Talk:United States/Archive 13

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Contents

Welsh History

Is there really convincing evidence that the legendary Welsh Prince seteled in America? Maybe the therory could be stated, but I doubt its evidence is incrontrovertable.

Foreign relations and military

The wording "...cultural dominance of the United States..." is funny and inaccurate.By cultural dominance we can understand obviously some parts of mass media cultural products, like movies from the big californian studios, few trade names in the industry like Coca-Cola or Burger King, and many names in pop-music. However culture refers commonly to much wider areas in the literature, fine arts and social sciences which are more important in any country than the imported *products* of some american corporates. I think the sentence should be changed to better express the difference between the global market of mass media cultural products, where USA is the dominant player and what is culture as a whole. In fact, yes, I agree, because the total aggregate of the system equals a beknowst amount which could be used in a beneficial manner subsequently over the possessions formerly held by innovative strategies and technological bums. --AntonioB 16:41, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Um, no. The US can be said to be culturally dominant for any number of reasons. It is the primary reason why English is still the world's most popular 2nd language, 50 years after the fall of the British Empire. American literature is an important contribution to world literature, esp. in the 20th century. New York has been a center for the publishing industry for over a century. Several religions and sects, such as the church of Latter-Day Saints, the Southern Baptist Convention, and Seventh-day Adventists originated in the US. Many constitutions and declarations of independence written after 1776 borrow structure or content from the US ones, even if they have more European or socialist forms of government. You might also have heard of the little thing called the "United Nations", a US-founded project which is increasingly at odds with the US but nevertheless founded on its principles. In every respect, the US can be said to be culturally dominant. Certainly, there is no country that can match the US in this regard. (Identity0, not logged in)

Economy

Re: PENDING TASKS! I am trying to add more depth than "strong manufacturing sector", and "capitalist economy" (without lengthinging it). People come to wikipedia to learn, not to be told nothing by a group of people afraid from saying somthing. Be bold and improve on my edit. Please do not continue to revert back to a poor summary of the CIA factbook! Thanks, --Sansvoix 02:30, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Your comments on the US financial system "exploiting labor and resources, primarily in nations open to the global economic policies enforced by the WTO and World Bank" is a gross misrepresentation of how the US economy works, filled with faulty Marxist stereotypes rather than a factual description of how the US economy actually works. First of all, most US foreign investments are in other advanced industrial nations, not in developing countries as your sentence implies. Second, US gross income receipts received from outside the US accounts for only 3 percent of the US GNP; if you net out US income payments to the rest of world, then the net income for abroad is less than a 1/2 percent of GNP. Third, the US is a net debtor country, not a net creditor, with foreigners owning more than twice the amount of foreign assets owned by the US. Thus, the US financial system currently is geared more to attracting excess foreign savings into the US than it is for the US acquiring assets abroad. Finally, the use of the terms "exploiting" and "enforcing" are judgmental and POV. Nicholas F 01:55, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
My comments 'exploiting labour and resources, primarily in nations open to the global economic policies enfoced by the WTO and World Bank' is a gross UNERREPRESENTATION of how the U.S. economy works! Feel free to add to it in the U.S. Economy article. Your impressive jargon makes me believe you understand something of international trade and finance! But still, your view is filled with faulty stereotypes, that probably are not Marxist! First of all, the advanced industrialized nations tend to be following WTO, and World Bank policies. Not all though, for example the Russian Federation has a very protectionist market, hence the flow of capital between Russia and the United States is on a very tight leash. Lastly, the trade deficit does not apply here, as the trade deficit does not take in account the flow of capital! Nonetheless, U.S. firms compete in the world marketplace through foreign-affiliate sales instead of just exports. American investors profit from free flowing capital througout large trading blocks (enforced by WTO). How US firms compete in world markets goes well beyond trade. In 1999, foreign-affiliate sales were $2.4 trillion, while national exports were at $933 billion. Still, even those trade figures are just a small drop in the sea of capital that moves in and out of the United Sates. 'Net Debtor' and 'Net Creditor', are terms of international trade, but do not really apply in this situation.
The terms 'exploiting' and 'enforcing' are not judgmental. If one country has copper, and you build a copper mine, you are exploiting the situation for overall benifit. But you are correct, the WTO does not directly enforce rules of trade, only sets out strict guidelines.

--Sansvoix 08:00, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

The problem with the word "exploiting" is that it has a double meaning. The Mirriam-Webster Dictionany defines exploit as:
1 : to make productive use of : utilize (exploiting your talents) (exploit your opponent's weakness)
2 : to make use of meanly or unjustly for one's own advantage (exploiting migrant farmworkers)
The first definition presents no problems, but the second definition does add a judgmental element, as I am sure you are aware. This ambiguity to the meaning of "exploiting" is one reason that its use (or should I say exploitation) is popular on the left, as one can imply the second definition but a fall back, just as you did, on the first definition when challenged. It is best to replace this word with "use" or "utilize" when only the first meaning is meant.
The figures I quoted are from the capital and financial account, NOT the current (or trade) account. Your mixing up of this basic distinction suggests to me that you do not have a strong background in economics. The data on US income earned from abroad includes the the US share of profits for foreign-affiliate sales. The total sales volume of foreign-affiliates of US firms is a very poor measure of the US income from these sales. First, many foreign affiliates are either joint ventures or have substantial amounts of local ownership, thus a share of the profits of these affiliates accrues to the local economy. Second, these affiliates also purchase local inputs for their production, the value of which also accrues to the local economy. Finally, the wages of the local workforce also accrue to the local economy. This last is is not insubstantial.
My views are not based on any stereotypes, but rather an actual study of economics. The data I presented are the standard ones used in the economic profession. And yes, I am not a Marxist. Although I realized that there are many sociologists and political scientists who still (unfortunately) use Marxist theory, Marx has been totally discredited in the economic profession.
Nicholas F 16:41, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Back to the topic at hand.
'The US Financial sector is the strongest in the world, achieving capital gains through exploiting markets, labour and resources, primarily in nations open to the global economic policies supported by the WTO and World Bank.'
I feel it important that this is in the economics section. Not because I want to start a Marxist revolution (I don't), or debate economic theory with some guy on the internet, but because it really is the only sentance that explains how the system works. You seem to be particularly concerned with the word 'exploit'. But it is the only one I know of that is appropriate, and is not a term exclusive to the 'left'. You utilize the outcome of market exploitation! Using words such as 'utilize' instead of 'exploit' only serves to contribute to fuzzy ideas and a lack of logical thinking. And no self-respecting economist would want that. Well maybe a politically motivated one. Just think about it --you don't use a situation, you exploit it! --Sansvoix 03:06, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
You are avoiding which definition of exploit you intend, the productive use or the the unjust use. Surely you do not believe that all productive uses are unjust. Your sentence as written could be interpreted either that the financial system effectively uses markets, labor and resources to create wealth (NPOV) or that the financial system unjustly abuses markets, labor and resources for its own selfish benefit (POV). Which is it? Would you be just as happy with a sentence that reads "US workers create income for themselves by exploiting capital and resources provided by their employers"? It is the (deliberate?) dual meaning of your sentence that creates fuzzy ideas.
An aside to this debate, your focus on capital gains (the rise in value of assets) ignores the other types of income created by financial markets (i.e., dividends and interest). Nicholas F 08:45, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
What are you trying to suggest? Sure, I agree exploit can be a loaded word, but it has greater meaning than the words you suggest. For that reason alone it should stay in place. Furthermore, in the context I have put it, it doesn't appear as a negative! Your example also doesn't make much sense, workers don't exploit wages, they exploit the oppertunities which result in them recieving wages!--Sansvoix 09:00, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I am not trying to suggest anything, just attempting to clarify what YOU mean by "exploit". You still haven't answered my question, do you mean "productive" use or "unjust" use? If you agree that it can be a loaded word, then that argues for avoiding its use. Nicholas F 09:20, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Please stop sabatoging this article, Nicholas F. Your problem with my addition seems not to be my use of the english language, but instead the fact that I am not writing disinformation you want, loaded with fuzzy words and jargon! You clearly are attempting to encourage the reader to move on, and not think about the economic facts which I am fairly adressing. Your additions, at first glance, seem appropriate, but in actuality they are an attempt to hijack the facts.

For example, you changed: "The United States falls behind most industrialized countries in terms of social welfare and its social safety net." To "The United States, when compared to most industrialized countries, trades off smaller government-provided social welfare and social safety net for greater opportunity for individual entrepreneurial activity and more flexibility in its labor markets.

For those of you reading this, Nicholas F has changed what once was a fact, to a faraway concept glossed over, and imediatly justified. Which belongs in a encyclopedia? Furthermore, a concise explanation for the mechanics of neoliberalism (as well as a link) was already there, but it too was modified.

It shouldn't take me 5 days to edit one article, but I feel Wikipedia needs to be a source of information, not a mashing togeather of glossed over concepts linked with propaganda! And it's not just Nicholas who is doing this! I'm seeing it more and more! Can someone help me out here?--Sansvoix 00:19, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree that Wikipedia needs to be objective, but your edits fall far short of that goal. I once again am appealing to you to state up front what definition of the exploit you want to be convey in you sentence productive use or unjust use? Your failure to answer what is a simple question indicates that you purposely intend leave the reader with the impression that the US financial system is unjust, but that you lack the courage to come right out and say it. Is it unjust? Perhaps an argument can be made for this position, but this is a subjective judgment call and not a question of fact and does not belong in an objective encyclopedia article.
In addition, your sentence incorrectly describes the primary function of the US financial system. Most of its activities involve domestic transactions, not foriegn transactions. Although there are still large scale foreign transactions, today these are more geared to attracting foreign capital INTO the US market rather than having US capital employ (justly or unjustly) foreign labor and resources. These are facts, I've presented the data, you've ignored them. Finally, the purpose of the financial system is not focused just on capital gains, but rather profits of all sorts. Your insistance of using this term suggests that you are fixated on Marxist captal vs. labor view of the world. As written, your sentence is simply a polemic against the US financial system and is devoid of any supporting facts. I will drop my rewrite of the description of the financial system if you insist, but I will not agree that your sentence should remain.
Next, why did I change your phrase of "advocates greater rights to holders of capital" to "advocates greater individual economic rights"? Well, no backer of neo-liberal economics goes around talking about "rights of holders of capital", they use the language of "individual economic rights". If you have a sentence that mentions what is advocated, then you should use the language of the advocates and not put words into their mouths.
Now for the changes that I made to your sentence on the social welfare system. By saying that the US is "falling behind" your sentence includes the unstated premise that either the US is trying to keep up with other industrialized nations or that is should be trying to keep up. The first would be incorrect and the second is subjective. The smaller size of the US welfare system is a conscious policy choice and my edits were designed to reflect this. A large social welfare state is not free and comes with costs that places a burden on the economy. Is it worth these costs? That is a subjective judgment. Most EU countries, for example, have made different policy choices, believing that it is well worth the cost. I will attempt another rewrite that makes this policy choice more clear and, hopefully, wont be read as advocating that this was the proper choice.
In conclusion, I am willing to compromise to come to more neutral language, but I see no reason to concede to your hidden subjective subtext or allow factually incorrect descriptions to remain. I have raised, on several occasions, specific objections to the your language which you have failed to address. I also do not want to turn this into an edit war, so I hope we can come to an agreement on the langauge soon.
Nicholas F 03:55, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Sure, I'll talk about what I've said. I would of liked it if you brought your concerns up front here, instead of creatively editing out my additions.
You suggest the phrase 'advocates greater rights to holders of capital' is somehow inapropriate, and not neoliberal. In actuality, neoliberalism is based on the grounds that groups of capital holders can pool their resources and create a new entity with greater rights than any one individual. Backers of neoliberal economics definaly care about the "right of the holders of capital". I believe I origionally wrote 'corporate rights' instead of holders of capital, but I must of changed it in the edit scuffle that ensued. Either one works.
Next I believe I wrote 'falls behind' not falling behind. 'falls behind' is the NPOV language I chose instead of 'worse', or 'inferior'.
And lastly, I believe I've made it very clear that the use of the word "exploit" is the only term that means to take advantage of a situation for benifit. I suppose it can be read in a negative or postive context, depending on the readers opinion on globalisation, but that is for the reader to decide not me (or you)! That is why I have used the word in a neutral context. Anything else would be manipulation!--Sansvoix 09:10, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
As there have been no futher comments for 24 hours, I will be restoring my information.--Sansvoix 06:02, 23 October 2005 (UTC)


There is something i've noticed about the description of the US economy. It mentions that the US 'has the largest economy in the world'. I checked the EU article and checked the 'Economy' section and it mentioned the same thing: 'The EU has the largest economy in the world'. Now both countries (The EU isn't really a country yet just so you know) can't have 'largest economy in the world'. I'll try to find data on their GDPs and update both articles. However, i'd like other people to let me know if there is something wrong or if i'm wrong myself. --Germi91 Tuesday 10:37 AM GMT+1 13/12/05

The EU has the largest combined economy, whereas the U.S. has the largest single-country economy. (See List of countries by GDP (PPP).) I've updated it to be more accurate. -- Dpark 13:33, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Request for Comment (see above discussion)

Here lies the raw disagreement, as of 08:53, 23 October 2005 (UTC):


Pt 1 -Regarding neoliberalism

...and advocates greater individual economic rights. Previously, the United States was a proponent of Keynesian economics. The United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keeping its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities.

