 23:17, 10 July 2005 (UTC)


It does not say percentage change, which I think you are thinking of - but I have no objection to making the change if if makes the meaning clearer. --JimWae 23:28, 2005 July 10 (UTC)

U.S. average income is higher than Scandinavian or Swiss

I have removed the following sentence from the section on Class:

In terms of relative wealth, U.S. residents enjoy a standard of personal economic wealth that is close to that known in Scandinavian countries and Switzerland.

(end of quote.)

There is considerable doubt that the Scandinavians or the Swiss enjoy income parity with the U.S. If anyone puts that sentence back in, they should provide documentation of that fact.

Although I will concede for the purposes of this debate that they had it 30 or 35 years ago, I get the strong impression that American average income since then has risen much more than Swiss and especially Scandinavian incomes (Norway excepted).

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html for example gives the relevant GDPs per capita as of 2004 as follows. As you can see the Swiss and most Scandinavian countries currently have significantly lower GDP per capita according to this source.

  • $ 40,100 United States
  • $ 33,800 Switzerland
  • $ 32,200 Denmark
  • $ 31,900 Iceland
  • $ 29,000 Finland
  • $ 28,400 Sweden

(I omitted Norway from the list because Norway currently does enjoy income parity with the U.S., as I noted in my edit.)

For an explanation of how those number were calculated, go to

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/docs/notesanddefs.html

and then search for "GDP methodology". The short story is they are derived from data supplied by the OECD.

See also

http://www.res.org.uk/society/mediabriefings/pdfs/1996/November/Henreksen.pdf

http://swopec.hhs.se/hastef/papers/hastef0412.pdf

--User:Kadelia 11 July 2005


GDP per capita and average income are not the same. While the US does have one of the highest per capita GDPs, it also has a significantly higher income inequality than the places mentioned. See [6] for the stats. I have not put that sentence back in, but only because I don't see a need for it. --Kennyisinvisible 04:41, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Just noticed, maybe the person who put that in was looking at this. --Kennyisinvisible 04:48, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Map?

i am requesting a map of northern america, where you can see the progressive colonization (eg. see when the states\colonies where created?)

I've been thinking of making an article on that very nature; as for the United States itself, you get a pretty good look by going through the articles on early Presidential Elections - like U.S. presidential election, 1824. The maps evolve over time. --Golbez 14:35, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Who was first president

I remember watching the history channel and they said someone was president for a year before washington Dudtz7/20/05

Who was first president

I remember watching the history channel and they said someone was president for a year before washington Dudtz7/20/05

Check out President of the United States in Congress Assembled. Geo. Washington was the first president of the constitutional USA; however, the constitution was not the first foundational document of the country. --Golbez 22:10, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

yeah I know the articles of confederation was first DudtzImage:Kardos.jpg 7/22/05 6:31 PM EST

Who the first president actually was

John Hancock. Google it if you please. --Matt Yeager 23:31, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

John Hancock, was absolutely not the first president of the United States. see. President of the Continental Congress, It clearly and correctly states that John Hancock is sometimes incorrectly reffered to the first president. Although the United States was an independent country at the time, the office was called President of the United States in Congress Assembled, the first president of The United States of America was most definatley George Washington. (Mac Domhnaill 23:06, 7 August 2005 (UTC))

Social Issues

Why is the US the only country with "social issues" mentioned in the blurb? Is the US the only country with "social issues"? This puts wikipedia's supposed non-bias in doubt in my opinion. --Anonymous

Then add it for other countries. Sheesh, the lengths people will go through to find bias here. You are part of wikipedia, so be part of the solution. Though the section could perhaps be managed a little differently. --Golbez 05:15, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
So I'm going to add "social issues" for 120 or so other countries? I think not. I don't think that social issues should be included at all, but I won't get rid of it. -- Anonymous
Even adding them for one other country would be better than nothing -- or maybe you prefer complaining to contributing. -- Derek Ross | Talk 22:17, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)


1. The "social issues" section is too esoteric to be included on a country's main page. When I go to a country's main page, I want to know about geography, history, government, etc.--the things you would see in a well-written encyclopedia article of this type. If I want an overview of social issues in the United States, I'll look at Social issues in the United States. Including such a section on this page makes as much sense as including a large section on Banking in the United States. Include a link; the people who are interested will click.

