Talk:United States/Archive 19

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Government type

Just wondering why it is permitted to list north korea and china's government as "communist state" despite the fact that both are democratic republics, but it is not permitted to list USA as a capitalist federal republic?? --Frogsprog 15:03, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

The governments types of North Korea and China are formally described as "Communist". This is a self-description. The US government describes itself as "Federal Republic". Communism is a system of government, not just a system of economy. Capitalism is simply an economic system. deeptrivia (talk) 15:12, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
North Korea and China are what??? Democratic??? WTF! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.140.11.99 (talk • contribs)
I don't know what you have learned at school, but Communism is not only a system of government, but also have a economic in it. Capitalism is also a poltical system. Read Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels if you want to learn some thing new. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.213.48.61 (talk • contribs)
How governments describe themselves - as distinct from how they *name* themselves - is not relevant to their description in a neutral encyclopedia, but generic terminology should be used. There are two types of nation-state in the modern world - federal and unitary; and there are two forms of national government - republic and monarchy. Everything else is combination and/or subclassification and/or application of adjectives. For example, a totalitarian state - one in which total power and rights are held by the government - can be either a monarchy or a republic. (Usually, we use the word "totalitarian" to describe totalitarian republics and "absolute" to describe totalitarian monarchies.) Sometimes, the label "republic" is a misnomer. Any nation in which the decisions are made by one person without consulting anybody else is generically a monarchy, because 'monarchy' means "one ruler." (Not all monarchies are hereditary; some are elective; and even the British monarch does not constitutionally become King or Queen until formal recognition is made by Parliament.) Nevertheless, we generally accept whatever generic description a nation provides for itself, to avoid international arguments and incidents. Thus, we call Cuba a republic notwithstanding it's really a monarchy - specifically, an absolute monarchy (as opposed to a constitutional monarchy, like Jamaica) because all the decisions are made by one person (i.e, there is only "one ruler"); that person has been in office since his initial "accession" to the Cuban throne, as it were; and he will be in office until he dies or "abdicates" (the former more likely than the latter), though power is currently being exercised by a regent as he recovers from surgery.
The United States is correctly described as a federal republic, because it is a confederacy of 50 sovereign unitary states; and it has a republican form of government. North Korea would be correctly described as a unitary republic, because it is not a confederacy of parallel sovereign entities. Canada is a federal monarchy - more specifically, a federal constitutional monarchy, because the powers of the monarch are limited by the powers of Parliament, the powers of the Judiciary, and will of the people. Like the United States and Australia, Canada is a confederacy of parallel sovereign entities (hence, federal). The United Kingdom, by contrast, is a semi-federal constitutional monarchy consistent of 4 provinces - England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Under the Acts of Union of 1707, Scotland retained her own systems of law and education separately from the rest of the country, and subsequent constitutional acts have created provincial legislatures in Scotland, Wales and (off and on) Northern Ireland. But these legislatures are not sovereign (and England doesn't even have one), but they are subject to direct oversight of the national parliament - hence, semi-federal instead of federal. In the United States, on the other hand, the U.S. Government has no power to tell any state government what it can or cannot do within its own sovereign jurisdiction; because U.S. Const. Amend. X reserves to the states all powers that were are not assigned to the federal government by the U.S. Constitution. As long as an individual state is acting solely within its own jurisdiction, as opposed to the jurisdiction of the federal state, the federal government has no jurisdiction over the question.
Otherwise, there is no such form of government as "communist" or "capitalist." Both are economic systems. In particular, the one foray that modern communism makes into political theory is the fundamental principle that there is NO government in a communist system. On the point of principle alone, NO modern nation has ever been communist. CAUTION: Do not confuse totalitarianism with communism. If a government is truly communist, it can't be totalitarian - because a truly communist government would not exist in the first place. This idea that some people had (and some still have) that they were or are creating "communist nations" is just a sham.
There are, however, a few examples of successful communism. Outside humanity, ants and honeybees operate communist economies quite effectively. They are able to do it because most members of the hive, being children of the same queen, are at least half-siblings. They are all the same sex (as it happens, female) and never reach sexual maturity - except for a small number of drones, who are got rid off after they do the one thing they're bred for and are no longer needed. Within humanity, the most successful communist societies have been the Shaker communities. They *are* both male and female, and they *do* reach sexual maturity - but they do not marry or engage in any sexual activity (not the only reason why there aren't very many of them left, but a big one) - different sexes are not even housed in the same rooms, to avoid temptation. Their economy is purely communist. Nobody owns any property, personalty or realty - in theory, not even the clothes on your back are your or anyone else's property (though you might have fair claim to the clothes on your *front*). Their communist economy works for two reasons - first, they are bound together by absolute loyalty to one leader - God - and by one motto, which they observe religiously (pardon the pun) - "Hearts to God, Hands to Work" (or "Hands to work, Hearts to God" - it's usually written in the form of a cross, with one "to" at the crux:
Hearts
Hands to Work
God
Second, the Shaker economy only operates within the single Shaker village, which consists solely of one farm and a very small number of people. When you have that kind of unity and small size, it's very easy to make communism work. Indeed, most family households operate on principles of communism and socialism. When someone cuts their finger at your house, you don't usually charge them for the Band-Aid; but if you were operating your home on a purely free market basis, they would only get that Band-Aid if they could pay a fair market price for it. (In the case of your child, you could deduct the fair market value of the Band-Aid from their weekly allowance -- assuming your household is does the socialist thing and gives the child an allowance instead of fair market wages for the chores s/he might perform). It's when you go beyond the household, beyond the family, beyond the village, etc. - the more people you try to accommodate in a communist economic system, the more gradually totalitarian the infrastructure of the system must become, because communism can only work *freely* on a small scale. It only works on a *large* scale if you have an ant- or honeybee-style infrastructure, with absolute loyalty to one leader and not a lot of room for individuality. It works for honeybees and ants because of their unrelenting social uniformity -- but even then, it only works within the one colony or hive; and the colony or hive can only get so big before it splits into two distinct communities. Human beings do not have the social uniformity of ants and honeybees, even within the same household.

207.200.116.138 23:13, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Changes

If you check the CIA world factbook you will see that the USA economy is smaller than that cited here. Thus I am altering that data.

Also, China is now widely regarded as a SuperPower and so the sentence regarding the usa remaining the worlds sole superpower is becoming dated. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Editor18 (talk • contribs) 13:56, 10 August 2006.

Which version did you check and what is the source of the originally quoted figure. Also, I removed the China bit, it was unsourced. Finally, please sign your comments here by adding four tildes (~) at the end of your text.--Kalsermar 19:12, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Seems Kalsermar and I were editing on top of each other. Editor18, if you explain your edits in the edit summary box, you might lessen your chance of being reverted for such things as unexplained figure changes. Also, this superpower stuff has been heavily and repeatedly discussed at this Talk page. Statements that other countries besides the U.S. are superpowers are unlikely to last long in this article—in the near future, at least. Feel free to bring it up at this Talk page, though. — President Lethe 19:16, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html

That is from where I corrected the GDP figure in this article.

http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/nov/16survey.htm

If you look at some survey statistic it does show that a considerable number of people already consider China a superpower along with more considering it to be an emerging one.