-OR-

...and advocates greater rights to corporations. Previously, the United States was a proponent of Keynesian economics. The United States falls behind most industrialised nations in terms of social welfare and its social safety net.

Pt 2 -Global economy

The US Financial sector is the strongest in the world, achieving capital gains through exploiting markets, labor and resources, primarily in nations open to the global economic policies supported by the IMF, WTO and World Bank.

-OR-

nil

Comments welcome! --Sansvoix 08:58, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

RFC comment. Generally, being more precise aids in being less judgemental. First, "previously" is too vague in relation to Keynesian economics. Be specific, and say from the 30s to the 70s. Second, find some comparative statistics to put in the second sentence of Pt1 - in relation to government share of GDP, share of public services like water, health and education, life expectancy, distribution of income etc. Third, "individual economic rights" is too vague to be meaningful. Is it an economic right to have good healthcare? Rights to corporations has some meaning but again is very vague. Fourth, put "the US financial sector is the strongest in the world," with statistics to back that up if it's true. US economic dominance overseas is linked to IMF etc, but not limited to financial sector and deserves more than half a sentence. Again, more precision is better. Finally, giving more space overall to the US economy summary in this article (main article is separate), the biggest and most important for the global economy, seems fair. I mean, do we really need that table of top-twenty cities and populations, and boringly-similar pictures of the top three? Rd232 talk 17:19, 23 October 2005 (UTC)


My suggestion - from a Non-American, as requested.

  1. Write about the economy first, not about the economic policies as now.
  2. Push the first paragraph - about policies to the end, perhaps to another subsection under "Economy".
  3. Do not use the term "neo-liberal". As a non-American, when I read the term, I only get the impression that I am seeing a private family dispute using secret codewords.
  4. The last sentence of the current first para: "The United States falls behind most industrialised nations in terms of social welfare and its social safety net." does not belong there. The issue of poverty, social problems etc. should have a paragraph of its own. The only reason why it would belong there is if you are drawing a link between the abandonment of Keynesian policies and the supposed decline in social welfare and social spending. If you are, that link should be made explicit.
  5. Finally, the "Previously" is misleading. It should be made more exact and the history previous to that should also get a sentence of its own.

--Ravikiran 14:19, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I endorse Ravikiran's comments. I have been attempting to make corrections to Sanvoix's edits on specific wording within in the sentences and had ignored the problem that, as constructed now, the first paragraph on the economy now begins with a discussion of ideology, and not economics. In addition, Sanvoix misuses the term "Keynsian". While one can discuss Keynsian policies adopted to face certain economic problems, there is no such thing as a Keynsian model on how an economy should be organized.
Nicholas F 15:03, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Sansvoix, I am very disappointed at your lack of substantive response to date to the objections that I have raised. Contrary to your claim, everything you have done has not been backed up on the discussion page. I find it ironic that you feel the right to freely edit the text of other contributors but feel that your own language is in someway sacrosanct. Your continued use of loaded words, such as “exploit”, “falls behind”, and “capital owners” as well as your rewriting the first paragraph to emphasize ideology rather than economic (see Ravikirin’s comments above) suggest that you are more interested in pushing an ideological agenda than contributing to Wikipedia’s project of creating an objective online encyclopedia.

I will once again list my objections and invite you to address these with substantive comments:

  1. “Greater rights to holders of capital” vs. “Greater economic rights.” Our dispute over these two terms is probably emblematic of the two differing points of views that we hold. You did change this subsequently to “greater rights to corporations.” This is better, but still a problem. “Greater” is a comparative. To what are you comparing? Greater rights than other actors in the economy? Or greater rights than advocated in other economic models? Isn’t this covered in the statement “advocates limited government intervention in the economy?”
  2. Social welfare. “Falls behind” is POV in that it makes a judgment of what it means to be ahead. I could have just as easily written “Most other industrialized nations fall behind the US in reducing the burden of the welfare state.” I believe this to be true, but recognize that this is an opinion to which others could object. I changed my original edit based on your objection and offered a compromise that I hoped you would accept as being neutral and factually based and included a statement on policy choices that places this fact in context. My sentence did not state or imply (I believe) any judgment on whom, the US or the more socialized industrialized nations, has made the better choice. Can you specify what are your objections to the sentence as I re-wrote it?
  3. The US financial sector. You added a sentence on the US financial sector, but instead of providing any factual data, you try to link it to your view that the US financial sector abuses other nations and by pursuing open global economic polices. You offer nothing in the way of proof other than a bald assertion that this is so. Previously, I presented data that undermines your argument. You ignored this data.
  4. “Exploiting”. Perhaps the most blatant abuse that you attempting to impose on this article. I have pointed out in detail how your use of this word is a deliberate attempt to hide a judgment behind a word with a double meaning. You claim that you need to use this word as it is the only term that means to take advantage of a situation for benefit. Consulting the same Merriam-Webster Dictionary as before, I see the term take advantage of also has two definitions. 1: to use to advantage : profit by. 2: to impose on : exploit. Thus it also suffers from a dual meaning, one of which is judgmental.
  5. “Market-oriented” vs. “Neoliberal.” I didn’t raise this objection before, but the term market-oriented is a better choice than neoliberal. First, it is a term most readers with which most readers would be familiar. Second, although the US has been following more neoliberal policies than in the recent past, it is hardly a model of a neoliberal economy. There are still far too many taxes and regulations in place than most neoliberals would find acceptable.

Finally, Ravkirin makes some other good points, particularly that the section should start with a description of the economy and not economic policies. The first two sentences from the CIA’s World Factbook section on the US economy make a better starting overview. The discussion of policy should be moved to the end of the section.Nicholas F 17:28, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I am very uncomfortable by the personal tone here. I do not feel like I am doing anything wrong. All I have done is answered the call on the top of this page requesting to 'Improve the sections on Foreign relations and the military, and Economy, without necessarily lengthening them.' --I am trying very hard to do this, but my statements are being deleted or modified in an apperent effort to ignore the topic compleatly! Furthermore, it was previously simply a copy from CIA factbook, and you can confirm that by viewing the page history back to my first addition. Right now the issue is between the two different options which I have posted at the top of this section.
Nicholas, I've already adressed your concerns in the previous section, and I don't feel your commentary on that discussion is fair to me. I did not say think or do the things you say! This is not a pissing contest, I'm just trying to put some information in an article that was previously mainly trivia.--Sansvoix 00:40, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
However I do now have time to entertain a couple of things which you have not yet brought up. In your #1 issue, you ask what I am comparing it too. I am comparing it to before neoliberal polices were introduced. Rd232 suggested that I clearify the timlines of Keynesian economic and neo-liberal prevelance.
The US financial sector being the "strongest in the world", was somthing I did not add in my edits. I believe it was there before, and is on the CIA factbook website. I did not provide any reference data, which you are free to do.
I think neoliberal is important, as the section happens to be focused on current economic policies. Whether it should be focusing on the history of the US economy instead, is up to debate I suppose.--Sansvoix 00:55, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Okay, so you now compleatly removed every one of my additions since the very start. I don't have time for this anymore. Congratulations.--Sansvoix 02:46, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
And consensus prevails yet again. --Golbez 04:52, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm sure. Here is what I feel should be in the article if anyone wants to break 'consensus', and work with me to put these important facts (not necessarily in this form) into the article. --Sansvoix 05:31, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Since the Reagan administration, the economy of the United States has followed the neo-liberal model, which advocates limited government intervention in the economy and trade, and advocates greater rights for corporations. From the 30's to the late 70's, the United States was a proponent of Keynesian economics, a theory which claims government intervention is necessary for market and social stability. Today, the United States falls behind most industrialised nations in terms of social welfare and its social safety net, areas it poineered in following Franklin D. Roosevelt's adoption of Keynesian economics

And,

The US Financial sector is the strongest in the world, achieving capital gains through exploiting markets, labour and resources, primarily in nations open to the global economic policies supported by the IMF, WTO and World Bank.

Yet it's the form that we have the biggest complaint with. --Golbez 08:22, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Society focuses on 'everything' BUT class

As of this time of writing, the US 'society' section has 7 paragraphs on RACE, 1 on religion, 3 on education, 2 on language, 3 on culture, and 2 on sports.

I don't know about Americans, but the rest of society does not primarily devide itself on basis of RACE!!!

There is no mention of quality of living, poverty, wealth, class, or anything to meaningfully base society on. This is disgusting. Anyone want to help me fix this? --Sansvoix 02:46, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Race is a huge issue in American politics, culture, and media, and is a dominant issue (if not the dominant issue) in any sociological analysis of American society. [comment here was deleted by Sansvoix because he found it offensive] But I agree that there should be a discussion of class in this article as well. --Coolcaesar 04:29, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Umm, Coolcaesar, sorry, but it's not a huge issue. It's there. It's an issue. But it's not as big of an issue as is presented in the article. It's not something to base the "society" thing on. And I say that as someone who has lived his entire life in the United States.
Sansvoix, I'll take a look and see what I can do. 05:16, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
To user Matt Yeager: I disagree with your underestimation of the race issue. To user Sansvoix, I disagree with your deletion of my hostile characterization of your ignorance of American society and American sociology. If you feel my comments are stupid, say so. Deleting them simply indicates bad faith and an oversensitive inability to tolerate constructive criticism.

Now, turning back to Matt Yeager: You must lead a very sheltered life in a very bland area of the United States. For once, visit a bookstore (and I mean a big one like Barnes & Noble) and browse the magazines (and I mean the serious ones like the New Republic and the Atlantic Monthly). Turn on the television and watch some of the major networks. What underlies so many punch lines on Saturday Night Live and Mad TV? Race. What gets the headlines? Race. Remember O.J. Simpson? The trial of the century? The race card? What gets people focused on the U.S. Supreme Court (well, besides abortion)? Race. What did people just riot about in Toledo, Ohio, and not that long ago, in Cincinnati? Race. What issue has resulted in several constitutional amendments, and the passing (and eventual judicial overturning) of literally thousands of federal and state laws? Race. What issue dominates every major election, employment decision, traffic stop, casual encounter, award ceremony, etc.? Race. Remember Denzel Washington? Clarence Thomas?

I agree that other issues like class and gender should be also discussed in the main United States article. But please get your facts straight before you deprecate race as a an issue of continuing importance to contemporary American society. --Coolcaesar 02:34, 21 October 2005 (UTC)


Out of curiousity, Coolcaesar, where do you live? Your page seems to indicate California, but in a big city, or not?
I ask because I live in a city (well, a trio of cities) with about 160,000 people--not huge, but not exactly sheltered. I don't know what happens in the city you live in, but my headlines tend to deal with hurricanes and Harriet and the like, not with race.
As for "what issue dominates every major election..." I have to ask, I'm really not trying to be mean... but what the heck was that supposed to mean?! I'd say that the war in Iraq, gay marriage, taxes/tax cuts, economic programs, abortion, flip-flops, etc. mattered a heck of a lot more in the 2004 presidential election. When was the last time that race played a dominant role in a presidential election? What, the sixties? As for other "major elections"... I don't know what else qualifies as "major". When was the last time that race played a major part of a Senate race? I don't know about California, but I can't recall race playing a role in any race in at least the last 9 years or so.
What gets people focused on the Supreme Court (past abortion)? I'm sorry, you might have forgotten, but not too long ago someone sued to get the Pledge of Allegiance out of our schools. That one caused a wee bit of attention to be given to the Supreme Court, I believe. You might recall a certain judge who put the Ten Commandments in his courthouse and his case got taken to the Supreme Court. Just a slight controversy over that one, wasn't there?
As for the rest of what you're saying... really? Every casual encounter is dominated by race? Really? I'd hate to see how you act around people. Where I come from, probably 99% of people act pretty much exactly the same around Hispanics, blacks, and Asians as they do around whites (except if race happens to come up--say, there's a discussion of Steve Nash getting the NBA MVP award). And I do remember Denzel, although Clarence is a little before my time. But do you remember, say, Condi Rice? Remember the huge buzz around her being the first black NSA? Neither do I.
Don't get me wrong--race still matters (unfortunately), but its importance is greatly overrepresented in this article (religion's importance, for one, dwarfs that of race). I tried taking a look at "demographics", but there's nothing there that really deserves to be deleted. I think that basically the other sections need to be expanded. Sorry if this was too harsh. Matt Yeager 03:10, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Uh, actually, by elections, I was referring to the Voting Rights Act. If race wasn't still such a big deal, we wouldn't have so many state and local jurisdictions operating their elections under federal supervision. Also, I think you are sheltered in the sense that you have not lived in a truly diverse, strongly segregated city like Los Angeles (where the abruptness of boundaries and the depths of poverty can be rather shocking).
By the U.S. Supreme Court, I was referring to Brown v. Board of Education, as well as all the huge affirmative action cases over the years, of which the most recent were Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger (both decided in 2003).
Also, keep in mind that race is a huge issue in employment (which is a big issue for most people, unless you happen to be among the lucky few who don't need to worry about a job). Haven't you ever filled out those optional EEOC questionnaires? Ever read an employee handbook with all the clauses about how discrimination on the basis of race is against company policy? When we have arrived at a truly color-blind society, then such language will be unnecessary.
As for casual encounters, you're obviously not familiar with the huge literature (again, I suggest visiting a Barnes & Noble sometime) on race relations. Remember Danny Glover's complaints in 1999 about not being able to hail a taxi? How about John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me?
The most chilling lesson, by the way, of Griffin's story (which is required reading in most California schools), is that the most dangerous racism is not that which comes from fire-breathing demagogues — it's the kind which comes from ordinary people who are unable to see it in themselves. Which, of course, reinforces that famous phrase from Thomas Jefferson that "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
Finally, pay attention to popular culture sometime, and note the large number of songs within America's dominant music genre (rap) in which the violation of minorities' civil rights by police is a major theme. --Coolcaesar 04:57, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

In order to save a bit of time, I'm cutting out the colons, okay? ;)

Your first paragraph... what's the point there? That only people who live in big cities have reasonable opinions on race? As a matter of fact, in the Tri-Cities, Washington, there's (give or take) a 75/25 split on whites/non-whites (not far off from the nat'l average, and much closer than LA is). I have white, Hispanic, black, and Asian friends, and trust me--race just almost NEVER comes up. It's just not that big a deal. Maybe it is where you live, I don't know.

