Talk:United States

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Current population (est.): 304,267,000 as of June 9, 2008

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[edit] Like terms

Why are Caucasians refered to as "Whites" but people of African descent are not refered to as "Blacks"? If you're going to label people, at least use like terms (Blacks, Whites, Browns, Yellows, etc...) or only use the more accurate description of origin of descent (Anglo, Afro, Asian, etc). Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.224.0.171 (talk) 17:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Crime and Punishment Bias

Go over the crime and punishment section once again, my fellow wikipedians. tell me if you don't believe that to be a little slanted. the article mentions how high the crime rate is, but only compares it to western-europe natons--leaving out the fact that it is drastically lower than countries like russia, mexico, etc. im not asking to fill the article with some hot-air about how peaceful the south-chicago streets are at 2:00am, but i just don't belive it is written very free of opinion. let me know what yall think. Skiendog (talk) 23:00, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I agree that it is as biased as you may think, although I do see what you mean. There is a graph that clearly shows that Russia is higher, and I think it's only fair that it is compared to other developed nations (says developed, not western, so we just need to make sure that it is truly comparing to all developed nations). One thing that I remember reading is that violent crime in the last decade decreased, so if that is true, maybe it's worth mentioning? Kman543210 (talk) 23:11, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
The other problem is that data in Zimbabwe for statistics on violence is weak or totally absent (they have some higher priorities). In countries with less open media and government transparency, the rates can't be verified and are of dubious value for comparison. Saying that the US is, in general, more violent than Western Europe is a valid claim, but I'd agree that it could be misleading and requires more discussion and perspective than can be included in a general article. I'm a rampant emo kid when it comes to this article (obsessed with cutting), so I won't bother stating my preference for what to do with the issue.Somedumbyankee (talk) 00:04, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Superpower

I've seen the new comments being made that Russia is a superpower and United States is no longer a superpower and stating Russia is far more powerful than the USA. ROFL in all the time I've been on Wikpedia I don't think I've ever heard something so crazy which someone seriously believed. This is not just a ridiculous Russian nationalist fantasy, it's sickening. Fanatical Russians clinging to the idea their finished state is actually still something for the world to fear because their country is only held together by the idea that it should wreak war on others, and America hating sympathisers who look for and support any possible states or entities that could rival the United States, no matter how brutal and disgusting they may be, whether it be such likes as China or Al-Quaeda. Russia is an absolutely finished state with a rapidly falling population that is now even smaller than Pakistan's, it's economy sits in a pathetic 11th position in the world which has been claimed many times is too low to be in the G8, its military spending in a poor 7th position with only a tiny number of its roting military still functioning, internal conflicts and borders falling apart with its regions such as Chechnya breaking away and technically became independent states with their own presidents.

How can Russia even for a second be seriously considered a superpower let alone be more powerful than the US when it can only just scrape in to claim to be a great power considering most other great powers such as the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and China out perform Russia in economic rankings and military spending rankings. Infact all great powers mentioned above have larger economies than Russia and only Italy spends less on its military, and not by very much.

Russia may very well have large reserves of oil and gas and tries to claim these make it oh so powerful of a country because it has reserves in similar size to that of Iran. Thing is reserves of oil and gas in similar size to that of Iran's have not made Iran a superpower, infact Iran isn't even a great power. Russia has a medium economic growth rate traditionally around 5% a year. The United States has an economic growth rate traditionally around 4% a year. When does Russia's economy expect to by pass America's? 2800? 5% economic growth is actually pretty poor for a developing economy, with such likes as China and India growing at around 9% or more, and it's only 1% higher than America's and America is fully developed. In fact how can the Russian economy even try to compare to the US economy when it's not even a developed economy?