Also, then the section sating the "usa is the sole remaining superpower" should be deleted and edited to simply the USA is a superpower, because hen either way is subjective. Also, I didn't see the edit summary box, I'll search for that next time I edit, thanks.

Also, it should be cited just as it is on the EU page that if the EU is ranked the us is ranked #2 economically. It is arguable wether the EU should be considered unified, however it would be more balanced to implicate that if it is done so on the EU page -editor18

I actually don't think we should mention the term superpower here at all as it is a) loaded, b) will wihtout any doubt lead to some future row over what makes a superpower, and c) the status of superpower is relatively vague intilectual concept-not a fact that can be proven, making mentions to superpower status inheritely subjective. As stated above the EU can and is by some considered a superpower-GDP-UN security counsel memberhsip, etc... There is argument of whether or not the EU is unified enough. Unfortunately these arguments may neve be resolved as there is no conrete answer of whether or not the EU should be compared as one to the US. Regards, Signaturebrendel 19:23, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the comment above. It would probably be most neutral and objective to simply remove the sentence as it is. -editor18

I'm stuck between "Oh, gosh, do we have to go through this again?" and, on the other hand, knowing that it's good to revisit topics and discover new views of them. Anyway, I suggest that those who want to change things about the "sole remaining superpower" wording take a look at the extensive discussion of the matter in the various Archives of this Talk page. I know there have been several discussions of it since November 2005; there may have been earlier ones, too.
Editor18, all you have to do to sign your posts is type four tildes (~~~~) where you want your signature to appear. If you have a typical American keyboard, this is just to the left of the "1" key, at the upper left.
President Lethe 19:34, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Let me try the signature. sorry, I'm a bit new. Editor18 19:36, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually I feel the same way about going over this again-I was involved in huge disucssion on the superpower page and later on the Great power page. That is why I am against mentioning power-poeple get really passionate-too passionate and power in itself is a subjective conepts-what is power and what measurement tools are there that are objective. I just say, it's too subjective lets not touch the third rail. Signaturebrendel 19:40, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Alright. The term superpower is subjective, and there needs to be a relevant argument made of the term to reach a decision on wether to leave, delete or add China and possibly the EU as joint Superpowers and remove the "sole superpower" status in the article which is highly subjective and cannot be verified in an increasingly tripolar world. Editor18 19:41, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately there won't be any consensus, in the eyes of some China is a superpower, the EU is a superpower or only the US is a superpower. Some think that superpowers don't exsist anymore due to the extensive economic interdepenencies. Nobody is wrong, as it is subjective-so, as I have said lets take out the mention to superpower and put in something like => "Is highly influential in current foreign affairs." What do you think? Also, as I said leaving the superpower mention will result in having this debate over and over again-it's just too controversial and subjective in this day and age. Signaturebrendel 19:44, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you. I am having a debate on the Canada as well, in which the debate is surrounding wether we should add that Canada holds international influence economically and politically or not. I think the sentence you mentioned sounds objective, neutral and on point. Editor18 19:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay then any other comments before changing "Sole remaining superpower" to "The United States has considerable influence in current international affairs?" -Nobody is going to dispute this statement ;-) Signaturebrendel 19:49, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Wait some hours, I say. Certain editors who frequent this article tend to show up at certain times of day. Better to have a big flurry of discussion here than a flurry of reversions in the article when they get off work and come to their computers. Also, Archives 13 and 15–18 have discussion of the superpower stuff; I haven't checked those before 13. — President Lethe 19:55, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

You're right not everyone visits this article at the same time, so I'll wait before making any changes. Also, I know this discussion is a repeat but as I said as long as we have such a controversial and subjective statement in the text we will keep on having these discussions especially as there many conflicting theories on international power-and that's all they are, theroies-who is to say which is wrong and which is right? They all have sufficient evidence-see Superpower. I say lets replace the sentence with something neutral that everybody can live with and that no matter your vantage point on the international distribution of power is correct. So, as I've said I'll wait before doing anything. Signaturebrendel 20:08, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that we've been around this issue before. I did not agree with the final resolution and I think it's worth revisiting.
Instead focusing solely on avoiding POV conflict, why not seek to communicate useful information to the reader? The "truth" as I see it is that, when the Cold War ended, the U.S. emerged as the "sole remaining superpower". Russia's economic power took a big hit and so did its political and economic influence. Since there had been only two superpowers, the U.S. was left standing as "the sole superpower". That's a historical fact. What is debatable is whether the U.S. is still the world's sole superpower/hyperpower.
In the ensuing decade and a half, the world has become ncreasingly multi-polar with China, Russia, and the EU exerting increasing influence although not necessarily as much as the United States. (Admittedly, all of this is OR because I don't have a reliable source to cite but I'm sure a reliable source can be found to support these assertions.)
Let's explain all this to the reader somewhere. Maybe in the introduction, maybe not. That's a matter for further debate. We can certainly document (in an NPOV way) the existence of a debate about the "sole superpower/hyperpower status" of the U.S. with a link to a more extensive debate somewhere else.
--Richard 20:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with gerdbrendel and Richardshusr. The US emerged as the only super power but the international scene has changed significantly since the Soviet Union fell and "superpower" might no longer apply. Jaxad0127 20:38, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
True, there is the multipolar world theory-which is certainly credible. So, I say lets move the power commentary to the foreign affairs section w/ a link to the superpower artile where the conflicting theories are explained a bit further. Then replace that sentence in the intro. Signaturebrendel 20:41, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. I don't the sentance in the intro needs to be redone, its historically acurate. Jaxad0127 20:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Very good point, Jaxad0127: the present sentence is about a historical fact (the emergence as the sole superpower after the Soviet collapse)—it doesn't say "There is no question that the U.S. continues as the only superpower in the world, and everybody who says China or Russia or India or the E.U. is a superpower is plain wrong." Also, because a link to the "Superpower" article is provided, readers can easily go to that article to see various views of whether the U.S. now is, or soon will be, not the only superpower. — President Lethe 21:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

But a historical sentence doesn't belong in the opening. Why don't we cite 1989 figures for GDP then, and the President of 1952? because it is no longer relevant, times have moved on and a decade and a half later that statement is no longer legitimate. Editor18 21:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I Agree with Editor 18 the sentence should be moved. I also agree w/ Jaxad0127, the world has changed and superpower is no longer applicable. Also, the sentence as of now does not mention anything about the world having changed. It simply states that the US emerged as the world's sole superpower, leaving the rest up to the readers imagination. The current sentence clearly omitts Jaxad0127's and Richard's point that the world has changed since the collapse of the USSR. Signaturebrendel 21:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