Forget affirmative action cases for a second, okay? Two of your main examples (Brown v Board, "Black Like Me") come from over forty years ago. This isn't an article on the history of American society--if it were, then race would deserve a far greater section than it deserves for society today.

As for recent affirmative action cases and such--sure, that's notable... but not extraordinarily so. Definitely, race as an issue is still out there... but it's not that much in most pats of the United States.

I'm going to quote you here, and you tell me how this makes sense...

"As for casual encounters, you're obviously not familiar with the huge literature (again, I suggest visiting a Barnes & Noble sometime) on race relations. Remember Danny Glover's complaints in 1999 about not being able to hail a taxi? How about John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me?"

I'm totally lost. Literature is different than casual encounters. Black Like Me was fifty years old. I don't remember Danny Glover complaining about not being able to hail a taxi, but why is that notable? People have difficulty flagging down taxis all the time.

And, in closing, if police infringing on minority rights is a major component of rap, I must really be missing something. In all I've heard, it deals mostly with drugs, guns, and (for lack of a better term) getting girls to shake it like a Polaroid picture. :) Matt Yeager 05:30, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I approve!--Sansvoix 09:01, 21 October 2005 (UTC)


Now I see the problem after reading Matt Yeager's user page. It's a generation gap. I grew up during the rise of gangsta rap, when NWA, 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G., and Dre were topping the charts, when O.J. Simpson was on newsstands every day and on TV every night, and when Rodney King and the L.A. riots were still a fresh memory. Matt was still a toddler at the time.
Of course, it's true that those things I just mentioned were 10 years ago, and all minority middle classes have continued to grow since then. But many, many inequities still exist. For example: There has never been a black, Hispanic, or Asian President, or Chief Justice for that matter. Indeed, no female African-American or Hispanic justice has ever sat on the Supreme Court, as well as no Asians, male or female.
Of the nation's top 25 universities, none of their tenured computer science faculty were black as late as 2001 (and the last time I checked, the current number was around 2 or 3). Residential segregation (and hence, school segregation) is nearly as bad as it was back in the days of Brown v. Board of Education (the research results from the Civil Rights Project at Harvard Law School in 2001 and 2005 was heavily reported this year due to the 50th anniversary of the case). In November 2004, the Alabama electorate failed to approve a constitutional amendment to get rid of their state constitution's blunt endorsement of segregation. That same fall, the Chancellor of UC Berkeley (the nation's top public university) announced that not a single African-American student had enrolled that fall in the College of Engineering.
Getting the picture? Anyway, I'm not sure we are going anywhere, so this is the end of the discussion. I have better things to do on Wikipedia such as tending to my pet articles like Freeway. --Coolcaesar 06:28, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

In the port rankings, the given rankings give an inaccurate picture. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are tops of the list in total value of trade, but ports like Houston and New Orleans are three to four times busier than the California ports in terms of tonnage. In fact, many ports in America are much busier than the ports listed as the top in America in this article. LA and Long Beach figures are skewed higher because of the high value of the imports they receive - namely high tech products and cars; while the much busier ports elsewhere transact more in less precious basic commodities. In the shipping industry, Los Angeles and Long Beach are considered almost minor compared to the massive operations around Houston and New Orleans. see http://www.aapa-ports.org/pdf/2003_US_PORT_CARGO_TONNAGE_RANKINGS.xls

Also, a ranking of the top cities in terms of population is misleading. Metropolitan area rankings should instead by used. I am from Austin but there is no way it can be considered more important than Atlanta or Miami, which are missing from the list while Austin is present.

Finally, despite the painfully obvious efforts of our Seattle based friends, Seattle is not worth mentioning except where it ranks in objective measures - meaning nowhere. If you think your home city is important, cite facts that prove it.

jasoncward 11:21, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

The ongoing debate over whether English should be the official language

I feel obliged to revert the comment,

There is also an ongoing debate as to weather or not the U.S. should declare English the national language, however ,there have been no serious bills in congress to make such a move in any recent year.

because there is no evidence -- no citation, nothing in the Talk page -- to support the claim that a debate is ongoing. And the comment is "fluffy" in that no debators are mentioned by name or affiliation. It just isn't "wiki" enough to be included here. That's not to say you can't document the comment and put it back later. I just feel that, for now at least, the comment should be kept out of the article.--GraemeMcRaetalk 06:32, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Science

Someone (not logged in, but using an IP address that has a fairly long history of useful edits) added a Science section, an addition which was reverted a short time later by User:Tyler McHenry with the explanation that gave four things wrong with the new section: (1) POV, (2) vague and (3) not a useful addition, (4) not in line with Wikipedia style. My opinion is that it might be possible to address each one of these objections, and turn the section into a valuable addition to the article. I do agree with User:Tyler McHenry, though, that it isn't suitable as it stands. In the hope of resurrecting it some time in the future, and to take some of the sting out of the revert for the person who submitted it in the first place, here it is, exactly as it was in the article, ready to be edited and improved:

The United States has made many significant and fundamental contributions to scientific and engineering knowledge. The prodigious efforts of its scientists have directly contributed to the strength of the national and world economy. Its scientists have received more Nobel Prizes and published more original papers than any other nation. Most original patents have been awarded by the national government. It was the first nation to create an atom bomb, design a nuclear reactor, and land people on the moon. The national government funds several national labs. Many international scientific and engineering organizations are in the United States.
However, the United States' scientific leadership is in jeopardy since the Bush Administration does not fund scientific efforts at the same level as previous administrations.

Now, for my ideas about how to improve it. First, if the section is about Science, let's confine it to science, and not engineering. Second, let's just say what the U.S. has accomplished in science without speculating on how this has strengthened our economy. God knows, we don't want to step into that! If the author knows how many papers have been published by people of each nationality, and how many patents have been awarded to people of each nationality, lay those factoids on us! Otherwise, let's just stick to what we do know -- the Nobel prize count is well documented. And if you're going to pick out some great inventions for which the United States is known, can you please pick something like the transistor instead of the atomic bomb? As far as the funding of science is concerned, much of it is funded by corporations, not the U.S. government. Bell Labs, for example, was a powerhouse of science from 1925 to 1984, funded completely by AT&T and the Bell System. So if the author has information about the funding of science by country, and in particular whether (and by what amount) funding has declined during the Bush Administration, then, please lay those factoids on us, too. So the next paragraph is what remains of the section after the unsubstantiated parts have been excised and the one part I know how to substantiate has been substantiated. I invite the original author (or anyone else) to answer the questions I've raised here, and either fix the paragraph, above, or add to this paragraph:

The United States has made many significant contributions to science. As of October 2005, U.S. scientists have received 114 Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology or Medicine, which is more than the next four countries (Germany (34), United Kingdom (29), Switzerland (19), and The Netherlands (17)) combined. (See Nobel laureates by country).

--GraemeMcRaetalk 08:39, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Just to note, I do think it's reasonable to include a section on Science, it's just that the section as written was a jarring drop in quality compared to the rest of the article, which is a well-written rather high-profile article; the paragraph just seemed like US cheerleading with an anti-bush barb thrown in. I think your proposal is a good way too go about this, although I suggest that any science section focus on tangible acheivements made by US scientists or companies rather than listing accolades (i.e. link to some of the most important actual advancements that the nobel prizes were won for instead of linking to the prizes). -- Tyler 09:11, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
A good point, Tyler. My main objective in moving it here is to give the person who wrote it an opportunity to spruce it up and get it back into the article.--GraemeMcRaetalk 14:10, 25 October 2005 (UTC)


"First patents for the transistor-principle were registered in 1928 by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in Germany" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor. I'm sure US citizens have invented stuff, but apparently not the transistor. Manufacturing isn't exactly inventing. What;s wrong with the atom bomb? (hmmm, maybe that was German too ;)) - Simon

Census accuracy?

I remember back in the late 90's, the estimated population of the United States was over 360 million. Now they are saying that there's less than 300 million people in the US?

I remember being taught in the late 90's that 270M was the rough population figure for the US. Maybe my textbooks were outdated... -- Tyler 23:39, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
I, too, would love to know where you heard 360 million. That's at least 25% larger than any official census estimate from the present all the way back to 1980.--chris.lawson 01:23, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

COUNTERFEIT???

Ohh...jeez. You know that picture of the dollar bill under Economy?

Is it considered counterfeit, or am I ranbling? Because if it is an exact copy, then wouldn't the US government be in flames about this? Or something? There should be something saying "Fake" or "counterfeit" on it, like play money... anyway... Flameviper12 16:23, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

No one counterfeits $1s. There's a reason there's no security features on the $1 like you see on the $10 and $20. It probably costs more than a dollar to create a convincing fake $1, even with a high quality source photograph like this. However, we have images of higher denominations, but again, really, they're nothing more than if a counterfeiter put a real $100 to a computer scanner. We aren't helping anyone beyond what they could easily do themselves. --Golbez 22:07, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
well that explains a lot. Ive heard the 20 dollars bill is the most counterfeited of american bills (hence why there has been 3 versions of the same bill in so little time).

Race

Alright, I moved a boatload of stuff over to a daughter article here. Thoughts? Improvements? Matt Yeager 01:06, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Good! Would it need to be tied in with the main article Demographics of the United States?--sansvøix 03:12, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Already is (well, at least it's linked to). Matt Yeager 05:53, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Geography

RJ I revised the opening paragraphs by removing irrelevant materials, mentioning Puerto Rico, and condensing the section on pre-1492. 67.176.74.236 22:01, 7 November 2005 (UTC)Richard Jensen 11/7/05

Which is false, since Puerto Rico is not part of the United States. It's unincorporated, meaning it's not an integral part of the republic. --Golbez 22:12, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Puerto Rico is owned and operated by the USA. It does have a unique status but it is in no way independent. It uses US dollars, its inhabitants are all US citizens, appeals from its courts go to the federal courts on the mainland, the State Dept controls its foreign policy; the Treasury in Washington collects taxes, the Navy guards its waters and DHS handles customs. The District of Columbia was not named after a nonexistant poetic name for the country Richard Jensen
Actually, the treasury doesn't collect taxes from PR; Puerto Ricans pay no federal income taxes, and accordingly have no federal representation. Furthermore, the U.S. census does not include PR. And no one said it was - it was named after Columbus, as was "Columbia". That should be fixed. However, you deleted the entire mention of Guantanamo. Please use edit summaries; I've reverted your changes. --Golbez 03:48, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Never mind; District of Columbia and Historical Columbia both state that DC's name came from Columbia, rather than directly from Columbus. Or something. It's kind of a stupid argument anyway, they're one and the same. --Golbez 03:51, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Puerto Rico taxes are controlled by Washington; see URL = welcome.topuertorico.org/economy.shtml for proof. RJ
DC's name certainly comes from "Columbia" but that was not in 1790 an old poetic term for America; the poetry came later. RJ
PR is in fact represented in Congress with a delegate (Luis Fortuna, elected 2004)(and it votes in presidential primaries).RJ
Fortuna is non-voting, just like DC's (but DC is taxed). PR is an unincorporated territory of the US, to include it with the fifty states, one district, and one incorporated territory is simply wrong. It can become independent again; the rest cannot, barring some radical circumstances. --Golbez 05:04, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

European Union

Why does the final box, "International Ties of the United States", list "Continent of Europe" and "European Union"? Is there some logic here that I'm missing?

Scrutchfield

Wow, I see no logic to that box at all. Thanks for pointing it out, it should be fixed or removed. --Golbez 23:34, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Area

The area of the US is 3,537,441 square miles, not 2,808,072 square miles. I've edited accordingly.