It gets even more ridiculous when you try to compare numbers between Russia and the United States. Russia's $1.2 trillion economy versus the United States $13.7 trillion economy. That's around 13 times larger. The US economy equals 25% of the world's GDP. Russia's $40 billion military spending versus the USA's $583 billion military spending. The USA's military spending is 50% of the world's military spending. Russia's rapidly declining population of 142 million people versus the USA's rapidly rising population of 304 million people. When Russia's economy equals 26% of the world's GDP, its military spending equals 51% of world military spending, and a rapidly growing population of 305 million people THEN AND ONLY THEN is it a superpower more powerful than the United States

In case even all this still has't proved how pathetic Russian power is as of 2008 I've laid out Russia's rankings in important areas associated with power

  • Economy
2007 List by the International Monetary Fund
Rank Country GDP (millions of USD)
— Flag of World World 54,311,608
— Flag of Europe European Union 16,830,100
1 Flag of the United States United States 13,843,825
2 Flag of Japan Japan 4,383,762
3 Flag of Germany Germany 3,322,147
4 Flag of the People's Republic of China China 3,250,827
5 Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom 2,772,570
6 Flag of France France 2,560,255
7 Flag of Italy Italy 2,104,666
8 Flag of Spain Spain 1,438,959
9 Flag of Canada Canada 1,432,140
10 Flag of Brazil Brazil 1,313,590
11 Flag of Russia Russia 1,289,582
12 Flag of India India 1,098,945
13 Flag of South Korea South Korea 957,053
14 Flag of Australia Australia 908,826
15 Flag of Mexico Mexico 893,365
  • Military
Rank Country Military expenditures (USD) Date of information
— Flag of World World Total 1,200,000,000,000 2007 (projected est.)[1]
— NATO Total 849,875,309,000
1 Flag of the United States United States 583,283,000,000 2008[2]
— Flag of Europe European Union Total 311,920,000,000 2007[3]
2 Flag of France France 74,690,470,000 2008-2009 [4]
3 Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom 68,911,000,000 FY 2008-09[5]
4 Flag of the People's Republic of China China 59,000,000,000 2008[6]
5 Flag of Germany Germany 45,930,000,000 2008[7]
6 Flag of Japan Japan 41,750,000,000 2007[8]
7 Flag of Russia Russia 40,000,000,000 2008[9]
8 Flag of Italy Italy 32,600,000,000 2008 (est.) [citation needed]
9 Flag of Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia 31,050,000,000 2008 [10]
10 Flag of South Korea South Korea 28,940,000,000 2008 [11]
11 Flag of India India 26,500,000,000 2008-2009[1]
12 Flag of Brazil Brazil 25,396,731,055 2008[12]
13 Flag of Australia Australia 20,727,710,000 2008[13]
14 Flag of Canada Canada 17,150,002,540 2008[14]
15 Flag of Spain Spain 15,792,207,000 2007
  • Population
Rank Country/territory/entity Population Date  % of world population Source
— Flag of World World 6,671,226,000 July 1, 2007 100% UN estimate
1 Flag of the People's Republic of China People's Republic of China[15] 1,326,275,000 June 9, 2008 19.88% Chinese Population clock
2 Flag of India India 1,133,881,000 June 9, 2008 17% Indian Population clock
3 Flag of the United States United States 304,267,000 June 9, 2008 4.56% Official USA Population clock
4 Flag of Indonesia Indonesia 231,627,000 3.47% UN estimate
5 Flag of Brazil Brazil 186,917,074 May 27, 2008 2.8% Official Brazilian Population clock
6 Flag of Pakistan Pakistan 163,503,000 June 9, 2008 2.45% Official Pakistani Population clock
7 Flag of Bangladesh Bangladesh 158,665,000 2.38% UN estimate
8 Flag of Nigeria Nigeria 148,093,000 2.22% UN estimate
9 Flag of Russia Russia 142,008,800 January 1, 2008 2.13% Federal State Statistics Service
10 Flag of Japan Japan 127,720,000 March 1, 2008 1.92% Official Japan Statistics Bureau estimate
11 Flag of Mexico Mexico 106,535,000 1.6% UN estimate
12 Flag of the Philippines Philippines 88,574,614 August 1, 2007 1.33%