If "a historical sentence doesn't belong in the opening", we should throw out more than fifty percent of the words in the opening four paragraphs. First of all, we can acknowledge that, at the Soviet collapse, it became the sole superpower, having already been one for decades; second, it's linked to an article that discusses the differing ideas about superpowers; third, it is statements about the superpower(s) in 2006 that end up being controversial and thus should be avoided or very well cited and agreed on by a significant majority of editors. I also continue to believe that the majority of human beings, asked to name a prime example of a superpower in the 2006 world, would give the U.S. as their answer and would say that, much more than any other country or group of countries, the U.S. is firmly rooted as a superpower, as opposed to being an emerging one or a potential one. — President Lethe 22:28, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

The statement is clearly POV. "The U.S. is widely regarded to be the sole remaining superpower" is not. -- Jibal 01:44, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The statement is about the world in 1991. — President Lethe 03:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Why does this article state first that the US is a "liberal democracy" and later a "republic"? If the U.S. calls itsself a "Federal Republic" why not just use that term?

Archiving

This page was 274 kb long so I archived it-I do not know whether or not the Civil War Revert discussion is still active-If not I would like to archive it as well due to its size. Thank you. Regards, Signaturebrendel 00:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, I went ahead. Signaturebrendel 04:35, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Household income in the United States up for FA

A US-related GA, Household income in the United States is up for FA. See my post w/ nominee link on the US project discussion page:[1]. Regards, Signaturebrendel 04:35, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Superpower or not? The point is that the world is changing

Just to be clear... unlike others who might argue that the U.S. is not the world's sole superpower, I am not making such an argument. I am saying that the power balance is currently in flux and that, even if the U.S. is currently the world's sole superpower, it is unclear what the future will bring. (As opposed to most of the Cold War when it was fairly predictable for 2-3 decades that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were and would remain the world's two superpowers.)

Who knows whether China will surpass the U.S., what India's role will be in the world in the next decade or two? What will happen with the E.U.? Will Russia see a resurgence in its economic and military power?

I was and remain to allow the U.S. to be described as "the world's sole superpower/hyperpower". However, standing alone, that sentence implies a fairly static situation similar to that of the U.S./U.S.S.R. in the 50's and 60's. I do not believe that captures the current global situation.

--Richard 21:54, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

"standing alone, that sentence implies a fairly static situation similar to that of the U.S./U.S.S.R. in the 50's and 60's. I do not believe that captures the current global situation."- and that's where I agree with you. Turth be told, you can sum it up in one sentence, that's why I say: replace the sentence with something neutral and move the superpower commentary to the Politcs/foregin affairs section. Give a few good sentences about how there is debate over the superpower status and one on how the world is changing. A wiki link to the superpower article would of course be provided. Signaturebrendel 22:02, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Richard you just made several subjective claims. The sentence should not stay in the opening paragraph simply for the reason it is no longer relevent nor legetimate. Many would argue the EU is a superpower (and infact it does have a larger economy and more powerful diplomatic front) and same for China. The world now has 3 areas that dictate world affairs. We don't need to look into the future to already see the US second to the EU economically, and to see China's enormous ecomomy growing at 10% a year already the worlds second largest nation economy. Editor18 22:13, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

But, Richard, Wikipedia isn't into speculation about the future. If a reader takes a sentence about the present world as a prediction about the future world, and disagrees with that prediction (or if that imagined prediction ends up being wrong), the problem is with the reader, not with Wikipedia's words. As I find myself often repeating at Wikipedia, a reader's inference does not necessarily mean that the article text makes the implication. If we say that CRTs are the most common way of viewing TV pictures in the world, and a reader goes away with the impression that it'll always be that way, then it's the reader's problem—for the article said nothing about how the dominant technology might change. I think that, if an editor believes the U.S. is the only superpower, and believes that this superpower status should be mentioned, then the editor shouldn't be worried about 'imagined predictions of the future' that a reader may infer.

And, brendel, (1) something so defining as superpower status definitely deserves mention in the opening (the whole reason the word is superpower is because it's such a noteworthy thing; not mentioning the U.S. superpower status in the opening is like relegating China's biggest single-country population to the China article's demographics section; even if there were five superpowers right now, it would still be material worth noting in the intro), and (2) we already provide the relevant link in the present text.

President Lethe 22:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree... Wikipedia is NOT a crystal ball. However, Wikipedia should accurately depict the world as it is including existing trends and verifiable beliefs about the future based on reliable sources. It is reasonable (though probably not in the intro to this article) to mention that some people think that China will grow to be an economic and military competitor of the U.S. Note the emphasis on "some people think China will..." as opposed to a naked "China will ...". Phrased as "some people think..." this becomes an accurate description of a major current of foreign policy thought in the U.S. This kind of thinking drives U.S. foreign policy and thus world events.
Going back to the Cold War, the idea expressed by President Reagan that the U.S. did not accept Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe ulitmately played some role in future events. It would be out of scope for Wikipedia to have "predicted" what that role might be. It would not be out of scope for Wikipedia to document the statement and the foreign policy thinking that it represented.
Going back to the 1980s... In that decade, we perceived Japan to be a major economic competitor. That perception and the associated concerns surely would have deserved to be documented in Wikipedia. (Even though, with 20/20 hindsight, we can see that our fears were overblown.)
To recap... The U.S. IS a superpower. Whether it remains so is a question of vital interest to the world. We should explain somewhere the reasons why the world might be different in the future from the current status quo.
--Richard 23:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

What about another sentance describing the role of the US in the modern world? Jaxad0127 23:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

The role of the US in the modern world, there is rather a lot to write. The USA knows that China is a threat to it's economic dominance of the world. Therefore they are trying to show the world that they are still a superpower, however, at the same time China is trying to show the world that it is the next superpower. However, both of these nations are doing this in two very different different ways. The US is trying to display to the world that it is still a superpower through the military, e.g. increasing the military budget and buying more weapons, whilst China is displaying her ability to be a superpower through her economic growth. In other words at present the US is trying to show the world that it is still a superpower by displaying its military might, but is this really the way to go? China's policy seems to be working amazingly well. Throughout the world people are recognising China as the real superpower and who can blame them? China's economy is growing at light speed it has recently overtaken the UK as the fourth largest economy in the world and is set to overtake Germany and Japan. It can do the same to the USA. In conclusion the USA is desperate not to slip into political irrelevance on the world stage. That is the USA's role today, it is simply trying to stay number one depite the fact that there are three contenders moving in for the number one spot: the EU, China and India. Many people predict that the USA could slip into irrelevance when one of these three powers overtakes America but for now the USA is trying to cling on to the number one spot, but she hasn't got much time left.87.114.23.6 20:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

On superpower status and economy

In my opinion the sentence of the US being the world's sole remaining superpower should stay. In the Cold War era there were two, the USA and the USSR, the latter is no more. In today's world there is no nation that can singlehandedly even come close to rivalling the USA in economic or military power. China is certainly growing but has nowhere near the global influence the USA has and nor do any European countries either collectively and definitely not independently. On economic terms, China's gdp is a mere 17% of the USA's and the USA, ranking only countries, has a greater economie than the numbers 2-5 (Japan, Germany, China and the UK) combined.