And who put in the above note? Anyway, don't good sources on area occupied by jurisdiction usually say something like "1,000 square units (including 200 square units of inland water, but excluding 500 square units of inland water); 1,500 square units (including 700 square units of inland water)"? This should be clarified. The U.S. has plenty of large bodies of inland water whose inclusion or exclusion as part of the total area can greatly change the figure. President Lethe 17:41, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, I got my information from the US Census Bureau-http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html However, you're correct. It was listing land area, instead of total area. My bad. Using the CIA World Factbook, the total area is 3,718,711 square miles. Now, I didn't register because it's a small, inconsequential edit, and I'm quite lazy. If you think it's wrong, go check the facts and make your own edit.
Before, the list of the World largest countries was: 1)Russia, 2)Canada, 3)China, and 4)USA. For some reason USA has increased its area and gone past China and become the World third largest country. Is this change of way of measuring the area caused by political reasons or is it just a mere statistical coincidence?
(a) Sign your posts, please, with ~~~~. (b) I think it's a function of whether the area of Taiwan is included in China's area. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 23:55, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes if you consider Taiwan, China is bigger than the 50 states + DC. However, if you include US territories (or US territories minus Puerto Rico), the US is bigger than China including Taiwan. This is all assuming you count land and water area, if just land China and the US are both bigger than Canada, and I believe China (without Taiwan) is bigger than the states plus all territories. TastyCakes 00:30, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
No, China's area has not changed, and Taiwan is of course not included. In 1997 the area of the United States was officially 9,372,614 sq km. To day it is 9,613,418 sq km. Somehow United States has expanded with an area like the size of Oregon. I just wonder what has really happened here. Cato from Oslo.

Picture of "Americana"

In the picture of Americana (baseball bat, US flag), why is the apple pie there? Apple pie originated in Europe, I believe, not North America.

See Apple pie in American culture. :-) President Lethe 01:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Apple pie in American culture: "using his penis to penetrate a homemade apple pie, having earlier been told that a vagina feels like "warm apple pie", illustrating the pie's place in American culture..." Now I understand!--sansvoix 04:43, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

"Superpower" in introductory paragraph

1. I used the word superpower in the introductory paragraph: "Also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S. (or the US), the U.S.A. (or the USA), the U.S. of A. (or the US of A), the States, and America[1], the superpower consists of fifty federal states and one federal district."

2. It was removed as being point of view.

3. I specifically linked to the "Superpower" article—which readers should see, along with many other sources (too numerous to list; both in Wikipedia and without), to determine the term's validity when it's applied to the U.S.

4. I inserted the term as a relatively agreed-upon fact. My insertion is not meant to say that superpowers are good or bad, and is not meant to say whether it is good or bad that the U.S. is a superpower. It is simply a thing that most persons familiar with the word would agree on. If you ask "What nation or nations is or are superpowers in the world today?", the first answer almost invariably will be the U.S., in whatever country you ask the question.

5. I inserted it in the introductory paragraph for this reason: it seems to me reasonable that an encyclopedia article's opening paragraph on a country should provide four basic bits of information: (a) the name by which the country is generally known in the language of the article; (b) the general form of the country's government; (c) the general geographic location of the country; and (d) anything that is highly likely to be considered a defining characteristic of the country, such as some sort of extreme (largest population, smallest area, northernmost, southernmost, coldest, rainiest, only one with absolute monarchy, whatever, ... or superpower).

6. The opening paragraph gives common names of the U.S. in English; gives a very basic description of the form of government; offers the general location on the globe; and describes a feature that, in this case, is not only a defining characteristic but, indeed, is considered by many to make the country unique (the only one of its kind) in the world. In introducing a country, it's likely to be interesting, informative, and useful to the reader to offer some detail that sets the country off from most, or all, others. We could point out the United States' high rank in land area or in population; but the U.S. is only close to the top in those areas, not actually superlative—while it is a superpower, and is very often defined, by experts and laypersons alike, as the single superpower in the present world.

7. Later in the same article are the words "Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States emerged as the dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs." That's a pretty good definition of a superpower. But, in the opening paragraph, we might want to be more concise, offering simply the word rather than the definition—and, as I said, the word superpower itself is a cross-reference to the "Superpower" article. There are many defining characteristics of the U.S.; but one of the most significant, and the one that may well make the U.S. unique in the present world, is the country's superpower status.

Please, consider these points. If there is disagreement, let's discuss it.

Thanks to all for their efforts with this article.

And, to those to whom it matters, Happy Thanksgiving!

President Lethe 16:13, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

The USA is as superpower. That is a significant and distinguishing status, and therefore appropriate in the introductory description. --StanZegel (talk) 18:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
This is not a matter of American nationalism; the United States is objectively the nation with the world's largest economy and military-industrial complex. It's the country's most defining characteristic, and deserves lead mention. Austin Hair ✍ ✉ 20:07, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Pictures [et al]

I'm looking at this page for the first time. It came up because we were trying to work out what to do visually for the Romania article. Much to my surprise, I found that this (United States) is kind of visually mediocre. George Washington, G.W. Bush, Statue of Liberty: inevitable, fine. But three maps (two very dull at this scale) and an illegible (at this scale) chart on ancestry of Americans? Bland skyline shots of NYC, Chicago, and LA—it's hard to make the New York skyline look this dull, shoot it from Brooklyn Heights or across the Hudson in New Jersey! Dollar bill, sure. LA freeway interchange, OK. Highway sign, harmless (but why I-5, not the much more iconic Route 66?). A nice enough picture of a building at the University of Virginia, but nothing to shout about. Elvis on a stamp, fine. A rather cliched (though nicely done) picture of an apple pie, etc. atop an American flag: it isn't the Americana image I'd have chosen, but I guess it is one way to do Americana without going regional.

How about some wilderness? The U.S. has a lot of that. We have some amazing photos at Grand Canyon. A small town, maybe from New England? A Californian suburb? Something that shows the Spanish heritage of the Southwest? Or the image from Apollo Theater, or some equivalent? -- Jmabel | Talk 09:17, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you 100%. I've tried! The zealots that run this article like it their way. I have no idea why those graphs, lists, charts are there... especailly considering they are all on other linked pages for those interested... but I've been told they are valuable... the skylines don't contribute to the article, there should simply be a nice one of New York! The visuals only embody how painfull this article is! Not that anyone would actually read the mess. I've literally put over 5 hours of work trying to improve it (and fend off personal attacks by fundementalist conservatives when I tried to add neoliberalism to "economy"... Bretton Woods anyone?), over a few weeks it was all reverted for pretty vague reasons.
phew, sorry about that rant
Wikipedia might as well go ahead and create censorship board for anything related to the U.S.A. Seriously though, its gotten to the sad point where a committee is needed to validate changes... --User:Sansvoix 09:21, 26 November 2005 (UTC)--

-- I love it when people who have never worked on this article come on and tell us how terrible it is. If you want to see a picture of the Grand Canyon, then why don't you just go ahead a put one in instead of just complaining about it? Many people have complained in the past about the lack of a picture of small-town America, but then they never actually try to post one. The city pics have been discussed at length and should be left as is. Anyone who says a pic from the top of the ESB building is "dull" probably needs to see an eye doctor. --Jleon 00:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Didn't I just state that I've spent 5 hours trying to improve this article? We can't just add a picture of the grand canyon, or anything else for that matter, because this article is so cluttered with useless... and you guys for whatever reason are a stonewalling any changes. To say that we havn't tried to do anything to improve this is an outright lie! --User:Sansvoix 01:36, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

-- I think it should be pretty obvious that my comments directly addressed the complaints of Jmabel, and not yours. Ok, so your upset that something you wrote about the economy got reverted. Well, did you even bother to start a discussion here about it? --Jleon 04:19, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I am not "upset" that my improvements on the economy got reverted, I'm frustrated that All the changes got reverted for some pretty bogus reasons. The obvious issues with pictures and graphs, vauge info.... This article is recognised to need a overhaul, and I went to the economy section first because it was the worst, and there was a plea out to fix it! Half of this discussion page is me fending off attacks from some guy after I tried to "start a discussion."...--sansvoix 04:30, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

-- If you're talking about that stuff above, it looks to me like you and Nicholas F were just arguing about the use of the word "exploit", and apparently no one else felt the debate was compelling enough to join in. The bottom line is that all of the complaints about the pics are over things that no one has even tried to include yet. --Jleon 04:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the commentary, but you are compleatly wrong!
As I've stated before, I have tried to fix the pictures, and many other things. --sansvoix 05:20, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Jleon, usually on articles that have a large number of active editors and a great deal of discussion, I consider it more polite to make suggestions on the talk page and seek responses, rather than wade in and start editing. But if you think that it is more appropriate that I wade in and delete the images that I consider contribute very little and replace them with ones more to my liking, I will gladly do so. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:38, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Despite what I said in the previous paragraph, I don't like to wade in and stomp on articles other people have been working hard on. So I have merely added two images that I think are a positive. I figure I will wait for reactions before doing more. Jleon, if this isn't bold enough to satisfy you, just let me know: I'll check your user contribution list and see if I can find something to dispute, if that's your idea of a good time. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:17, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

-- I haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about. If everyone decided to write a detailed opinion about the overall article before they "wade in", this would be pretty slow going. Perhaps if you check the talk archives you'll have a better sense of what changes people will likely be more receptive to. The two changes you made were fine though, and I doubt if anyone will try to remove them. --Jleon 01:24, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Maybe you need to get a "clue" here, no need for snotty language! I find Jmabel very easy to understand. We don't want be forced to write detailed opinions backing up minor changes, but even when tried, it is compleatly useless as the other guy tends to respond even more intolerently. But more importantly, you are using degrading language, and not just with your intitial sentance.. "perhaps if you check" is rude, please say something such as "Have you checked argument X in the recent archive?" Social skills are important on the internet, as they are in real life! I've been known to be anti-social on occasion but.. common, your just being blantantly hostile. --sansvoix 06:18, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I saw in the "pending tasks" list that pictures are needed. Picture number four from my political image gallery is public domain picture of a U.S. map of 1820 showing free and slave territories. Click it for the full sized version. -Barry- 22:38, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Foundation date

The foundation date has stood for some time as 1607 (Jamestown). Calling the date of the first permanent European settlement within the present boundaries the date of foundation of the United States, seems to me quite a stretch. Being the first British settlement to last, it could also be the foundation of Canada. Was Israel founded when the first settlers arrived there? Or perhaps, instead, the foundation of the USA should be pushed further back to the first permanent human settlers: Native Americans?--JimWae 05:03, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

publication

would you like to publish this article? -- Zondor 22:09, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

religion

Polls say that 85 percent of Americans are Christian . No reference made . If you make the link to religion in the united states that appears above this claim you will find a table that suggest the figure is 79.8 percent. Seemingly a conflict there.

United States languages

Believe me, while Spanish is used in limited communities throughout the U.S., it is not as common as one might think. I have lived in southern Arizona my entire life, and Spanish is not even common in "everyday commerce" as mentioned below. Spanish is used, but no more so than French in communities in the Northeast along the southeastern Canadian border. English is the majority, dominant, de facto language by a long shot, French and Spanish follow greatly in the distance. AZCactus1 18:29, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