2007 Official NSO Census Results
13 Flag of Vietnam Vietnam 87,375,000 1.31%

UN estimate
14 Flag of Germany Germany 82,244,000 November 30, 2007 1.23% Federal Statistics Office estimate
15 Flag of Ethiopia Ethiopia 77,127,000 July 2007 1.16%

Ethiopia Central Statistics Agency

Signsolid (talk) 08:33, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I dont think its that much of a stretch to think that Russia can be considered a superpower, referring back to the soviet union, that was one of the only 2 in the world, but today it is hard to find similarities between the two, but Russia still has the same, if not larger stockpiles of nuclear weapons than the US, a good indicator in todays world of power status, economic power is also lacking but its oil and gas reserves are also important in these terms, but most importantly, the fact that russia is by far the largest country by land area in the world. but reflecting on history of Russia, like in world war I and II, the russian military or the "russian steamroller" (despite the fact that they were seriously underequipped and poorly managed) but still the sheer numbers of viable troops in russia also a key characteristic.

P.S. Mind the spelling and grammar mistakes ;) Taifarious1 09:03, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

"Blunt" may not be the right word, but long posts tend to sound like ranting and may be taken poorly. If you have a lot to say, try bulleted lists and similar formatting, it makes it a lot easier to read and might avoid confusion.Somedumbyankee (talk) 16:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Was that meant for me or 'Signsolid'? Taifarious1 01:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Signsolid. Actually, it's a comment I already made further up the page, but it's just as applicable here.Somedumbyankee (talk) 04:02, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

This is just speculation on my part but does anybody else think that the Soviets never went away? I think they are holding to Lenin's advice, "one step backwards, two steps forward"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.196.76.228 (talk) 16:23, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I could see Russia being a superpower mainly because of its large land size and strong military (even if it's declining), but economically, it doesn't compare to America. America is no doubt a superpower and I don't know where people get the idea America is weak in both military and economy. Russia has had a very rich military history especially in past dumb attempts to invade it during winter (Napoleon and Hitler), and to my knowledge, they have never been fully invaded by another country within the past 1000 years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.234.178.207 (talk) 20:25, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Last invasion of Iceland is also more than 1000 yrs ago. It is hardly a superpower though ;-) Arnoutf (talk) 21:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

How can Russia be a military superpower when its military is only the 7th strongest in the world? Does that mean France, United Kingdom, China, Germany, and Japan are also military superpowers because they all have more powerful militaries because they spend more on their militaries? Military strength is only determined by military spending. Also as for not being successfully invaded for 1000 years the UK hasn't been successfully invaded for 942 years as of 2008. Does that mean the UK can claim to be a superpower considering its not only not been successfully invaded for 1000 years its not even had any part of its territory occupied for 100 years, unlike Russia which has had numerous countries occupy large amounts of it territory many times over tha past 1000 years, plus the UK spends a lot more on its military giving it arguably a more powerful military. So is the UK more of a military superpower than Russia?

[edit] USA map with major cities

The goal of creating such a map and including it in the article is an admirable one, but there have been no less than three problems so far:

  1. If the primary goal of the map is to show where the cities are, it clearly failed at the size it was included at
  2. The base design is identical to our large states map, so it looks redundant in an unprofessional way
  3. The choice of cities has remained essentially random--for instance, Seattle (pop. 582,174) and Albuquerque (pop. 534,089) were included; Houston (pop. 2,169,248), San Antonio (pop. 1,296,682), and San Diego (pop. 1,256,951) were not.