As for ranking the EU, that is not normally done and the only reason imho for the EU appearing in the table of countries according to GDP (without rank I might add) is to keep the US off the top spot. Now, before you say anything let me add that I am Dutch and I do not live in the USA, just to get that out of the way.--Kalsermar 00:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't we at least change the reference to something like: "the US is the main superpower in the world, compared to developing rivals such as China and India"? That would be more accurate. User:Green01 10:48, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Okay the main reason for these arguments is the word "Sole." The problem is that some beleive that:
  • The EU and US are the only superpowers
  • The EU, US and China are the only superpowers
  • Superpowers don't exsist anymore
  • The US is the only superpower
All of these theories can be proven and have the support of academic sources. If we argue which of these theoires is right we will never get anywhere. Nobody's wrong and nobody's right. The idea of a superpower is an ideological concpet and there are several different valid theories. If we take out the word sole and simply say:
"The US has significant influence on international affairs and is therefore a superpower."
There wouldn't be a problem. Let's just tweak the sentence so it doesn't cause anymore controversy. Also please the EU is not there kick the US of the GDP ranking list. The EU consists of America's allies (If you live in Holland you should know-I'm a German-American, literally, so I really don't like this EU or USA-whose better?-lets leave our national heritage out of this). It just is the only comparable thing to the US because the US is so much bigger than any other industrialized country-but that's not what we should be debating. The US is a superpower-if there is such a thing (I think there is), but let's leave out the word sole and all the trouble it brings. Signaturebrendel 01:05, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
(Clearing things up by adding some colons to previous two comments.) I would not mind in principle to ammend the wording but it would still be a misrepresentation of the facts imho as the US is the only power with the global reach and influence it exerts, whether one likes it or not. BTW, I do not live in Holland either ;-)--Kalsermar 01:14, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree. THe word "sole" should only be used in a historical context (the colapse of the Soviet Union left the US as the sole superpower) and not in a modern context. Jaxad0127 01:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Green01, you said it "would be more accurate" to say something like "the US is the main superpower in the world, compared to developing rivals such as China and India". More accurate than what? It is a plain fact that the U.S. was the only superpower after the Soviet collapse, which is what the article says. It's also a plain fact that some call China and India "developing rivals". But no one plain fact can be "more accurate" than another.

Brendel, my problem with "The US has significant influence on international affairs and is therefore a superpower" is that it's simplistic in the extreme. Dozens of countries have significant influences on international affairs. (And, when we consider that international has "between two nations" as its most basic meaning, then just about every country that is paired up with some other country in some way has significant influence in one way or another. So global or world might be better. — President Lethe 02:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC))

(About comparing the E.U. and the U.S.: I'm not sure the Dutch person here is totally right, but I still do question this tendency to start adding the E.U., which definitely is not a country, to rankings of countries. Nobody adds the African Union or NAFTA or NATO or the G8 or the the U.N. to these rankings. And it's actually exceptional to start including the E.U. in these lists—for the simple reason that all the other entities on these lists are sovereign states, while the E.U. is not. By the plainest criterion—sovereign statehood—, the Vatican City, Liechtenstein, Malta, and Monaco are more "comparable" to the U.S. than the E.U. is.)

The word "sole" is being used in a historical context: the time of the emergence is explicitly stated. Anyone who reads modernity into the statement is doing just that—reading into it ideas that are not in the written words.

President Lethe 01:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

(Adding a bit more about including E.U. in rankings of countries. The argument for including the E.U. is that it's a group of closely linked states. But (1) those states don't give up their sovereignty to the E.U.; (2) not all participating countries share one currency; (3) they certainly don't have one unified military together, let alone postal services or a single shared provider of, say, phone services or health care; (3) a Frenchman (a citizen of the E.U.), for example, presents a French passport to British customs officials when enter the U.K.; (4) the E.U. has 'members' that aren't full members, which is not the case in the U.S. (unless you count the question of Congressional representation for the District of Columbia); ... and, well, we could carry this on and on. I understand that this whole issue is somewhat abstract; but, until the E.U. becomes much more of a union, I personally won't be putting it on lists on which all the other items are individual sovereign states. This is nothing about wanting to keep the U.S. or any other country at the top of the list by making sure the E.U. is not counted if it otherwise would be at the top; it's just about simple consistency. For me, anyway. — President Lethe 02:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC))
(About my previous paragraph: this is not to say that a list of superpowers couldn't include entities that consisted of more than one sovereign state. One can set up the rules of a list in any way one wants. But, to me, it's just silly, if you start off by restricting your list of, say, top strawberry-producing entities to individual sovereign states and then you add something to the list that doesn't match the basic rules of the list (sovereign states that are at the top in strawberry production). ... So, if one's definition of superpower includes the prerequisite "Must be a sovereign state", then the E.U. doesn't get to be counted in its present form, no matter how powerful it is; on the other hand, if your criteria don't demand sovereign statehood, then you could consider adding the E.U. — President Lethe 02:05, 11 August 2006 (UTC))
OKay let's not have this disucssion of whether or not the Eu is a superpower-we're not gonna find conensus-I just simply propose we take out the word sole and simply state the US is a superpower-that with a link to the superpower article would make it very clear that the US certainly has more power than any other country on earth but may or may not be the world's sole superpower. That's my proposal-lets just take out the word, "Sole."-that's it. Or we can say the US is the only sovereign state that is a superpower as the EU is not a country. The sentence as of now is misleading as being a soverign nation as a superpower requirement is only one of the theorioes-times have changes, a structure such as the EU has never really exsisted before. Also, what about ther British Empire-it would not have been a superpower w/o its colonies. Whether or not the EU is a superpower is another debate and one that we cannot decide on WP as we are not the decision makers on the issue-we simply have to present all valid ideologies on the subject and stating that the US is the sole superpower is misleading as it omitts other stating theories. BTW: The word sole is not being used in historical context-it leads the reader to beleive that the condition described is lasting to the present day. Bottom line: lets remove the word, "sole" its misleading and quite frankly a bit POV. Signaturebrendel 03:02, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
If I rememeber my history correctly, Ancient Greece (before being overrun by Rome) had a very similar structure to modern-day Europe. Jaxad0127 04:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually to whoever said no countries GDP comes even close to that of the US and mentioning the same deal with japan in the 70's and 80's, China is actually twice the size of the japanese economy at current so it is definetely not the same appeal. China is a near 9 trillion dollar economy, compared to a 12 trillion dollar Us economy. The former grows by approx 800-900 billion (10%) the latter by approx. 430 billion, it is comprable. The discussion isn't simply about the EU, China is clearly an economic superpower twice the size of it's nearest rival japan. Also, the EU states act almost like individual US states. No tax, free pass, education and jobs cross linked and one currency thus it can be considered a seperate entity, though of course that can be argued.