For a long time, English has been the common first language of Americans, but now I hear Spanish is getting popular. Any info on Wikipedia about this?? Georgia guy 22:08, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I dunno. Spanish is becoming very popular in the West Coast and Southwestern states in terms of everyday commerce. For example, many retailers like Wal-Mart now have dual signs in their stores in both English and Spanish. I've seen trilingual packaging for a few products in Spanish, English, and French (the last is to make Quebecois consumers happy). Some government services like driving tests are available in Spanish, while the standard legal summons form in California (which starts all lawsuits) is a dual English/Spanish language form. But English is still the dominant language of American law, science, arts, humanities, government, etc.
It's possible that we may see a shift to a more bilingual America in our lifetimes, but I doubt it. A lot of historians have pointed out that so far, all immigrant groups have shifted to English as their primary language as they assimilate, become educated, and begin to achieve a normal distribution through the various income-earning classes.
Also, it would be very difficult for any language to displace English as the primary language of academia due to the massive expansion of English during the 20th century to accommodate the development of modern science and engineering. Hundreds of thousands of words would have to be translated. On the other hand, English did displace German in the 1940s just as German displaced Latin in the 1870s, so another language shift cannot be completely ruled out.
In any case, English is probably here to stay as the primary language of American law and government, since several states have English-only clauses in their constitutions which would have to be overturned before Spanish could replace English in government affairs. On the other hand, there is precedent for operating a bilingual legal system within the United States — Puerto Rican lawyers have to be bilingual because the local legal system uses Spanish but the federal legal system uses English. --Coolcaesar 23:00, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Note that both New Mexico (Spanish) and Louisiana (French) have an additional official language to go along with English. It really varies. In New England, there's a very low proportion of people who speak Spanish at a native or near-native level. It's sort of like that in the Southeast as well--outside of Florida (where Cuba provides a huge Spanish cultural base).
And Hawaii (Hawaiian). TomerTALK 02:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Probably, nationwide, I'd guess 98% (at least) of adult residents speak passable English, and well over 80% speak it as a native language (though they may also speak Spanish as a native language). Most Hispanics (15% of the population) speak Spanish (not all of them, though).
Spanish is certainly not widely-spoken enough to qualify as the second language of the United States. The language of the United States is English, then there's a huge gap, and then you have Spanish, then... French, I guess... Except for a few recent European immigrants, virtually everyone speaks English or Spanish fluently, but the vast majority speak English fluently. The Spanish knowledge of most Americans is words like "excelente" or "hasta la vista", while all but very very few Spanish-speakers know at least basic English ("My English is not good", etc.--you'd find a ton of Americans who couldn't say the Spanish equivalent, "no puedo hablar español", or something to that effect). Matt Yeager 23:44, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Most Americans with a highschool education can say "no hablo español" well enough to make themselves understood by a spanishspeaker. That said, I'd have to agree...Spanish is not likely to become more widespread in the US than it is now. Just because product labeling includes Spanish (and French, German, Italian, Dutch, Hmong, etc., depending on the locale) more frequently now than 20 years ago doesn't mean Spanish is more prevalent, just that product labeling in Spanish is more frequent. (See also Marketing, Advertising, Pandering for customers) Some people like to point out that sampling by the census bureau indicates an increase in native spanish speakers. That may be the case, but I've seen the long form, and I can tell you, the results from it can easily lead to a lot of ambiguous interpretations of the data it collects. Also, just because there are a lot more native spanish speakers in the US doesn't mean that none of them have bothered to learn English, nor that they use Spanish more frequently than English. That said, there are certainly places in the US where you can go and hear almost only Spanish. Of course I can go to neighborhoods in Wausau, Wisconsin and hear only Hmong, or to the south side of Minneapolis and hear only Somali... TomerTALK 02:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually, guys, using Spanish as a primary language is much more common than you think, and growing all the time because of immigration. It may not be that evident in most parts of the U.S., but the population along the U.S.-Mexico border is booming, and native Spanish speakers are not assimilating linguistically in these areas as other waves of non-English speaking immigrants did in the past. The push-factors that drove assimilation in the 19th and early 20th Century are no longer as strong as they were, when they still exist at all It is very easy for Mexican immigrants who remain in Texas and the Southwest to use Spanish first and foremost into the second and third generation. The geographic proximity of Mexico, internet and telecommunications technology, etc., has changed the entire dynamic. A Russian immigrant coming through Ellis Island in 1910 might have moved to an ethnic neighborhood in NYC, but there was virtually no contact with the old country, and little Russian "media" available, as it were. When mass immigration from Eastern Europe slowed, then stopped, there was also no fresh supply of native Rusian speakers to keep the old language going as at least some of the children and grandchildren of the original immigrants moved up and out.

That's all different now. The current wave of immigration is overwhemingly from a single country, Mexico, and there's no ocean separating El Paso from Ciudad Juarez. Spanish language TV, internet, newspapers and magazines, etc., are plentiful, and travel back and forth from the new country to the old-- even for illegal migrants-- is commonplace. Moreover, with no signs of this immigraion explosion abating, the constant influx of new Spanish speakers creates a "critical mass" for the language pool that allows it to slef-perpetuate and grow. Philologists and linguistic researchers have been documenting this phenomenon in the State for over a decade now, but its always a very sensitive area since people are fearful of being labelled racists or bigots, and its difficult to talk about language without also addressing race, ethnicity, and assimilation: always political bombshells.

But to stick strictly with language-- you are right, Spanish isn't about to displace English any time soon, and a command of English will be necessary for at least a long, long time to really be upwardly mobile in the States.

FYI, I made one change to the "language" section, deleting a line asserting that Spanish was on the rise in the U.S. in part because 1/5th of the country was formerly Mexico. That, at least, is NOT responsible for Spanish increasing in the States. That was over 150 years ago! Texas and the Southwest were relatively sparsely populated at the time of the Mexican-American War, and the English-speaking population of the annexed areas (mostly resident in central and north Texas) outnumbered the Spanish-speaking population back then. It was only subsequent immigration and high-birth rates that increased the Spanish-speaking population, not the annexation process itself. Perhaps a minor point, but by the same logic, the entire Louisiana-Purchase area should be seeing an increase in French-speakers since it was once part of France.

Comment by Bugs the Bunny This is a fascinating discussion with a remarkably complicated set of factors influencing the primary issue, i.e., the persistence of Spanish in the United States. For a long, long time, many years, I used to be of the opinion that the current importance of and fascination with Spanish would be a passing trend, of little significance in 30 years. However, after many years of real-world experience throughout the US (and more than a few studies analyzing this phenomenon), I’ve now come to the opposite conclusion: The evidence is overwhelming that the Spanish language in the US has genuine staying power. It won’t “displace” English per se, but I now strongly suspect that Spanish will have a permanence in the USA alongside English and a prevalence, even for official purposes, not accorded other non-English languages. Spanish increasingly has the feel not of an outsider emerging from abroad, but as an essential medium of communication in the United States, used across the board for basic discourse. Here are my reasons:

1. Enormous pressure and bona fide incentives to speak Spanish fluently, across a wide variety of jobs and professions—-with corresponding social and even political pressure as well. This has led to the curious phenomenon of large numbers of *Anglos* (in the sense of people whose native tongue is American English) working very hard to master Spanish, in a way that really has not happened for other languages—-at least, not since the heyday of French and German in the late 19th century, when many well-educated Americans worked to learn these languages. The current significance of Spanish has a more grass-roots feel to it.

I used to work jobs in sales, and one of the most recurrent themes in this line of work is that the bilingual employees got the jobs first! Spanish fluency was not only a plus factor-—for people working behind the counter or patrolling the floors to answer questions, it was often *the* deciding factor in hiring. In retail jobs from coast to coast, knowledge of Spanish confers a tremendous advantage to an applicant over monolingual speakers of English alone. The management of the stores, in turn, is also encouraged to become conversant in Spanish. This is the case in a wide variety of cities-—New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Seattle, pretty much anywhere in the Southwest or Florida, and these days even many places I would not at all have expected (Atlanta, the Carolinas, St. Louis and Kansas City, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Providence, Hartford, Newark, Indianapolis, even Milwaukee).

Sales jobs are one of the most important mainstays of broad employment in the US and significant for the extent to which they involve interpersonal interaction, and an incredibly strong economic incentive has arisen in recent years to master Spanish for them. This in turn imposes a strong social pressure to master the language and, consequently, increases the “cachet” of Spanish in social circles. Retail jobs are just one example. Graduates in law, business and medicine have much better job prospects especially in big metro areas, if they’re at least conversant in Spanish. Many law firms and hospitals look preferentially on Spanish-speaking job-seekers because they can save literally *millions* of dollars for the institutions. In turn, applicants to law, medical and business schools frequently get a leg up if they can communicate in conversational Spanish. Thus there is a profound *economic disadvantage* in numerous professions to being an English monolingual, and conversely a big economic incentive to being fluent in Spanish. In this sense, Spanish is becoming closer to an essential mode of communication for US business alongside English, rather than being considered something outside the standard way of doing things—-that is, communication in Spanish is being normalized and becoming more mainstream.

2. Spanish is being *retained* across generations to an exceptional extent. We’ve probably all heard the trite assumption that immigrants retain their native tongue in the first generation, go bilingual in the second, then monolingual English in the third. I’ve always been skeptical about this assumption to begin with (Native Americans have retained their languages for millennia for example, German is still spoken in some homes in the Midwest and Pennsylvania, and as any Orthodox Jewish family knows, Hebrew is fundamental no matter what the generation). However, to a rough approximation it does sort of describe the way many descendants of immigrants lose their connections to their ancestral tongue after several generations. This is *not* happening for Spanish, even when geographical movement and intermarriage with Anglos occur. For a while this was occurring, for better or worse because native Spanish speakers did face some discrimination and enormous pressure to become Anglophone only (kids were physically punished in school for speaking Spanish, for example). But Spanish is now so prevalent and widely accepted, that no school official with a dollop of sense even thinks about punishing students for using Spanish anymore (unless he or she has plans to join the unemployment rolls), and so the “stick” against using Spanish, that disincentive, is largely gone.

We’ll have to wait a couple decades to fully see the effects, but retention of Spanish among 3rd and 4th generation Hispanic immigrants in, say, 2015 will be much higher than their counterparts in, for example, 1985. That’s not only because of the virtual elimination of official disincentives to maintaining Spanish (which were quite strong in the 1970’s and 1980’s), but because of the many incentives to retaining it, especially if learned from an early age: Spanish in 2005-2006 is seen to confer a great advantage on those who can speak it as a native tongue, in contrast to being a “hindrance” shed on the path toward supposed assimilation, as would have been seen in earlier decades. I have many friends who are third-generationers with ancestors from Puerto Rico, Cuba or Honduras, and not only are they maintaining Spanish as a critical language for home and even work in many cases; they’re making sure the kids master it as their first language as well.

A corollary to this phenomenon is that many Hispanics who *hadn’t* been taught Spanish as kids—-often as a consequence of discrimination their parents had endured—-are now avidly going back and mastering the language, with the help of family members who are now much more open about passing the language on. That is, they’re either relearning Spanish or picking it up for the first time. Again, this is fairly unique; in the past, when an immigrant group had given up a language in later generations, they were in many ways kissing it goodbye. In the case of Spanish, it’s actually returning to that subset of third- and fourth-generationers who might otherwise have spurned it.

Perhaps most surprising is the persistence of Spanish even among mixed Latino-Anglo couples. This sort of intermarriage used to be a way, in a sense, to break the bonds with the old country and bring people into the “Anglo” majority. But it’s remarkable how many such mixed couples now have kids who are raised to be native Spanish-speakers, possibly in part because of the demographic prevalence of Latino culture but also, again, because of the economic incentives to mastering Spanish early. Even many Anglo kids now are being enrolled in “dual-immersion” English-Spanish classes as kids, learning subjects like math, history and reading in Spanish as well as English, and from an early age, in general, enhancing their academic abilities. So there are indications that Spanish is not only holding its ground but gaining new speakers among the formerly Anglo population across generations.

3. Spanish has both quasi-official and explicitly official status alongside English in many states and territories, to an extent far beyond any other non-English language. Spanish is official, of course, in New Mexico and in Puerto Rico as well as in a number of cities particularly in the Southwest, and it might as well be official across the states of the Southwest and in much of Florida. Everything from ballots to legal pronouncements is now printed in Spanish along with English in states such as California and Texas. In hospitals from San Diego to El Paso to Boston, Spanish is next to English on all the signs overhead. Whatever the statutes on bilingual education, it’s still practiced de facto in many schools with a high Hispanic population density. (Some have argued that the California referendum paradoxically strengthened bilingual education there by virtue of the many concessions made and the official, legal recognition of bilingual teaching.)

You all have brought up the issue of Spanish labeling on packages already, and I agree that one must regard the impact of this phenomenon with some caution; still, I find remarkable the sheer reach of Spanish labeling and packaging throughout stores across the USA, even in regions not associated with high Hispanic immigration levels. In major outfits like Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Home Depot, practically all the aisles and displays are bilingual in English and Spanish. The majority of the products have both Spanish and English packaging (as well as French in some cases). This is also the case for the signage on public transportation (trains and buses) in numerous localities. Most banks and post offices now have information posted bilingually, and supermarkets routinely offer Spanish-language automatic check-out lines (which get a lot of use, in quite a few places).

This is remarkable—-honestly, just one year ago, *one year*, I didn’t see all that much Spanish printed on the signs or on the labels, but it’s ubiquitous today. That’s how quickly the Spanish labeling phenomenon has caught on. Companies don’t do this sort of thing out of charity—-they do it as a hard-nosed business decision to boost profitability and gain market share, and in this case, a vast range of companies has clearly recognized a bottom-line benefit in the inclusion of Spanish labeling and packaging. This sort of official and quasi-official status for a language is extremely important and, I think, a potentially overlooked factor that assists a language’s growth. It simply confers a level of prestige upon Spanish in the USA that most other languages do not enjoy.

4. The Spanish language has a flourishing media presence within US borders that far exceeds what other non-English languages are able to manage or have managed in the past. US newspapers in languages other than English are nothing new, of course—-German newspapers, for example, were hardly surprising to find in the Midwest during the 1800’s. But profitable and expanding Spanish-language print media outlets are commonplace throughout the US, not only in strongholds like the Southwest, Florida or “Nueva York,” and in many cases these Spanish-language journals have been around for decades or even centuries. Major up-market bookstores carry Spanish-language titles (either originals or translations of US booksellers originally in English), while newsstands carry versions of People magazine or Reader’s Digest in Spanish.

Then of course there’s the prevalent and quite popular Spanish-language television, filled with shows with decent production values filmed in locales from Miami and Los Angeles to Santiago, Chile. Even many Anglos have drifted over to the Spanish stations. Spanish radio, obviously, has a strong presence in practically any major city. Driving through even less populated regions in the Midwest, it’s not at all surprising to encounter a highway billboard in Spanish, or to find Spanish-language advertising in a convenience store or specialty shop.