2. The "social issues" section violates NPOV by selective inclusion. The section is basically a laundry list of complaints and unresolved issues. Every country has unresolved social issues. The singling out of one country to include a section of this type violates NPOV in the same way as singling out one country to include a "Great Achievements" section.

Furthermore, the social issues themselves are far too complex, multidimensional, and controversial to be summarized properly in the space provided. (And the section is already the longest one on the U.S. page.) These issues need and deserve their own pages (which they have).

In short, the section is inappropriate and biased. I believe the section should be removed and the included information moved to the appropriate sub-pages. 68.46.123.33 23:41, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I support inclusion of the 'Social Issues' section. First of all, it mentions both positive aspects of the United States (its legal and constitutional protections) as well as mentioning criticisms of the country's human rights record. Everything in a country entry is general by nature of the subject (there is far too much to be said about 'Japan', for instance, for each section of the country entry to go into it in full depth). Things are mentioned and summarized with links provided to specific sub-articles and related articles that go into more depth on the parts. I disagree with point 2, above, as well. What my colleague views as 'selective inclusion' I would call a process of evolution. People are free to add additional relevant information based on what they know. I made a minor edit, for instance. I added the word 'most' in the sentence on minority groups having protection from anti-discrimination laws because, for instance, there is no national anti-discrimination law in the US protecting people on the basis of sexual orientation. I like the suggestion of adding a 'Social Issues' section into the articles on other countries. I would find such a section interesting and informative. Buzz Harris
  • I think the inclusion of "social issues" it absolutely ridiculous and completely biased. I just did a quick search on other Countries (Canada, the UK ect...) and didn't seen see a "Social Issues" section. This is clearly too controversial to be included in the main article and I think the neutrality of the article should be disputed. Skeeter08865 18:24, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I deleted the social issues section. Unless you make a "social issues" category for every nation than it belongs in a seperate section. Thanks! - Rotten

It was in a separate section, labelled "social issues." There is no need for strict congruence between all national articles. Not all national articles have sections on "federal holidays" either. Cheers, -Willmcw 21:14, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
I agree completely, and think the section should be restored. Niteowlneils 22:14, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
I've pulled the social issues section. I meant another article. It's just there to satisfy the need to say something negative about the US. - Rotten

Rotten removed the Social Issues section from the article:

=== Social issues ===
Main articles: Social issues in the United States, Human rights in the United States, Health care in the United States
The American Bill of Rights, enacted in 1791, provides a list of basic guaranteed rights
Enlarge
The American Bill of Rights, enacted in 1791, provides a list of basic guaranteed rights
The Constitution makes provisions for a number of rights, including freedom of speech, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of religion, trial by jury, and protection from cruel and unusual punishment. The United States accepts many immigrants, and has anti-discrimination laws to protect many minority groups. Some examples of these are the various Civil Rights Acts, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fourteenth Amendment, and hate crime legislation.
Nevertheless, the United States has at times been criticized for alleged violations of human rights, including racial discrimination in trials and sentences, police abuses, excessive and unwarranted incarceration, and the imposition of the death penalty in some states. In 2001, Human Rights Watch issued a report asserting that United States had "made little progress in embracing international human rights standards at home." [7]

There are several important points and links that I think we should keep in the article, so I've restored it for the time being. The section could be re-written and simplified. What is it that you don't like about it as it is? Sunray 20:06, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