Thus the word "sole" should be removed, for the fact thew term superpower is completely subjecive and was coined to described the bipolar world of the cold war which is no longer relevant. Either the whole sentence is removed, or the word sole is edited out and there is a link provided to the superpower page where anyone reading can make their own conclusions on the matter. Editor18 03:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I still say another sentance describing modern times would be the best solution. Jaxad0127 04:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

(I wrote this before I saw Jaxad0127's post immediately above; but I happened to address the same issue (discussing the present (2006)) anyway.)

The name of this section of the Talk page is curious. The point for a U.S. article is facts about the U.S., not the truism that the world is changing.

(I disagree that "the EU states act almost like individual US states". Postage within one E.U. country is different from postage between two E.U. countries—while this is not the case with postage within the U.S. There's still more than one currency in the E.U. Additionally, not even the same television technology is used across all of the E.U.—nor are the same telephone connectors—nor the same electrical plugs. That travel between some E.U. states still requires a passport also doesn't support the contention—nor does the fact that some E.U. members are not full members and their citizens don't have exactly the same rights to switch to working in other E.U. countries. We could go on and on about this, though.)

The full sentence right now is

American military and economic influence increased throughout the 20th century; with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, the nation emerged as the world's sole remaining superpower.[1]

Brendel has said "The word sole is not being used in historical context-it leads the reader to beleive that the condition described is lasting to the present day. Bottom line: lets remove the word, 'sole' its misleading and quite frankly a bit POV."

Any reader who is led to believe that the described condition lasts until the present day is being led by something other than the actual sentence. And the historical context is plainly visible: the situation set up at the beginning of the sentence is about the twentieth century, which ended half a decade ago—and the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War were about 15 years ago. This is all that the sentence says. The word "sole" is absolutely right about the situation when the Cold War ended and the U.S.S.R. collapsed—and that is all that the sentence is about.

Brendel has said "I just simply propose we take out the word sole and simply state the US is a superpower-that with a link to the superpower article would make it very clear that the US certainly has more power than any other country on earth but may or may not be the world's sole superpower. That's my proposal-lets just take out the word, 'Sole.'-that's it."

Again, I point out that just taking out the word "sole" yields this:

American military and economic influence increased throughout the 20th century; with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, the nation emerged as the world's remaining superpower.[2]

(One of my comments in an earlier post, above, was based on my not remembering that the word "remaining" was in the sentence; I thought the wording was simply "emerged as the world's sole superpower".)

Regardless of "remaining", the wording "the world's remaining superpower" is still full of singularity: it doesn't say "one of the world's remaining superpowers", but instead mentions exactly one superpower. So removal of "sole" doesn't put to rest the argument that some editors are making here—and that argument is that it's controversial to say that the U.S. is (in 2006) the only superpower in the world. But ...

The present wording is entirely silent on the matter of whether the U.S. is still a (or the) superpower. We obviously are trying to work with controversial issues. It has already been revealed that it's controversial to say that the U.S. in 2006 is the only superpower—and it's also been shown that it's controversial to say that the U.S. in 2006 is even a superpower.

The present wording avoids any controversy whatsoever about the present world—unless the reader somehow takes a statement about something that happened a decade and a half ago and extrapolates it into something about the present. (If I say "Boris Yeltsin became president of Russia in 1991", and the reader goes away thinking "The president of Russia in 2006 is Boris Yeltsin", it's because the reader was being screwy: it's not because my statement about 1991 was terribly faulty. We can't litter every sentence about history with little blurbs to the effect of "But this is no longer the case". We do, however, have adverbs and various clauses and phrases that make clear the temporal aspect of whatever issue is at hand—and, in this sentence, it's the words about the Soviet collapse and the end of the Cold War.)

Making a statement that the U.S. in 2006 is a superpower does, however, invite controversy about the present. In fact, it invites more controversy than the statement about the U.S. as a superpower 15 years ago invites.

We had this same issue with some of the sentences about the 'war on terror'. We resolved the issue by sticking to firmer points of history, rather than getting into ideas about the immediate present and the near future.

• When we want to talk about the geographic area of the U.S. in the present tense, that's fine: that's relatively fixed.

• When we want to give the U.S. population estimate as of a certain day earlier this year, that's fine, too: the reader understands that the population isn't set in stone and that people are coming, going, dying, and being born, all the time.

• When we make a statement about the U.S. as a superpower fifteen years ago, it's fine. If the reader expands this into something more, we are not to blame. If the reader smartly is aware that the world is forever changing and that the question of superpowers may be changing, and wants to know more about the superpower matter, the reader can click the link and go to a whole article devoted to the topic of superpowers.

• When we make a statement about whether the U.S. in 2006 is or isn't a or the superpower, then we get into contentious matters.

So, when we keep the sentence as it is, we (1) continue to present highly relevant information about the recent history of the U.S. (and, yes, I say that last 15–20 years count as "recent" in several contexts) and (2) entirely avoid the controversial, possibly POV-laden topic of whether the U.S. still is a or the superpower.

Really, I don't see what's wrong with stating historical facts of the past and entirely avoiding taking sides in controversy about the present.

President Lethe 04:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Which is why I'm pushing the idea of adding another sentence about the current hegemony (I don't think that using that word would be controversial given the current state of affairs in the world). Another sentence would make sure the readers (atleast readers who read entire paragraphs and/or know how to use adverbs) wouldn't get confused about context. Jaxad0127 05:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Boy, we've been discussing this all day. So what are our possibilities. I think its clear something need to be done. The current sentence is misleading as it omitts the fact that things have changed since 1991. Info from 1991 is more than fine as long as it is not presented in a misleading manner and the changes in thinking of the last 15 years are reflected. So I think our possibilities are:
  1. Take out the words "sole remaining" and just say "The US is a superpower" (It is not proven that it is the sole superpower currently as a) the EU can correctly by idenitfied as one and b)China as America's main lender w/ its huge military and economy could also be correctly idenitified as one.
  2. Add "another sentence about the current hegemony."
  3. Add that the US is the only country that can be identified as a superpower (That may still leave a problem w/ China but not the EU-as it isn't a country)
  4. Move superpower commentary to the politics section
Please lets make suggestions and find something we can agree on-keeping the status-quo is not applicable seeing the misleading nature of the current sentence. If you only mention a historic fact and not the fact that things have changed since then the reader will naturally assume that everything is still the same as then. I'm saying it again, the US is a superpower (that's not being debated), but it can correctly be stated that it is not the only one. Signaturebrendel 05:26, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Jaxad0127, I just said that we avoid getting into the messy controversy of the present state of the world if we leave the sentence as it is, and you say that's why you want to add "another sentence about the current hegemony"? I'm confused. I'm not criticizing you. I just don't understand which part of my post you meant by "Which" when you said "Which is why"—because, as I see it, avoiding the mess of contention about superpowers in 2006 is advisable.