5. It’s much easier to retain contact with the home country, as was suggested above. For Latin America, this is in large part due to geography—- people don’t have to traverse an ocean to arrive here. But modern communications also greatly facilitates the retention of long-term relations with one’s extended family, friends and culture at home. Someone from Honduras or Bolivia (let alone Mexico or Cuba) does not have to cut links with the old country, nor do their descendants. As Latin American nations improve economically, moreover, they reduce the number of immigrants they send, but they also increase the prestige status of the Spanish language itself. So again, descendants of immigrants have a much easier time staying connected.

6. Finally, there’s the fact that Spanish, unlike most other languages, has a unique status alongside English as an early mode of communication at the earliest period of European settlement of North America. Even as England’s King James I chartered John Smith’s voyage of 1606-1607 (to found the Jamestown settlement, the first permanent overseas English colony), the Spaniards had already established some early missions in what’s now the USA, especially in the Southwest. We all know how this portion of Spanish America (and thence independent Mexico, after 1821) was transferred to the US after the Mexican War, and I agree with above comments that this prior presence of Spanish in and of itself has not magically led Spanish to become permanent in the USA. However, Mexican immigrants, especially to the Southwestern US, are moving into a region with which they already have a longstanding traditional and historical connection, and in which the Spanish language really has had a permanent presence since before the Jamestown settlement had even been established. I suspect this to be a rather minor factor in comparison to the others listed above, but it does seem to provide an extra layer of resistance to accusations that Spanish-speakers are somehow “un-American”—-with the constant presence of Spanish especially in those regions, the language is a sort of natural fit.

So in short, contrary to prior expectations (including my own expectations), Spanish really is “naturalizing” itself to the USA. It’s not a temporary bridge to be tossed out, but a strong and increasingly important, fundamental element of the general US culture itself.

Bugs the Bunny 08:44, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Unrivaled US dominance

The article has these two points. "The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world.", and "The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation, or collaboration of nations."

Do these conform to the NPOV policy? The military dominance of the US is pretty clear indeed, but this sounds a bit too extreme, and you could think of counterexamples. For example, Russia posesses more nuclear weapons, and it could be argued that a united Russian-Chinese force would be quite a match to the US military force. I, therefore, think that the sentence should be rephrased somehow, so that the American military dominance remains clear, but it doesn't sound like "US can kick anyone butt anyway". Thoughts? Solver 21:59, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I disagree and think it's fine as is. It says "their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation, or collaboration of nations." This is true. Russia and China may have larger armies, but they do not possess the ability to project that force the same the U.S. does even if combined. It sounds extreme because that is what comes with being a "superpower." I personally don't see a problem.Gator (talk) 22:15, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I removed the "collaboration of nations" part, which is not clearly the case & does seem like POV. If it were the US against the entire rest of the world, the outcome is not clearly in the US's favor. --JimWae 22:18, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

It's good that you came here to discuss this, but I reverted it, because this discussion has just started and I think it should finish before any changes to this part are made.Gator (talk) 22:24, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the burden is on anyone who wants to keep that part to demonstrate that it is not POV - and that it ought to be removed until such happens --JimWae 22:26, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Saying that no other collaboration of nations can rival the US still doesn't sound right, as one can also use extreme examples - US against every other single country, then the outcome would likely not be a US victory. So thanks to Jim for removing this. Other articles already show the US power projection dominance - such as articles on aircraft carriers or carrier battle groups. When reading those, the situation becomes pretty clear.

Ahh, edit conflict. Then let me also add this point. Military of the United States asserts that the US army is superior, and shows exactly why (what equipment, spending, etc. make it superior), but doesn't use terms like "superior to any other collaboration of countries".

Personally, I feel that this falls under what WP:NPOV mentions - don't jump to conclusions instead of the reader, but show him the facts. I am confident that an assertion that the US army is superior to any other possible collaboration does not fall under the category of extremely obvious assertions - while, for example, the assertion that the US military operates more aircraft carries than anyone else, does. Solver 22:31, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, this is basically a gateway to a ton of other articles, so you can't dump all the info here. It's already too big. The link to the full article is there to provide proof. That said, the second part, "or collaboration of nations" is simply not correct (U.S. vs Entire World? U.S. loses), and the other articles do not support the claim. I say remove it. -- Dpark 23:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's get this page featured

Alright... as I'm looking over the page, it looks really, really good. It's got a ton of useful information and (while it's longer than most articles) it really isn't too long. I think this page is just about ready to take a second try at becoming featured. The "pending tasks" thing at the top of the talk page has basically been reduced down to "make the page better", which (naturally) is going to be a never-ending job. I think this page is as good or better than most FA's. Thoughts? Matt Yeager 05:56, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Half the lead is on geography - with too much detail. The 4th paragraph has 2 topics & should be 2 paragraphs, with the 2nd expanded a bit--JimWae 06:03, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Definitely, the intro needs a bit of work. Once that's done, though... Matt Yeager 06:13, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

This page has been recognised to need work on various areas, specifically those listed on the top. But with such a high profile article it is very hard to make or discuss any changes (they tend to get reverted, people are impossible and rude, etc). There are several parts of the article that are overly detailed, yet others that are tediously vague and rambling. --All the best for anyone trying to fix the thing, I've had to give up. I have spent several hours researching and editing the page (not to mention the time spent trying to explain my changes to the economics section --to no avail). Everything was reverted, some of it piece by piece over days, which I though was pretty odd. But if thats the way Wikipedia works, theres not much I can do!--sansvoix 07:50, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Human rights in the United States

Human rights in the United States needs to be linked to from this article, presumably from someplace in the government section. Where? JeffBurdges 15:12, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

yes, i was asking myself the same thing. Ive recently been through the People's Republic of China page and the Cuba page, all very well done with their Humans rights parts. But im disapointed that there is no section of human rights in the United States page. After all, there is a lot of ground to cover, from Gitmo to Abu Ghraib, where prisoners have no rights whatsoever and recieve numerous tortures. The american influence in latin america/africa/middle east is also something that is just plain wrong. Specially what they have done to Africa, all of the oil of nigeria is in hands of american corporations. I suggest placing it on the politics section.
Good luck! The United States repeted, blatant crimes against humanity (and democracy) do deserve a spot on this article (somewhere between apple pie and "most powerfull military of any sort"). Unfortunatly I've noticed that Wikipedia, by nature, does come with a bourgeois or west-centric viewpoint..."general consensus" might not be with us on this one. But go ahead, the truth will prevail sooner or later!--sansvoix 23:23, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Any major articles about U.S. influence in South America should be discretely linked from the Foreign relations section. JeffBurdges 22:56, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Alright, it seems that the page Social issues in the United States is what really needs to be linked from this article, probably by giving it a small subsection under either government or society. Human rights in the United States can be given an inline link from there? Seem okay? JeffBurdges 22:56, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

largest cities

Is it even necessary to include Largest Cities as a heading? I know that America is a large and economically powerful nation, but is it so powerful such that it warrants a title of its Largest cities? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.27.46.241 (talk • contribs) 02:42, 4 December 2005

I totally agree. I don't see any other nation putting up Largest Cities as one of their headings. Why is it that the United Statesa has a largest city heading? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Flackson (talk • contribs) 02:47, 4 December 2005

I can't say I agree with such removal. Why not wait for a true consense before you remove more content again? -- malo (talk)/(contribs) 02:51, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Flackson, it is inappropriate to delete so much content without a real discussion. Referring to the talk page in your edit summary is a good thing but not nearly enough. Melchoir 02:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

True consensus? The only consensus that I know of is a bunch of hyperinflated, thrasonical fools who object to any change that might desecrate their "glory." This is absolutely ridiculous. No other nation, except for you pompous peoples, are so indulged by their power that you put the most trifling subjects as part of your nation. Largest Cities? Who cares? In case you guys haven't noticed, Britain was the most powerful nation in the 19th century, yet it has no heading such as "Largest Cities"? You guys have to get over this notion that you guys are the most powerful nation on this earth. Wake up from your arrogant slumber before its too late! -- Flackson

I don't think anyone has seriously proposed that we standardize the content of all country articles. Am I wrong? Melchoir 02:58, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Exactly my point melchoir. If nobody has proposed that we standardize the content of all country articles, then why should you standardize mine? --Flackson
My point was rather that United States need not have the same kinds of information as United Kingdom. Each article represents the collective efforts of countless editors, and they have very different histories. Melchoir 03:12, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
It should be removed. I've tried in the past to remove the ugly list, and I believe Flackson is 100% correct in his understanding of why it still exists. If a reader wants to see a chart of the largest U.S. cities s/he can go to that page. --sansvoix 07:04, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
I think the reason why most American editors prefer keeping the list is because it reflects American pride in having more than just one or two major cities that can qualify as global cities. No other nation can come close in terms of having so many large cities with huge cultural, educational, economic, social, medical, governmental and scientific resources (plus really impressive skylines and enormous population diversity). --Coolcaesar 08:50, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with you all; the section should be deleted. There is no valid reason for keeping it. --Thorri 09:22, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

--What do you mean you agree with them "all"? So far only Flackson and sansvoix have stated they would like it to be removed, and including my comments makes it four against removal and three that are for it (hardly a consenus to remove). There's absolutely nothing arrogant about the section, and if "Sports" is going to have its own subheading you can't call "Cities" an unworthy topic for inclusion on this article. --Jleon 17:58, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I concur with Jleon's analysis. Thorri could not have possibly agreed with me because my analysis was given in support of keeping the section, not deleting it! --Coolcaesar 20:04, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Thats interesting, because from a non-nationalistic point of view, your comments are a powerful argument for removal of that section! This page is not here to persuade others of how the United States is "better" than everwhere else. You state "it reflects American pride in having more than just one or two major cities that can qualify as global cities. No other nation can come close in terms of having so many large cities with huge cultural, educational, economic, social, medical, governmental and scientific resources (plus really impressive skylines and enormous population diversity)", while Jleon goes on to say, "there is absolutlely nothing arrogant about this section". I don't know a polite way to say this, but American nationalists really have no place editing this article.--sansvoix 22:40, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

--It's perfectly appropriate for the article about any nation to contain a section about that country's major cities. Cities are not so much about power as they are about people and culture, and its strange that you would misunderstand this. It really seems to be anti-americanism that is driving the idea to remove this section, despite the fact that everything contained there is completely factual. --Jleon 22:54, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

--And its funny how "Flackson" is an anon, while sansvoix has no real user or discussion page at all- perhaps this is really just a sock puppet brigade anyway. --Jleon 23:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Keep the list. Do not feed the trolls. Note that Flackson's first post on Wikipedia was on this page, where he contributed "America sucks. It just does. I'm American myself and I hate it here. It's full of ****. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:57, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Is calling me anti-american (or a "sock puppet" or a "troll") in some way supposed to help this situation? I could be a Nihilist gargoyle lion tamer, but it would make no difference to the legitimate points that are being made about this article. If we are going to go search peoples history: Jleon, You've been rude to others repeatedly here (including your obstruction in the Pictures et al section above). Make your beloved country proud, and act like a respectful American gentleman! Regarding the list of cities, we never said it was inappropriate, we stated that it is invaluable to have the list copied on this page. And you know that is what we have been pointing out!
  • 1) Entire chart is copied on this general overview page, (when it has its own article on wikipedia)
  • 2) List of 20 biggest cities is generally not considered important information regarding a general encyclopedia article on an entire country. Some ways this can be determined:
A: the fact that it contributes little to the understanding of the United States as a whole. --More page space is devoted to cities than regions.
B: no other country has a section containing a chart of big cities.
C: very few readers would expect this list to be here, but if interested could still click on a link given.
  • 3) The United States Article is too long, something needs to go.
  • 4) This list is the product of U.S. nationalism, and the Americna desire to show off their "global cities". Rather, wikipedia should educate the reader on what the United States is from an objective academic point of view (see above).
  • 5) It contributes to the percieved arrogance of this page. As one annonymous viewer put it, "I know that America is a large and economically powerful nation, but is it so powerful such that it warrants a title of its Largest cities"

--sansvoix 00:11, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

-Well, seeing that you and Thorri are the only ones who feel that way, I guess you'll just have to find a way to sleep at night knowing that us "arrogant fools" are having our say with the article. No one has ever called me a 'nationalist' before, so I won't be taking your accusation to heart. --Jleon 00:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Sansvoix, I respect you--really, I do--but you're wrong on this one. The United States ought to have pertinent information on its site, same as any other country. In the United States (as opposed to so many other countries), there are several really, really important cities to the country (As in, if you remove the 10th biggest American city and the 10th biggest Portuguese city, and the impact on the U.S. is a lot bigger than the impact on Portugal. A higher proportion of American importance and self-assigned value is placed on the cities--in other countries, not so much.) Sure, there's no list of important cities in the UK article, but there's an entire section on terminology. Does that somehow mean that the UK is more important than, say, Portugal, which doesn't have a similar section? Umm, no.