However, these three problems can all be resolved if the map is improved. With a more rational selection of cities, the map could simply be substituted at large-scale for the existing large-scale map in the States section. I propose that such a map should include the twenty largest cities in the country:
New York NY
Los Angeles CA
Chicago IL
Houston TX
Phoenix AZ
Philadelphia PA
San Antonio TX
San Diego CA
Dallas TX
San Jose CA
Detroit MI
Jacksonville FL
Indianapolis IN
San Francisco CA
Columbus OH
Austin TX
Memphis TN
Fort Worth TX
Baltimore MD
Charlotte NC
Then you could add the core cities of the twenty largest metro areas if they are not already included (adding nine for a total of 29):
Miami FL
Washington DC
Atlanta GA
Boston MA
Riverside CA
Seattle WA
Minneapolis MN
St. Louis MO
Tampa FL
There are other possible logical systems for choosing which cities to represent, but some logical system must be used in order to avoid OR and POV.—DCGeist (talk) 08:52, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the map really adds much, and I'm going to add a voice in opposition to it (in any form) because this article is already well beyond a practical size. If the map is added, at least one of the other maps should be removed.Somedumbyankee (talk) 09:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, that's what I was suggesting--after the necessary improvement, a straight switch with the existing map in the States section.—DCGeist (talk) 09:13, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Hows this

That looks superb. Well done. One remaining hesitation. Take a look at the existing map in the States section. You'll note that not only does it give the full names of the states, but each name is an active link, allowing the reader to jump directly to the article on the state. Now, I don't think we require both the full state names and the active links, but we definitely should have at least one or the other. With all the city names, it may be advisable to stick with the state abbreviations to avoid visual clutter, but those abbreviations will be completely obscure to many of our readers around the world--linking them to the state articles would take care of much of that issue. Minor point: If you're going to identify Canada, you'll also want to identify Mexico. Best, Dan.—DCGeist (talk) 19:08, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
We really, really don't need yet another map in this article; it (in a much-improved version) might be useful in the 'largest cities' or 'largest metro areas' article, but definitely not in this one. --Golbez (talk) 19:00, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Once again, as stated twice above, we're not discussing this as an additional map, but as a straight switch for the existing map in the States section.—DCGeist (talk) 19:08, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, DCG, polevaulted to conclusions a bit. There are currently six maps of the US on the page. Do we really need all of them in the summary article? The "location in world" map is the only crucial one, all of the others have their own articles.Somedumbyankee (talk) 18:51, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Your general point is inarguable—the article does greatly exceed our "best practices" for length. While I put a good deal of effort now into restraining further grow and supported Calliopejen1's excellent trims ([2], [3]) a few months ago, I'm not much of a cutter myself. I confess I like each one of those maps in the article.—DCGeist (talk) 19:08, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, so now that it's clear that it would replace, rather than supplement, the existing map, I have these comments:

  1. The selection of cities seems random and haphazard. Fairbanks is the second largest city in Alaska, but no city at all in Alabama is supplied. Santa Fe is the fourth largest city in New Mexico but is the capital, but many other capitals (including Juneau) are omitted.
  2. Since when were Dallas and Fort Worth as far apart as Austin and San Antonio?
  3. The map quality definitely needs work, JPG artifacts abound, but I'm guessing this is purely because it's a first draft.
  4. Billings (not a capital), metro 177,000, but not Boise (capital), metro ~600,000? What list was used to make this?
  5. I would suggest: 1) All capitals. 2) All largest cities in each state if not capitals. 3) The 50 largest cities in the country, if they don't fall into either list above. 4) The cores of the 50 largest metro areas, if they don't fall into the previous three. Another possibility is to use a population limit, instead of the 50 largest, like include all cities of over 200,000 people, neglecting populous suburbs like Mesa and Long Beach. I think that should be sufficient, yes? without overcrowding? A license can be given for the tiny northeastern states, just include the capital, since there's obviously not enough room for both Dover and Wilmington, both Trenton and Newark, both Montpelier and Burlington, both Hartford and Bridgeport, etc etc etc.
  6. Label the three major bodies of water on the map, the oceans and the gulf.
  7. Personally, I still think that, for the state locator map, we don't really need dots, except maybe for the most major of cities (the ten largest areas). It clutters up a clickable imagemap. A map like this is far more useful for a demographics or largest cities article, IMO. --Golbez (talk) 19:49, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
  8. Dots first, then labels. That is to say, with Iowa, you have "IA" in the middle, so you were forced to shove Des Moines far more west than it really is. Put Des Moines first, then label the state.
Golbez and I disagree on a single point: I think that a version of this map would be much more informative and thus useful to most readers of this overview article. That aside, every single one of his observations about the current conception of the map and suggestions for improving it is well taken. Mindful of common-sense caveats for space--which Golbez points out as well--the map would benefit from all of these points being implemented. If they are (along with two I mentioned above: Wikilinking state-name abbreviations and labeling Mexico), I'd support its substitution for the existing map in the States section.—DCGeist (talk) 22:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Article