Brendel,

• My problem with your No. 1 idea is that 'taking out "sole remaining" and just saying "The US is a superpower"' (1) erases the whole fact that it was a superpower during the Cold War (and this is something that the present wording does indeed imply; it's not just something that a reader might infer), (2) omits the relevant information that there was a period when the U.S. was the only superpower, and (3) brings us into this controversy about the world of 2006.

• My problem with your No. 2 idea is that it gets us into the messy argument about the world of 2006.

• My problem with your No. 3 idea is that that stuff is better kept in the "Superpower" article.

• My problem with your No. 4 idea is that it omits a very key feature of the U.S.: recent and possibly ongoing (possibly sole) superpower status) from the article intro (see my point above about what's worth including in the intro to a country's encyclopedia article).

And to the "misleading nature of the current sentence": I'm not sure how else to put across the point I've expressed several times today. You say "If you only mention a historic fact and not the fact that things have changed since then the reader will natrually assume that everything is still the same as then." There must be millions, if not billions, of examples to refute that assertion. Two quotes from a very recent news article may serve:

• When we read

And “Countdown” re-enacts a scene in which Air Force jets scramble to shoot down a hijacked commercial aircraft before it can crash into civilian targets, a training exercise two years before the attacks that belies the assertion by Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, that nobody could have imagined hijackers using airplanes as bombs.

do we "naturally assume" that, because Condoleezza Rice was the national security adviser in 2001, she still is? No. Why? Not just because we might be aware that she's now Secretary of State instead—but because of the word "then". The adverb makes us understand that she was national security adviser on September 11, 2001, (this is made clear in the context of the complete article); and, if we have any decent experience reading English-language texts about history, we know that "then" is different from "then and now".

• When we read

It begins with a clip of a 1997 interview with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and moves inexorably to the moment in 2004 when Richard A. Clarke, the counterterrorism adviser on the National Security Council when the attacks occurred, apologized, saying “Your government failed you.”

do we "naturally assume" that Dick Clarke is still the N.S.A.'s counterterrorism adviser? No. Why? Not just because we might be aware that he no longer holds that job—but because of the words "when the attacks occurred".

The actual words are about the past, and a logical inference is that things have changed.

Our sentence even ends in the linked word "superpower"—a bit of finality that, some may say, just shouts to readers "Click me! Find out more about me!" But, if we're really concerned, we could rewrite it to look like this:

American military and economic influence increased throughout the 20th century; with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, the nation emerged as the world's sole remaining superpower.[3] (See Superpower.)

That may more forcefully give the reader the idea "There's significantly more to know about this topic. Go to this other article to read all about it." (Of course, some editors may not grasp the intention behind that slight alteration in wording and, in an effort to keep things concise, remove the "See" sentence and just make the "superpower" in the preceding sentence be the link—which puts us about back where we started, but I say it's worth a try.)

Again, a reader's inference is not inherently the same thing as a writer's implication. Am I a somehow unnatural reader because, when I read the sentence, I didn't assume it must be a statement about the world of 2006? It seems that Richard also believes that this sentence is about 1991, not 2006.

As always, no ill will toward anyone here. Just trying to understand and be understood.

President Lethe 06:07, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Brendal, I've just seen your "I'm saying it again, the US is a superpower (that's not being debated), but it can correctly be stated that it is not the only one." I happen to agree with you that the U.S. is still a superpower; I also can definitely see the arguments against the idea that "it is not the only one", though I also grasp the arguments that there are other superpowers now too. But, for me, the issue right now isn't debating whether the U.S. is or isn't still a superpower, and the issue right now isn't whether there are also other superpowers in 2006: these two questions are controversial, and I am advocating that we steer clear of this controversy, by (1) stating the fact about the world in 1991 and (2) leaving the whole controversy to the separate, "Superpower" article. The issue for me is (1) stating a fact and (2) leaving the controvery to a separate (but conspicuously linked) article. — President Lethe 06:13, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Changing the superpower sentence wording

Okay, I'm not debating the US status as superpower-it is one, quite obviously. But the current sentence implies that the US is still surely the only superpower-that is controversial. I don't see why the problem with number 3-the US is the only country that is a superpower, so this way we steer clear of controversy. The sentence as of now is misleading, yes the US was the only superpower after the fall of the USSR and true it may no longer be-as you have said we should leave this debate up to the superpower article to which I contribute ;-) We need to mention America's status today otherwise our readers will assume that its the same as in 1985 becuase we don't state that it may have changed-by adding the word country or state or nation we steer clear of controversy and state something that is still ture.
Here is my suggestion:
"American military and economic influence increased throughout the 20th century; with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, the US has emerged as the world's only nation that can correctly be identified as a superpower. (See Superpower.)"
::You see, the sentence has kept its historical context-the US did emerge as world's only superpower nation. This way, however, noone will read the sentence in a manner that suggest that the US is still the only superpower without a doubt.Signaturebrendel 06:19, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I fear we may have reached an impasse about implications versus inferences. I say that the sentence does not imply that the U.S. "is still surely the only superpower": I say that's only something that a reader would "read into" (infer from) it. I say that it's not misleading—and that any readers who get ideas about 2006 from a sentence about 1991 aren't reading critically/carefully/logically.

The problem with No. 3 will come from those who claim that China is already a superpower, those that claim that India is already a superpower, and/or those who claim that the E.U. is not only a superpower but also a single country.

I think putting "correctly" just helps load up the cannons for some big volleys about POV and what country or countries in 2006 are superpowers. This dives right into who's "correct" and who's "incorrect" about the 2006 definition of "superpower"—very big POV territory.

You say your new wording will prevent readers from taking the sentence as a suggestion that the U.S. is still indubitably the only superpower—but what about those readers whose very definition of superpower requires that the entity be a country / nation / sovereign state? Viewed within those reasonable limits, there is not just an inference but also an implication that the U.S. is the only superpower—which leads us again to the controversy about what superpower(s) there may be in 2006, which is what we're trying to keep out of this article and leave to the superpower article.