I pulled it again. It's completely unneutral and exists only to praise and then bash the US. Make it a seperate article. There are no "social issues" sections on any other nations. Having one one for the US implies that only the US has social issues. Rotten
There already is an article on Social issues in the United States so we should link to that. There are also links for other important aspects of American culture (Human rights in the United States, Health care in the United States) which we should retain. It would be better to edit the material that is offensive to you, making it NPOV and either include it in another section or rename this section. It doesn't really matter whether other countries don't have Social issues sections. The U.S. can have one if it wants and should if it adds something positive to the article. It can be your call, but I would like you to deal with the question of how to retain those links. Sunray 20:28, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
The "social issues" sections had positive as well as negative aspects about the US. But that is exactly why it should've been deleted. If you want, make another article on the social issues. As it is, it's the only major country with a "social issues" section, implying it's the only nation with issues. To imply any neutrality is asinine under those circumstances.- Rotten
As I said, we do not have to have a Social issues section (I suggested two alternatives). Please answer my question. What are do you want to do to retain those links and other useful information? Sunray 20:44, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
Put them either in "external links" or "related topics". - Rotten
That's not a great solution. It is generally considered preferable to have links included with text (so the reader has a context). We could do a short summary of the referenced social issues and include those links. If we did that, I'm wondering where to include the text. You don't like the Social issues title (and the discussion I've moved here supports you on that), so what's your preference for location? Sunray 21:53, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

I've put the material on the constitution back into the article in the section on Politics and Government. I will either work the other links into the article or put them in the See also section. Sunray 22:29, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

move to United States of America?

The official name of the US is United States of America, shouldn't that be the title of the article?

Please look at the very first heading on this page. -- Coneslayer 22:44, 2005 July 26 (UTC)

it would make sense to change the name only if there was another united stares, of, say russia around somewhere. Gabrielsimon

Both titles are good, and it may not be worth changing. Tony 05:18, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I can't see any reasons for changing the name into United States of America. Thorri 14:27, 21 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Neither can I. I vaguely recall that this issue may have been discussed before and the consensus was to keep the current name. --Coolcaesar 14:05, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
The first entry on this page directs one to Archive 9. (SEWilco 14:08, 21 August 2005 (UTC))

Reference to the 'relative autonomy' of the states, end of para 1

I wonder whether this should be removed and covered further down in the article:

'Each state has a relatively high level of autonomy under the federal system.'

It begs the question, relative to what? US states are not as autonomous as Canadian provinces, for example. It also sits oddly as a brief statement without further explanation, especially at the opening, in which a low level of detail is appropriate.

Tony 05:16, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Consistent reference to the US throughout?

I wonder whether contributors support the idea that it would be neater and easier to read if the nation were referred to simply as 'the US', i.e., without the dots; that is, after the opening, and in all instances for which there's no good reason to use one of the longer names. Currently, usage in this respect is inconsistent.

Tony 05:23, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

If you want to make it consistent, better use U.S.A., because only US is not very descriptive. −Woodstone 08:10, July 29, 2005 (UTC)


in context of this article, what could anyone confuse US with? Gabrielsimon 08:12, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Agree with Woodstone, we should use U.S.A., instead of "the US." --Gramaic | Talk 08:17, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
USA instead of U.S.A.? (SEWilco 15:22, 29 July 2005 (UTC))

I'd rather spell it out as 'the United States' than use 'U dot S dot A dot', which, although an accepted abbreviation, is (1) one letter too many in this highly focused—and already too long—text, and (2) looks much neater, in my veiw, without the dots (nowadays, who spells NASA, NATO, PBS, ABC, and most other acronyms with the dots?).

I'd still opt for 'the US'. 'The USA' sounds pedantic, as though you're shortening it, but then partially retracting the brevity. 'The United States' is attractive, but the article is far too long as a single text for most readers of Wikipedia, and spelling it out on its numerous occurrences will worsen that problem. In addition, 'US' can also be used as an epithet ('the US peace mission', 'US interest rates') whereas 'USA' sits awkwardly in that respect. 'The US' has a high recognition factor worldwide; no one will mistake it for 'us', as in 'we, us, they, them', even momentarily. Tony 02:58, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Related discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#U.S._vs._US. (SEWilco 16:12, 1 August 2005 (UTC))

c'mon, is this flamebait, or solid Wikipedia material?

What is this statement supposed to mean, and, where are the citations that back it up?