Sorry, you're just way off on this on pretty much every part. To sum up everyone's pro-list arguments: All articles don't have to be identical, with only names and facts changing... and the fact that there are many signifigant cities in their country is a bigger thing to Americans than other countries' citizens, and therefore to the country in question. Got it? Matt Yeager 00:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Matt Yeager, thank you for your respect, but I don't see how you can stand by and ignore the way I am being treated! I bring up ligitimate concerns time and time again here (3 of the sections on this talk page), and time and time again I am simply insulted in reponse. Name calling is not appropriate anywhere in life, let alone a place that is supposed to be academic! I don't know if Jleon is trying to provoke a response by stating those lies above your comment, or if he is attempting to discredit my efforts. The irony of this situation does not excape me though! Jleon, You pretend I call you arrogant, while using a very arrogant and rude tone! If you wern't so serious, it would be very funny. On a serious note, you (and various others) are wasting my time, and the time of people who now have to sort through this nonsense to find the legitimate claims people are making. --sansvoix 01:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Back to a cooperative effort:
  • Matt Yeager, regarding your point comparing the section on terminology in he UK to the US city pop list. To defend the section on terminology I would argue that it contributes a great deal to the overall understanding of what the United Kingdom is --somthing that many people would not know. (The UK is comprised of England, Scotland, Whales etc). On the other hand in the U.S. article, listing the population of the 20 largest American cities may, as you state, reflect the importance of these cities to patriotic Americans, but does little in formulating an academic understanding of the United States as a whole.--sansvoix 01:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

-- I'm not putting words in your mouth- you did call us 'nationalists' and in previous discussions you've called us 'zealots'. I'd really like for you find anything that I have written that is so explicitly rude, and I've never 'obstructed' anything (I actually told Jmbael that his images were fine in the discussion above). --Jleon 01:25, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Come on, I sarcastically called a undefinable posse of article overloards "zealots", after stating that I agreed with you "100%". I am not going to comb over your posts.. my point is that a negative approach does not help improve the United States article. Please, lets work in good faith. We both are obstructing now, as this useless debate does not help the topic at hand!--sansvoix 02:10, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Ranking by Metropolitan areas tells more about the country - it shows where the population is most concentrated, which cities cannot contain all the people that for one reason or another live nearby - AND it would include more of the global cities. On Metro ranking, the present 1-20 cities would become 1 2 3 8 4 14 17 9 35 46 12 32 41 42 19 5 38 (notice there are 6 above 30). Also the metro areas ranked 6(Miami) 7(DC) 10(Boston) & 15(Seattle) are not even represented in the top 20 by city boundaries.--JimWae 08:13, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Your idea is better than how it is now, but it still does not tell the reader much about the United States. Perhaps a better solution would be to throw out the chart idea and perhaps write about regional areas instead (without an obsession on population). I just read the article on the boston-washington (BosWash) corridor, which I feel tells the reader more than a general list on specific areas could.--sansvoix 04:29, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

This is just silly. The reason there shouldn't be a list of 20 cities in the article has nothing to do with US nationalism, anti-americanism or anything else - it's just a poor format for a wikipedia article. Articles - particularly important ones, are written in prose. A list is an absolutely last resort for those that that think that cramming more "verifiable" information into an article might make it better. The populations of the top few cities might well be relevant, but Jacksonville, Fort Worth etc? Leave it out. No other prominent country articles engage in this sort of "space filler" nonsense. And if you think American cities are impressive in size, check out China's. So anyway: Scrap the list, replace it with some process detailing the top five or so most important cities, throw the rest in American cities if you like. Stevage 02:03, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Opinion Poll

lets see if this helps progress things...

Delete and add link

  • --sansvoix 09:11, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Possibly summarise and add link Most of the arguments against are pretty specious. "Anti-american"? "No limit on article length"? "Removing valid information is inappropriate"? This is Wikipedia, not "every random factoid wins an award day". Make it a top 5, but top 20 is spammy for sucha long, dense article. Stevage 12:12, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Modify

Keep as is

  • Informative, should be kept. By the way, Wikipedia's "primary method of finding consensus is discussion, not voting." (see What Wikipedia is not). --JW1805 (Talk) 01:14, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

-A consensus to keep the section (with some differing views on modifications) was already clearly reached in the discussion above. --Jleon 15:43, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm Afraid that is not the case...--sansvoix 21:12, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Geography

In a series of edits, and without much discussion, we have eliminated most of what used to constitute a Geography and climate section, removed the only non-urban image of the country, and removed even having a link to Geography of the United States. I've only recently gotten involved in this article, which clearly has a lot of active editors. Was this really intentional? On a less active article, I'd tend to just revert something like this. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd say you should decide if you think the things removed should be put back, and if so, do it. Then start a discussion afterward if they get reverted. It never works to ask "should I do this", because as you can see, no one ever responds. Not until you do it, at least. -- Dpark 21:08, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

European Union as second-largest miltary force

"in 2004 the European Union, as the second-largest military force, had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D." This combines a good point with a misleading comparison that verges on factual innacuracy. The EU is not a sovereign state, and does not have its own armed forces, independent of its members' governments. Perhaps the perception that it is and does should feature elsewhere in the article, as an example of US citizens' sketchy knowledge of the rest of the world :). Member governments can and do make their own decisions on foreign policy, miltary spending and the exercise of armed force. The Republic of Ireland, Sweden, Finland and Austria have policies of military neutrality, while Britain and France have considerable force projection capabilities. Afganistan and Iraq are recent examples of wide divergence of policy and action. There is a 'European Rapid Reaction Force', but it is based on inter-state cooperation, like NATO (except that it is limited to to peacekeeping and humanitarian operations). Perhaps it would be better to compare US miltary force and expenditure with the sum totals of all the other members of NATO?

--Countersubject 14:39, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I agree, the statement is completely false, as the EU has no defence or foreign policy capacity. Perhaps it would be be better to compare to China and Russia. Astrotrain 14:45, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Does anyone have reasonable estimates of these figures, with references? Countersubject 15:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I added the statement again because I think it is a better comparisation, especially for european citizens, for how much money the US spents on military because the EU has a higher population and a higher GDP, but only spents less then a half money for military as the United States. One little Question: It says that the US spents about 400 MILLION $ and the EU spents 160 BILLION €. Which of it is true? I guess billions, but I'm not really sure so I did not change it.

Minimum wage and taxes

Discussion about the minimum wage and taxes assertions that are being reverted:

  • "The United States's minimum wage is among the lowest in the industrialized world relative to similar per capita economies." -- Source for this statement? What similar per capita economies are being referred to?
  • What is the point of the lengtly discussion of the tax code of Utah?
  • "When compared to other countries, especially in Europe, America's economy has a high level of social inequality." That is POV crap. What on earth is "Social Inequality", and by what standard is that defined? Some guy saying that in an article does not make it worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia. --JW1805 (Talk) 21:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

"The United States's minimum wage is among the lowest in the industrialized world relative to similar per capita economies. Beginning in the latter part of the 20th century this led to a "living wage" movement; this has met success primarily in urban centers, along with a minority of states that have passed legislation increasing wages. When adjusted for inflation median wages in some states have decreased since 1979." Probably considers "% of GDP per capita" from Minimum Wage. This paragraph looks non-POV. The rest is garbage, I agree Cdcon 22:00, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Social inequality refers to the gap between the rich and the poor. European countries tend to have greater social saftey nets... less social inequality. --sansvoix 22:05, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Here's an example I just ran across from the UN Human Development Reports:
"Two OECD members—Mexico and the United States—have the dubious distinction of having child poverty rates of more than 20%. The United Kingdom has had some recent success in reversing a rapid rise in child poverty." [[2]] (p.69).
Go to page 55 to see the numbers crunched on social inequality. Higher number means less equality.
Namibia has 70.7, South Africa has 59.3, United States has 40.8, France has 32.7, Sweeden has 25.0
  • "Social inequality" seems like a loaded term, and it isn't given any context in the paragraph in question. The gap between rich and poor is not the sole measure of the equality of society. The statement sounds like POV that Europe is somehow better or more equitable than the US. Also, what is the source for the statement that "When adjusted for inflation median wages in some states have decreased since 1979". What states? How many? (Is it just Utah?) --JW1805 (Talk) 20:23, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Also, in the US, the minimum wage is different in different states. Is that taken into account in the statistics at Minimum Wage? --JW1805 (Talk) 20:25, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

The "social inequality" bit reeks of POV. At the very least, that term needs to be carefully defined; these numbers need to be attributed to the study they came from. The Economist external link is subscriber-only, BTW. android79 21:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

This is a big qualifier, isn't it? "among the lowest in the industrialized world relative to similar per capita economies". This statistic reads like it was hand-picked to portray the U.S. in a negative light. Rhobite 21:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I didn't write the section, but I will play devils advocate here: Should the article only portray the U.S. in a positive light?
No, but it shouldn't go out of its way to portray it only in a negative light, either. android79 21:46, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm just trying to stop people from deleting the entire paragraph, as the section in itself is not POV. Social Inequality is a legitimate term. If it said "inequality" or "too many poor people" I would agree with you! Perhaps adding the hard statistics into the article would solve the problem? If there is consensus I could add details outlining American child poverty, social inequality, disenfranchised minorities, and comparisons to other industrialised nations?--sansvoix 21:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

It's a legitimate term, but one whose meaning may not be immediately clear to the reader. From the Economic inequality article itself (to which Social Inequality is a redirect) it seems that its meaning is hotly debated. Is it Equality of opportunity or Equality of outcome? I'm afraid hard numbers don't really belong in a summary article like this one, either, but go ahead and propose something here. android79 21:46, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Bingo, thats the point. If I went into detail with specific facts and figures on a negative aspect of life in the United States, they would stay in this article for .432 seconds. I'd say the onus is on the people trying to remove this section to write it in a way they find appropriate. And it is a valuable section, you do learn somthing fundemental about the United States, even if you wish it were not true. Its not an obscure fact, social inequality is has shaped the worlds history. Isn't the parody of the American dream, "no limit on how far you can rise, or how far you can fall?"--sansvoix 22:03, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
No, it is not a valuable section; it is overly vague and POV. android79 22:20, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Agreed, it was POV and vague. --JW1805 (Talk) 22:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Since the U.S. competes with economies like China's and India's, and Europe is mired in protectionism, I really don't see how it's relevant to restrict our minimum wage comparison to "similar per capita economies". Rhobite 21:55, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps it makes sense to talk about the minimum wage as a fraction of per capita national income. Who has the numbers? Is it really much lower in the US than elsewhere? −Woodstone 22:34, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
There are some numbers right here at wikipedia. The mentioned western style countries (including the US) have an average mimimum wage of 41% of GNP per capita, the US has 25%. So indeed it is significantly lower in the US and seems worth mentioning in the article. Average of all non-zeros in the limited (selective?) list is 40%. China does not have a minimum wage. India has one, but it is not in the list. −Woodstone 22:57, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
But isn't the fact that the cost of living is different in each country make a comparison difficult? --JW1805 (Talk) 23:23, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Also don't forget the exorbitant tax rates in many European countries. Rhobite 23:58, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

What you really mean is that the most of the rest of the world pays an adequate (barely adequate) minimum income, and people get free or subsidised health care. The US pays a minimum income that condemns the poor to persistent poverty, and then fails to provide for their health care of those it pays a low minimum income to. Hence that is why so many US citizens in poverty have no health care. In most civilised states a government following that policy would be booted out of power. Not so in the US where both political parties are in bed with the employers and funded by them, so it is a case of screw the poor and protect the rich. Land of the Free, my arse. Land of the Free, if you are rich and can pay, more like. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 07:41, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

We have plenty of free health care. What we don't have is universal health insurance. and of course the US far outspends any other country on health care.
Only a small percentage of the US working population earns the minimum wage or below. And it's mostly youth and the elderly; I believe not counting those its about two percent. Is that really enough for a revolution? btw what was that unemployment rate in Europe again? 69.108.48.80 10:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

The deleted paragraphs

Putting them here as to avoid an edit war. They were removed from the bottom of the Economy section.--sansvoix 21:49, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

The United States's minimum wage of $5.15 per hour is among the lowest in the industrialized world relative to similar per capita economies. Beginning in the latter part of the 20th century this led to a "living wage" movement; this has met success primarily in urban centers, along with a minority of states that have passed legislation increasing wages. When adjusted for inflation median wages in some states have decreased since 1979.

  • "The United States's minimum wage of $5.15 per hour" - in the US, the mininum wage is different in different states.--JW1805 (Talk) 22:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • "When adjusted for inflation median wages in some states have decreased since 1979." -- Source? What states? How many? --JW1805 (Talk) 22:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

This pared with tax structures found in some areas, such as Utah, where the poor pay more of their income as a total percentage on taxes, i.e. those making below $16,000 annually pay 11.4% of their income on taxes while those earning at least $280,000 pay 5.5% (because citizens reach the top tax bracket at $4,313 for a single person), has led to growing number of poor and a wider gap between the rich. Tax systems constructed along these lines have been called "regressive".[3][4] Nationally, as of 2005, the top federal tax bracket for a single person is 35% and reached at an income of $326,451 (until the Presidential adminstration of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s the top tax bracket was 70%). [5] When compared to other countries, especially in Europe, America's economy has a high level of social inequality. [6][7]

  • Seriously, Utah is representing the US as a whole? Does that seem unusual to anyone else? --JW1805 (Talk) 22:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • "When compared to other countries, especially in Europe, America's economy has a high level of social inequality" - objections stated above. "Social inequality" is undefined here, and according to Economic inequality is a debated term. The impression is a POV statement that Europe is better than America. --JW1805 (Talk) 22:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • The references given are unsatisfactory. One reference is available only with subscription, and the other deals mainly with health-case issues. --JW1805 (Talk) 22:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposed Major Edits: A summary of ongoing debates

To easier keep track of proposals for major edits, this is the summary of ongoing debates. it is the quality of an argument that counts, not the number of arguments.