President Lethe 07:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

If you have being a country as a requirement for being a superpower, then you shouldn't have a problem with us saying that the US is. Perhaps replace "country" with "sovereign states" or somethin more specific-that the EU isn't. Also, it is misleading. I'm in the education "business" and know all bout "critical reading" and I misread it the first time, so... Yes it is misleading-if mention the US status of 1991, then must mention the status in 2006-I don't want to bring the superpower article here, but that sentence requires a rewording. Also by stating that the US is a superpower we have already entered the POV territory. Signaturebrendel 07:32, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

"If you have being a country as a requirement for being a superpower, then you shouldn't have a problem with us saying that the US is." Your suggested sentence says the U.S. is the only country that can correctly be called a superpower—but, again, how does this wording help us preëmptively deal with editors who believe that China (a country) can correctly be called (i.e., already is) a superpower, or those who believe that India (a country) can correctly be called a superpower, and or those who strangely believe that the E.U. is a country and can correctly be called a superpower?

"If mention the US status of 1991, then must mention the status of 2006"? No. If I say "When I was seven, I moved from first to second grade in school", am I saying I'm still in second grade? Am I saying that I'm still in the middle of moving? No. Why? Because I said it was when I was seven—and that's all I said.

"by stating that the US is a superpower we have already entered the POV territory". We haven't stated that. We've said that, in 1991, it become the only superpower on the table, and we've implied (logically) that it was a superpower during the Cold War. That is all we've said.

You said you yourself misread it the first time. That's my point exactly: it's that the reader misread it; but it is not that the reader correctly took in the misstatements of an incorrect sentence.

Anyway, I actually had gone to bed, but decided to turn on the computer to suggest something like this, which continues to refrain from explicitly saying anything about the U.S. as a superpower in 2006 but still links to the "Superpower" article for more detail and does say something about the U.S. (though not explicitly or implicitly as a superpower) in 2006:

American military and economic influence increased throughout the 20th century; with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, the nation emerged as the world's sole remaining superpower.[4] Today, the U.S. continues as a leader in many areas of human interest.

I don't have my heart set on those exact words; but I do mean something like that. It's vague enough that nobody can attack it with specifics like "The U.S. is not the world leader in science" or whatever; it talks about the state of things in 2006; and, with "many areas of human interest" (or similar wording), it allows for just about any criterion that someone might come up with (economics, science, politics, popular culture, whatever). And, for those readers who are into inferring things, it'll probably mean "the U.S. is no longer a superpower" or at least "the U.S. is no longer the only superpower" (in which case, several editors can be happier about readers' inferences—and those who dislike certain inferences can be told "That's only your inference; it doesn't explicitly state what you're reading into it"). Thoughts?

Good night/day/morning, all.

President Lethe 07:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm in California so I guess its good mornin'
Okay another prposal:
"American military and economic influence increased throughout the 20th century; with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, the nation emerged as the world's sole remaining superpower. Though it is currently debated that there may or may not be other superpowers in the present day. (See Superpower)."
This way people know that perhaps something has changed in the ideology since 1991 and the sentence is short and vague enough to leave the real debate on the superpower page. What do you think-good enough compromise?
Also, good writing is clear and easy to read-imgine if they created a street sign that was constantly misread, the fact of the sign being helpful if correctly read doesn't help if cars keep rolling down the embarcement. Signaturebrendel 16:19, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

The opening paragraph isn't to discvus historic, and one and a half decade old facts. That belongs in he history section. The paragraph should be up to date, and thus I think the whole sentence should be rewritten with the current sentence being perhaps justified in the cold war article or history section; cold war.

"American sphere of influence, economic and political weight along with the largest defense budget of any nation make the United States a world Superpower. It is currently debated wether the EU and China can be considered already existent superpowers." Editor18 16:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

This isn't in the opening paragraph. It's in the fourth paragraph. An article's opening should be an overview of the rest of the article and the topic of the atricle. It's entirely appropriate. Jaxad0127 17:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Okay then what do think of my proposal? Regards, Signaturebrendel 17:42, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I like Lethe's proposals. Jaxad0127 17:48, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
You mean: "American military and economic influence increased throughout the 20th century; with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, the nation emerged as the world's sole remaining superpower.[4] Today, the U.S. continues as a leader in many areas of human interest." - Yeah, you know what, that's actually pretty good. It makes it clear that the sole remaining mention applied to 1991-it sets a clear hisotrical context. Okay, Mr. President ;-) - that's a good compromise-go ahead and add it to the article-our problems should be resolved then. Signaturebrendel 17:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


Me too. I like the text he/she proposed and would like furthr proposals to build on it.
American military and economic influence increased throughout the 20th century; with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, the nation emerged as the world's sole remaining superpower.[4] Today, the U.S. continues as a leader in many areas of human interest.
I could see the last sentence being changed to being something like:
Although there are many emerging powers across the globe, the U.S. continues to be a leader in many areas of human interest including military might, economic power, science, technology, culture, etc.
I do NOT like the last sentence of either Brendel's proposed text nor do I like the last sentence of Editor18's proposed text. Those sentences would be fine if the article was about superpowers. However, since this article is about the United States, we need to keep the focus on the U.S. The text proposed by Brendel and Editor18 loses that focus and leave the reader wondering "Huh? What's the connection?" A little bit of thought can provide the connection but it's not a good idea to make the reader do the "Huh?" bit. Clarity is a virtue.
--Richard 17:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes clarity is a virtue-that's why I wanted that sentence changed, it sounded misleading. But it seems we have found consensus on the President's last proposal. Signaturebrendel 17:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

"Today, the U.S. continues as a leader in many areas of human interest." The problem with that sentence is however that it makes no sence. What do you consider human interest? Where are the sources that the us leads any of them?

"including military might, economic power, science, technology, culture, etc."

That again is subjective. Economically the EU is more powerful than the US, technologically it's debatable relevent to what kind of technology? Robot technology, mass production of household electronics, etc would go to Japan. Aerospace of course is US lead. Culture? What culture? define culture and the merit to which you can measure it by.

Those sentences are simply dubious.Editor18 18:11, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Which is why the phrase "human interest" was used. It refers to many fields, some of which the US leads, others are lead by other organizations. Jaxad0127 18:13, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