"It is conceded even by defenders of the U.S. that people who cannot compete effectively in the employment marketplace, such as the elderly and the disabled, enjoy less material security in the U.S. than they would in the social democracies of Western Europe unless, of course, they hold significant savings or get significant help from family members."

"defenders of the U.S." ?? Who's that, the Army?

I didn't delete the flamebait.

I also didn't edit it. I think the person who wrote it should do that.

Somewhere in that gobbledygook is a statement that may be worth making, but heck, it deserves to die as is. Need to steer around POV when comparing the US to other nations—it needs to be done, but carefully, in my view. Tony 03:41, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

City pics

--I restored the pictures of the top three cities for several reasons; this issue has been discussed ad nauseum here, and there has always been a far-reaching consensus that we should include only pictures of the top three. No one has ever suggested removing all of them, and just because someone occassionaly rams a picture of Detroit or Houston on here doesn't mean they should all get scrapped. I think setting up the Gallery was a great idea, but it does not change the relevance of having the pictures in the article. Otherwise, the entire article would be void of any meaningful photograph of what an American city actually looks like, and its not as if the article is overflowing with too many pictures as it is. --Jleon 12:45, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

A picture of one or two typical American small towns might also do a service to the article (though, where to put them?), especially in contrast to the pictures of the three largest cities. Having pictures of the three largest cities, with their acres of steel and concrete, human habitations literally stacked on top of one another, and all of it crammed together as it tends to be in large cities, without anything to contrast it with, might give the impression that the United States are nothing but giant ant-colonies made from metal and stone with their citizens constantly rubbing their germs all over eachother and everything they touch -- rotting cesspools with disease festering in every nook and cranny. Not to mention eternally persistant noise-pollution. Surely there's more to the United States than Borgesque techno-metropoleis? What of its nice, quiet, peaceful little towns, recessed away from the noise, congestion, and confusion of the big cities? These are just as much a part of American Culture, are they not? --Corvun 17:19, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
Very little of the country is covered with cities. (SEWilco 18:44, 1 August 2005 (UTC))

--There probably should be a photograph of an American farm, as well as one of an ordinary suburban street, but neither of these things have anything to do with a section called "largest cities." There are very few photographs on this article as it is, so there shouldn't be any trouble in finding places for these. --Jleon 18:53, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Having a subpage is extremely frowned upon. United States/Gallery of Cities is not only misnamed (capital C), but a subpage. Please move it. Quickly. I won't because I don't know a good place. --Golbez 19:07, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

--Well I wasn't the one who created it, but I think its actually quite nice. Perhaps if just lower the capital 'C' it won't cause any offense? Some of the photos are a little odd though- is the Camp Snoopy mushroom really the skyline of Minneapolis? (lol) --Jleon 19:13, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Subpages are deprecated. Period. They are to be used only in the User and Wikipedia namespaces, in Talk page, and for /temp articles. They are not to be used for image galleries. See Wikipedia:Subpages. --Golbez 19:21, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

--Well you can just go ahead and delete it altogether then. I must admit that while I like the idea, many of the pictures are poorly chosen and the cities are not even organized by population. --Jleon 19:34, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

  • Probably those images should have added to them Category:Images of cities of the United States as well as any appropriate category in Category:U.S. metropolitan areas. (SEWilco 19:53, 1 August 2005 (UTC))

Then make an article called "Largest Cities in the United States" or "largest metropolitan areas of the United States". The subject deserves it's own article.

  • Cities are definatly way over repressented here, a little suburbia might be a nice chnage from all these pictures of pop communists crammed into slums and ghettos, as the last election proves, that's not what America's all about, some should correct this insult immediatly--I-2-d2 17:29, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

--I'd really like to know how cities can be over-represented in a section called "Largest Cities." I also don't see any pictures of any ghettos or communists (skyscrapers are indicative of capitalism, are they not?). If you need to see pictures of suburbia then go ahead and put them in a different section. --Jleon 17:41, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I concur with Jleon's analysis. Even if pictures of suburbia or farms are appropriate in this already enormous article, they should go into the sections on Culture or Economy. But the pictures of cities should stay in the Largest Cities section---it's one thing to read abstract population numbers and another to see a photograph that illustrates the high density of American megacities. --Coolcaesar 18:17, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Too many links?