  • Please keep this at the bottom of the discussion page.
  • Please only add specific arguments (for, against, neutral, etc).
  • Please give links to discussions on the main argument, as well as controversial points (if applicable).
  • PLEASE add new points as they arise (I am hoping this will make sorting through volumes of passionate debate a cinch)

--sansvoix 22:22, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposed Removal of City Pop Chart

See United_States#Largest_cities Discuss at Talk:United_States#largest_cities Vote (non-binding poll) at Talk:United_States#Opinion_Poll

FOR Removal

  • Chart already has its own article on wikipedia
  • List of 20 biggest cities is generally not considered important information regarding a general encyclopedia article on an entire country:
    • Contributes little to the understanding of the United States as a whole --More page space is devoted to cities than regions.
    • No other country aricle has a section containing a chart of big cities.
    • Very few readers would likely expect this list to be here, but if interested could still click on a link given.
  • The United States Article is too long, something needs to go.
  • It contributes to a percieved U.S. haughtiness. (opinion)

Neutral

  • Size of section is partially a reflection of patriotic pride in the major cities. (Can be seen as a reason to keep or delete or modify) (this interpretation, either pro or con, is personal opinion)
  • change to something that tells more about the country - ranking by metro area
  • These are all large cities, and many of the top ten at least are well known outside the country. Maybe a top ten ranking is enough, with a link to the full list at the top or bottom. --Big Adamsky 14:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

AGAINST Removal

  • Cities are considered relatively more important in the U.S. than in other countries. (opinion)
  • Removal of this section could be percieved as Anti-americanism.
  • There is no Wikipedia guideline saying this list should not be shown (all country articles are unique).
  • Removal of valid data is inappropriate.
  • There is no such thing as an article that is too long, that's what section editing is for.
  • Because, in contrast to most other industrialized nations, the US does not have one or two dominant cities, the list includes cities that are the economic and cultural equivalent of capitals in other countries.

This section is unnecessary and confusing

What is the point of this section? It is on the same topic as another section above ("Largest Cities"), and is separated from it by other discussions. It is a duplication of the Opinion Poll. It contains unsigned comments, all of the "For Removal" are from the same editor (Sansvoix), but since they are unsigned, it looks like there are a lot of folks putting comments in that section. I moved this section to its logical location under Largest Cities, and signed all the unsigned posts, but my edit was reverted by Sansvoix. Now, if a user wants to restate or summarize things already discussed, that's fine, but talk posts need to be signed. --JW1805 (Talk) 04:19, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

There is no reason to be so rude, It looks as if you are trying to cause a fight (because I asked you to behave respectfully on your talk page?). As I responded on your talk page,
We are not signing the items, as it is simply a repeat of what was stated in the lengthy debate, for your benifit. Most of the comments are "mine" but that is because I copied them from the debate--and other people have edited them since!! None of the other people involved in that debate had a problem with the summary, in fact they participated in it, as it is a VALUABLE TOOL in understanding the topic at hand!

I made this section so people can read and add points without having to drudge through things such as personal attacks and anti-social behaviour. I didn't sign the ones I added, because many of them were originally not my points (I copied them from discussion), furthermore, the signatures are messy and uneccesary when restating simple points. It's the facts that matter, not the user who summerised them--sansvoix 04:42, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

When gauging support, signatures on comments certainly are necessary. If this is supposed to be an opinion poll, we need to know who holds which opinions. android79 07:26, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I took this section to be a "summary of the various arguments put forth by various authors". In other words, if five people had said pretty much the same thing, it would appear only once, and hence wouldn't be signed. Stevage 13:38, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

-- A strong consensus against removal was already reached in Talk:United_States#largest_cities, so both the so-called opinion poll and the list of debating points are irrelevant. Its seems to me that Sansvoix is just trying to continually repackage this until he gets his way, and once again he is accusing someone of being rude/insulting (just like he did to me) simply because they disagree with him. --Jleon 15:37, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I agree. But, if someone wants to keep restating his case, I don't have a problem with that. I always assume good faith, and tend to just ignore personal attacks. But talk posts must be signed. It isn't "rude" or "trying to cause a fight" to point out a basic Wikipedia policy. This new paradigm he wants to create where current debates are anonymously summerized just isn't compatible with basic Wikipedia usage. If you want to write a summary of what's being discussed, then by all means write it and sign your name to it. --JW1805 (Talk) 17:17, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


New economy paras.

I used Jeff Madrick, from "Inequality and Democracy" in George Packer "The Fight is for democracy" for the figures he cited the census, business week, and forbes. I also added a bit from Alan Greenspan. The fact that Alan Greenspan considers it a threat to the USA's survival and we didn't even address income inequality here illustrates that we need something on it. 70.57.93.147 19:34, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Questions and comments on new additions:

  • "The federal tax system levies 10% against those who earn up to $7,300 for a single person and up to 35% for those who earn at least $326,451." - This doesn't take into account the deductions that are available for poor people, like child credits, earned income tax credit, etc.
  • "The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses " - How is this different from other countries?
  • "Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s." - some context required here. What about inflation, cost of living, etc? How is this different from other countries?

--JW1805 (Talk) 20:34, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Footers

One of the copmlaints when this article was up for featured status was that several of the templates used in this article have the look of footers. This is still the case. e.g. Template:United States and Template:United States topics, in particular. It's a jarring effect, because they appear to be the end of the article, but aren't. I've tried dropping the footer style entirely. The result can be seen at User:Dpark/Sandbox/United States. Since we don't really want direct text insertion because it makes maintenance more difficult, I would say we could partition the information out into separate templates (e.g. Template:United States 2) which both this article and the original template could then use. No duplication that way, but we don't need to keep the footer style. All this is assuming others like the change, of course.

Compare United States#Political_divisions vs. User:Dpark/Sandbox/United States#Political_divisions and United States#Related_topics vs. User:Dpark/Sandbox/United States#Related_topics. And of course, try looking at the whole article, scrolling through it, to see if it's more visually appealing.

Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to make the talk page have a white background, so you'll have to excuse the blue.

So, what does everyone think? -- Dpark 23:50, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Should I interpret the silence to indicate that no one opposes or supports this change? -- Dpark 00:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Oops, I hadn't noticed your insertion into this talk page because it evolves so fast. I only watch the History pages directly for my top 10 pet articles (like Roger J. Traynor). Only today your last edit as of the 14th showed up on my watchlist for this talk page.
    • Turning to the merits of your proposal, I support your proposed change. You are right about the footer problem and I agree your suggested version is less jarring. --Coolcaesar 06:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Alright, if there are no objections soon I'll make the change. -- Dpark 15:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


  • The change has been made. I created Template:United States 2 which Template:United States and United States now both include. The original United States template looks the same as it always has, so it won't affect other articles it's included in, but the content is localized in the new template, so there's only one location to update, should updates prove necessary. I did not create a second US topics template, because Template:United States topics is only used here. I updated the style in the original template so it no longer looks like a footer. -- Dpark 12:57, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Current D.C. land once part of maryland

That was me who made the previous edit (forgot to sign in). washington D.C. was originally land from both Virginia & Maryland. The Virginia portion was given back (now Arlington County?, Va). Can't believe such a glaring error would be in such a big article. Jcam 00:57, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Glaring errors are not as uncommon as one might hope, but luckily people do tend to find them eventually. I added a bit back about that, and clarified that the land was retured. Enough people "know" that Washington, D.C. is partly on land from Virgina that it's probably worth clarifying. (Lest they think the article is in error and "fix" it.) -- Dpark 01:05, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Synonyms Internationally Used

Insert: 'the idiot-nation of planetary destruction' as one of the synonyms for "United States". Yama Thi Khuu 19:51, 13 December 2005 (UTC)Yama Thi Khuu

  • Please do not troll here. Wikipedia is not a forum for bashing anything or anyone. If you have useful contributions, you are always welcome and encouraged to make them, but all articles should be NPOV. That means we present the truth, and try to avoid bias. We don't allow "the U.S. is the best nation in the world", and we also don't allow "the U.S. sucks". We are interested in facts, not opinion. However, I'd like to welcome you and I'm sure we all hope you'll become a valued contributor. -- Dpark 00:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


Regarding Harold Pinter link

I included this because it was where I got the information about the number of military bases. I thought that including references was encouraged. Perhaps I'm including it in the wrong place, or maybe references aren't as important for a general article like this one. I wouldn't mind having some clarification on this, as I'm new to this whole editing business. -- Aislar

Dunno. You might want to ask the person who removed it. Drop a line on his/her talk page. To be honest, though, a Nobel prize acceptance speech is a slightly odd source for this article. I'm sure the number of military bases could be found at a more specifically relevant source. -- Dpark 12:14, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I chopped the Pinter link. I know Pinter has some good things to say - but he's a playwright, and there's a million such links. If it goes anywhere it should be on a more specific page e.g. criticism of US military bases. - Jgritz 12:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I understand perfectly why the link shouldn't be on this page. Just wanted to cover my "bases" with regards to the statistic. Thanks. Aislar 22:38, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Use of America and U.S.

Could I encourage everyone to go through and edit out all of the unnecessary uses of U.S. and America. It is understood that the article is about the United States so the terms do not have to start and end every sentence. Just my opinion but it does make it tough to read at times.--Looper5920 08:32, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

United States

Article is MISSING, deleted by one of many anti-american admins here, no doubt--Diatrobica;l 22:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

ROFLOL!!!!. I tried to undelete, but I think everyone els eis trying too, so the system throws errors... WRT Antiamerikanism, I think it was simply a co-incidence if one reviews the logs things seem to be rather harmless.

Refdoc 22:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I didn't see any record of the deletion. Very interesting... — TheKMantalk 23:06, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

We were attacked by a pagemove vandal. This article disappeared in the chaos. (Unless of course I'm part of the conspiracy to delete the US...). Mark1 23:17, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Some vandal moved the page to a new name with a really offensive title. Someone else saw a new page with a really offensive title and shot from the hip rather than having a look inside the page. At least this is how I understand the logs. Refdoc 07:37, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Deletions and undeletions of pages with long histories are still a bit sluggish, and get *real* ugly when fifty people are trying to do it at once. I think it's sorted out now. --Brion 23:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry to state the obvious, but why is this article at "United States" and not at the official United States of America? Sure, the USA are the US, but as evidenced by United States (disambiguation), there are all sorts of other United States, so why not keep the article at the official name? dab (ᛏ) 23:33, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Religioustolerance.org

This article uses the religioustolerance.org website as either a reference or a link. Please see the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Religioustolerance.org and Wikipedia:Verifiability/Religioustolerance.org as to whether Wikipedia should cite the religioustolerance.org website, jguk 14:09, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Note, Jguks page is NOT (as of 17/12/05) wikipedia policy (many other "Wikipedia:" articles are)--sansvoix 23:35, 17 December 2005 (UTC) edited 03:37, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Most pages in the Wikipedia namespace are discussion pages, with some Wikifun pages, community pages, and loads of proposal pages. Very few are actually policy - if you want to know which are look at Category:Wikipedia policies and guidelines. It's right to say that Wikipedia:Verifiability/Religioustolerance.org is a discussion page for a proposed guideline and is not a current Wikipedia policy, jguk 00:06, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

So this is just some guys' little analysis website done as a hobby with zero peer-review? That really shouldn't fly as a secondary source in an encyclopedia. Why are people so hot to add it here when the primary sources on American history can easily be found? Are they affiliated with the site or something? 67.124.203.233 03:11, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm not so sure. It is a very popular site, and it is factual and informative. I use it for references when I am looking for impartial facts on religion. Many Chritsian (or Muslum, or whatever) sites tend to be kinda biased, this one isn't trying to convert.--24.68.35.200 03:35, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
and that was a typo on my part Jguk. fixed.--sansvoix 03:39, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS RELIGOUS TOLERANCE! There is a right way, and a wrong way, the FACTS GOD sent us. That small group of Canadians have abandoned their faith, and are waging a Jihad against their own religion.--Koool 04:06, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
On Wikipedia, there is a Neutral Point Of View, which means that any personal views you may have about what is the "right" and the "wrong" way, religiously, are irrelevant to the content of the articles. *Dan T.* 12:35, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

New Cultures of the World article

For those of you that would like to write a short summary about American-Canadian culture, please contribute to the new article stub.--Culturesoftheworld 19:01, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

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