Why isn't this article featured? Does it not meet all the guidelines for featured articles? Idontknow610TM 12:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

It has problems with WP:SUMMARY, for one, in that many of the sections have an excessive level of detail for topics with their own article. It's well written and all of the content is good, but it's just too long. WP:SIZE frowns on articles >100k (it's 162k right now), and though that isn't a rigid requirement, my guess is that Featured Articles are probably expected to be compliant with "good practices" as well as rules.Somedumbyankee (talk) 17:15, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
...And the reason it's so long is that people oppose it at FAC if it doesn't have their "pet fact" about the US in it. Wrad (talk) 17:43, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
The article should be long because the US has a lot going on for such a young country/nation, so there should be exceptions to the "rules" to account for this. Britannica Online's article on the US is almost 300 pages.[4]. They also have a large collection of media files linked within and, many subjects are branched off into other articles related to it. Even their 2007 paper addition has over 300 pages for US article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.189.45.80 (talk) 16:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, shoot, I guess we're just gonna have to do better than Brittanica did. Seriously, though, the article has a lot of detail that's redundant with issues that are so big that they have sub-sub-articles. Emigrations to Canada in the Revolutionary War? Murder statistics? Citizenship of Samoans? Casualty counts for the Iraq War? The percent of US vehicles that are SUVs? Comparisons of fertility rates for ethnic groups? Statistics of how many white evangelicals there are as compared to all evangelicals? Abortion rates? Causes of personal bankruptcy? A history of motion pictures? Superman? Percent of caloric intake from soft drinks? Tennis is popular? I could go on (and I did!), but I think you get the point. Somedumbyankee (talk) 00:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] To whom this concerns

Several months ago I drew the ire of a few users by repeatedly attempting to insert and remove within one particular article several terms and statements which some identified as "vandalism" (even comparing it to some of the worst defacements committed on this site). I admit that while most of my content was legitimate and well-documented, the practice by which I was inserting it was less than professional. I ultimately issued an apology for this flawed method of editing as well as for several less-than-professional statements directed at a few other users.

Still, I was also the target of several unnecessary threats and insults which have been seemingly ignored since then (an administrator at one point even defended the unorthodox statements of one user). Furthermore, the branding of a "troublemaker" resulted in the disregard and deletion of several of my contributions in other articles without any formal or legitimate reasoning for doing so. I agreed to apologize for the mistakes I made, now I am requesting the same from those who did wrong towards me. M5891 (talk) 14:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Why don't you name them, then they might know who you are referring to. Just a suggestion! Joe Deagan (talk) 01:11, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] hmmm...

wangdoodle! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.208.93.56 (talk) 01:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Offensive ASCII image boldly removed per WP:TALK.Somedumbyankee (talk) 01:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Race and Ethnicity

The Demographics section regarding race and ethnicity must be fixed. It is quite confusing, referring to black as a race and Latino as an ethnicity, and discounts Latinos when referencing the largest minority group. Even if this is according to the US census definitions on race & ethnicity, it would be better if that issue is resolved so there isn't any contradictions.

Furthermore, the chart on the same issue has to be fixed. It needs to distinguish whether it factors Caucasian-Latinos as Caucasian. Currently, the chart doesn't differentiate, and the percentages add up to over 100% Intranetusa (talk) 17:13, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

It says 'of any race', how do you propose we cut it to 100%? I don't think it would make sense to have separate entries for 'caucasian', 'caucasian-latino', 'african-american', 'african-american-latino', et.al. --Golbez (talk) 17:15, 9 June 2008 (UTC)