My impression is that the article is heaving with blue text, which makes it more difficult to read. In my view, this makes it a less attractive resource, particularly for children and non-native speakers, who may be more easily put off by the visual complexity of blue-peppered text. Although links are a valuable aspect of Wikipedia, they can encourage some readers to go off exploring a range of other topics, when our primary task is to enlighten them about the United States, through a relatively easy, continuous read. Wikipedia's style manual says:

'... On the other hand, do not make too many links. An article may be considered overlinked if ... more than 10% of the words are contained in links; [if] it has more links than lines; [if] a link is repeated within the same screen—40 lines, perhaps;...' The manual refers to years, such as 1995, 1980s, as 'low added-value links ... date forms such as year only (e.g., 1981) should be treated like any other words and linked only if there is some particular relevance.' (My highlighting)

A rough tally shows that 26% of the words in the opening paragraph are blue, and 19% in the history section. The opening of an article probably requires a higher density of links, but could I put in a call that contributors keep their eyes out for unnecessary links, bearing in mind that just because an item is not linked doesn't mean that the reader can't key it into the search box and (typically) be rewarded with another article.

Specifically, I'd like to suggest that the 'low added-value' years (as opposed to dates) be delinked unless there's a good reason not to. Sure, some of the year articles have information relevant to the article, but there is a link to Timeline of United States history at the top of the section; that's a much more focussed, relevant link, and the individual blue years, if anything, will detract the reader from that link. I'd also opt to delink centuries: the link to the 20th century, for example, tells my children:

"The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar. Common usage sometimes regards it as lasting from 1900 to 1999, but this is considered incorrect due to the nonexistence of a "Year Zero" before AD 1/1 CE. The 20th century is also sometimes known as the nineteen hundreds (1900s), referring to the latter usage. Decades are almost always considered as starting with the "0" year and named accordingly ("1960s", etc.), so the first decade of a century technically overlaps back into the preceding one. However, a number of arguments have been used to justify the common usage. One was advanced by the scientist Stephen Jay Gould, that the first decade had only nine years. Another was that the astronomical year numbering system for years does have a year zero, the year normally known as 1 BC. In 2000 the International Organization for Standardization clarified ISO 8601 to use the astronomical year numbering system, so retrospectively endorsing all the people who had celebrated the new century a few months earlier. The term is also used to describe various periods that overlap with the calendar definition, most notably the Short twentieth century and the Modern period. It also had a place in popular culture shown by its use in names such as 20th Century Fox and the Twentieth Century Limited."

Wow, that's really helpful in the opening paragraph on the United States. In my view, a balance is required to make the text easy to read.

Tony 02:33, 10 August 2005 (UTC)


No demographics percentages

All of the state articles I've looked at have clear demographics percentages. Why the long winding paragraphs, and why no percentages? People wanna know a countries ethnic breakdown, I don't see what the deal is with the ancestry photo and the many paragraphs.

New collaboration

U.S. Collaboration of the Week

These two weeks, North Carolina is the US Collaboration of the Week. (Shortcut: WP:USCOTW +/-)

Help select the next USCOTW now! Nominate an article you think needs improvement or vote for one of the candidates here.

Citizenship laws?

I'm wondering what sort of laws there are on United States citizenship, or maybe more specifically necessary qualifications for naturalization. --Ihope127 17:26, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

A more democratic federal republic?

Two days ago 130.237.205.96 posted this statement on the talk page of the Germany article:

Currently it says the form of government is "Federal Republic", whereas the United States page says "Democratic Federal Republic". Germany is hardly any less of a democracy than the USA. Either the US page or this one should be changed.

He received no answer but since I think that 'Federal Republic' suggests a democratic system, maybe it wouldn't be wrong to delete the word 'democratic' before 'Federal Republic' in the United States article.NightBeAsT 23:52, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

universal suffrage

there are some felons who can't vote in the US right? Can we really say universal suffrage if that's the case? McVonn 05:53, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

People under 18, the dead (except in Georgia and Illinois), and illegal immigrants can't vote either. Wait, the latter can, never mind. But honestly, as long as we're listed on universal suffrage, we have it. You have an issue with it, deal with it on that article. --Golbez 06:11, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
Image:Der ewige jude.jpg
Tell you what- let's leave "universal suffrage" in for now, as a thing enjoyed by all but certain felons. schwzzl? Crackatzzl 03:39, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
What the hell is that image doing here? And the more sockuppets you use, the more I see you as a POV pusher and likely vandal. I hope others will corroborate my thoughts. --Golbez 03:51, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
can thoughts be corroborated? Schzz-niddl-bam snip snap sack 06:55, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
So explain the image. --Golbez 07:16, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
I guess that's a no. Thoughts cannot be corroborated. oh well. The image is well explained here. I put it on this page in with my discussion with you cuz I think images are worth a thousand words. I think people who see it will feel a certain way about you and me and our discussion without even realizing what the image is about. I dunno. something inside me told me to put that image there. It's fun. no-one uses random images on talk pages. McVonn 18:25, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Law Enforcement, Medicine

Aug. 27, 2005 -- You shouldn't swear at article writers, Golbez. There's waayy too much about race and demographics, and nothing about Law Enforcement & Medicine. You deleted my articles on Law Enforcement & Medicine. The [8] link is a POV site, but it contians an incarceration statitics table by nation with numbers that show that the U.S. is #1 incarceration nation. 1% of the populations of Louisiana and Texas are in prison. Stats like these are very important and should be included: Heart Disease is the number 1 cause of death in the U.S., at 733,834 deaths in 1995. American life expectancy is 42nd in the world. Infant mortality is 37th. Golbez, you've got delete-itis. ---- 67.150.24.31

Then add something about medicine, not what people die of. --Golbez 09:15, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Area should be listed in kilometres also?

Shouldn't we list the area of countries in both square miles and square kilometres, not just the dominant unit in that country? Perhaps by putting the unit used by the country outside of brackets and putting the alternative in brackets. This, however, leads to the specific problem with the United States page of already having a set of brackets around the area. I don't know if Wikipedia is fine with double brackets, not being that familiar with it. I would put in the are in square kilometres myself, but my method of 'times eight, divide by five' isn't the most accurate in the world.

Well, this is an unfortunate legacy of American refusal to convert to the metric system; in this respect, it is now in isolation. Metric equivalents would be helpful for all non-American readers. Tony 00:32, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh, those awful evil Americans. Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or try out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. Tomer TALK 00:44, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

felons and universal suffrage

I have a dispute w/ golbez. I think some of you may know him. See my talk, his and talk:u.s.#universal suffrage for a little better idea of the situation beyond what I'mma put here.

here's a copy of a message I sent golbez a little bit ago.

I don't think so

you'r the only one who'd reverted me so you'r the only one I need to work it out with so far. after I thought about it, dough, I should also put it on the talk:u.s.. I'm pretty sure you havn't fully explained anywhere why you reverted here.

I think

"Americans (except some convicted felons) enjoy universal suffrage upon reaching the age of 18,"

is more truthful and more importantly more honest than

"Americans enjoy universal suffrage upon reaching the age of 18,"

perhaps we could take out "convicted". I'm not married to it.

I think it's worth including.

that's all for now. thankz, Schzz-niddl-bam snip snap sack 06:19, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Schzz-niddl-bam snip snap sack 06:40, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Tiny pic of state and local government

Can this be made a little larger? What's the point when you can't see the details. Tony 00:31, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Federal holidays?

Why is this in the summary article? Can it be moved to a daughter article? If this is to be retained here, I can think of dozens of more important tables that should be included. The article is already dauntingly long for a summary. Tony 02:47, 31 August 2005 (UTC)


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