But the phrase "Human interest" doesn't really mean anything on it's own. What is human interest? This is a country descripition, it needs to be specific on what fields that country leads. I changed the sentence to "world affairs.". Editor18 18:16, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Editor18 (and possibly Jaxad0127) misread my proposed text. It said that the U.S. is "A leader in many areas of human interest including...". It did NOT say that the U.S. is "THE leader". It is indisputable that the U.S. is a leader in each of the areas that I mentioned (one of the top 5 in every area mentioned). In some areas, it is arguably THE leader (e.g. military might) but I'm not concerned in emphasizing "THE" over "A". I do think it is worthwhile to tell the reader what we mean when we say that the U.S. is "a leader in many areas of human interest" of "in world affairs".
Another phrasing that has been proposed in the past has been "exerts a dominant influence". I don't know if you like that better than "a leader". I just throw it out for your consideration.
--Richard 18:22, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Dominent influence sounds good, I suppose we could agree that is true to this day. Editor18 18:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Nice to see some discussion from more users went on while I was away.
Editor18, the point of "human interest" (or "many world affairs", as the article now says, though I think this can just be changed to "world affairs") is that it is vague and does cover so much ground. And the point of "a leader" is that it's different wording from "the leader": there can be multiple leaders in a field—and we can be vague enough not to get into the matter of which one of those leaders is really the top leader.
I think "exerts a dominant influence" invites some POV battling by editors who would take that as being about the U.S. pushing people around.
I think I understand the reasons for switching from "areas of human interest" to "world affairs"—but I fear that this may be less vague, more specific. To me, "world affairs" sort of means big matters of politics on the global scale, while "human interest" allows more stuff, including, say, music, movies, TV, development of medicine, production of cars, &c., in which, in addition to political and financial stuff, the U.S. is a world leader.
President Lethe 18:41, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Both maybe? "Today, the U.S. continues to be a leader in human interests and world affairs." Jaxad0127 18:55, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I still like "a leader in areas of human interest including ....". This leaves it vague as to which areas the U.S. is a leader in (i.e. the reader could interpret 'areas of human interest' to include additional areas that are not mentioned if he/she thought it appropriate) while also being specific as to key areas in which the U.S. is undisputed a leader (such as the ones that I have mentioned and the ones that Lethe has mentioned). The list of specific areas should be short (not more than 4 or 5).
--Richard 18:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Human interests is IMHO just right-vague yet to the point. The sentence does not omit the fact that the EU might also be a leader in the fields of human interest. It does, however, state that US is a leader in certain fields of human interest. The sentence does not say it is the leader in all human interests. Signaturebrendel 19:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I still believe citing a few specifics such as military might, economic size, etc. are important. Without these, the phrase "fields of human interest" is so vague as to border on inanity. --Richard 08:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

How's this then: The second sentance be "The US remains a leading force in international affairs in varying issues from military conflict to economic agreements on trade." That sounds better as well as sort-of-neutral. User:Green01 1:18, 23 August 2006 (UTC).

Social Mobility in the US

Either the views of the Cato Institute et al. are woefully misrepresented, or they lack any merit whatsoever. I'd rather believe the former. European Universities, and others in the developed world, are scarcely dependent on your connections. They do, in fact, have a very similar system to the US, although whether they have tuition fees as a barrier varies, depending on the country. BovineBeast 10:35, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

The entire concept of social mobility is completely misunderstood by the folks who wish to use it to flog the United States. They simply do not understand what it means. For one thing the US was never about social mobility. For upward social mobility to be high, downward social mobility needs to be high as well. Social mobility is also relative.--Rotten 17:40, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
That doesn't seem to have...well, anything to do with my point. I'm discussing the university system in non-American developed countries, the article claiming that Cato Institute uses it as an example of why social mobility is encouraged in the US. I'm just pointing out that it's a pretty poor example, and hence quite possibly a misrepresentation of their position. BovineBeast 09:15, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
And I'm saying that the *entire concept* is flawed.--Rotten 04:57, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I think it is important to understand that social mobility is an abstract and thus also vague concept. Generally it is said that social mobility in Western Europe is higher than in the United States, as the US is not a well-fare state and post-scondary education (a major factor in social mobility) is not as affordable. Also, true social mobility can also mean a downward trend-but it is important to remember that social mobility similar to social class in the US is a vague concept consisting of several, sometimes contradicting theories. Regards, Signaturebrendel 17:43, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
If it's a vague concept, why not mention that in the section? The section makes it seem like it's conclusive. --Rotten 17:49, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I didn't author that specific section, but I've tried to mention that social mobilkity is a vague and abstract concpet-as socal class is itself. Regards, Signaturebrendel 17:59, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


The comparison between the U.S. and some other Western countries is changing. There was a big series of articles about this in The New York Times in May, based on various studies. One of the graphics accompanying one of the articles had text that read, in part, "Perhaps the most surprising part of the new mobility research is the comparison across countries. The United States, with a more egalitarian political tradition than many European nations, does not have significantly more mobility. In fact, it has less than Scandinanvian countries like Denmark and roughly the same as Britain." The graphic was a chart comparing five countries, whose income upward mobility of families over four generations had Denmark first, followed by Canada, France, the U.S., and the U.K. — Anyway, while there is a lot of social science and plenty of research and statistics in this field, I agree that it revolves around definitions that can vary from culture to culture and over time. — Just thought I'd point out the changing relative positions of some countries. — President Lethe 18:35, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Historically, social mobility in the US has been higher than most (if not all) other countries. Look at our presidents. The liberalization of Europe has shifted the balance. Jaxad0127 18:50, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I quite agree about the history. Was just drawing some attention to the 'non-static-ness' of the world. — President Lethe 19:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I disagree about the history. What shifted the balance in Europe was not the liberalization of Europe, which reached a peak around 1920, but the socialization of Europe that quickly followed the extension of the franchise. Marco polo 01:07, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
(I think that depends on what's meant by the multi-meaning word liberalization. — President Lethe 01:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC))
Right. It seems like half the disucssions on this talk page deal with the 'non-statis-ness' of the world. I'm just trying o remind people of their history. Jaxad0127 19:21, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't make sense. If the upward social mobility of all families increased in Denmark, then there WOULD BE NO SOCIAL MOBILITY. If the poor, middle class, and rich all get richer, then social mobility HAS NOT CHANGED AT ALL. You just have richer poor people, richer middle class, and richer rich people. This is why the subject isn't well understood by it's adherents. It's just a poorly thought out way to attack the United States.--Rotten 22:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Neither I nor the source I mentioned said that "upward social mobility of all families increased in Denmark". Also, neither I nor the source I mentioned said "the poor, middle class, and rich all get richer". And I'm not sure who you think is attacking the U.S. — President Lethe 22:51, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
When we say that one country has greater upward social mobility than another, it means that persons of class x in one of the countries have a greater chance (or incidence) of moving to class x+1 over a set period than persons of class x in the other country have of moving to class x+1 over the same period. Comparison: if you represent the average person in one country and I represent the average person in another country, and we are at identical positions on identical ladders, and then we are allowed to climb upwards for 10 seconds, and then your new position on your ladder is higher than my new position on my ladder, it means that you have greater upward social mobility than I have—you've moved a greater upward distance on the social scale than I have in the same period. — President Lethe 22:59, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I have just finished reading through and editing the article mainly for clarity and style, while making a few editorial adjustments for factuality and balance. I must say that I am very uncomfortable with the whole second paragraph on social mobility, beginning with "Conversely" and referring to the Cato Institute among others. The preceding paragraph states objectively that there is less social mobility in the United States than in most western European countries, although the assertions in that paragraph need citations to back them up. (I may try to find some.) However, this second paragraph offers not facts but opinions and interpretations by conservative and libertarian ("liberal" in the European sense) think-tanks. I am not sure that such opinions and interpretations of politically uncomfortable facts belong in an encyclopedia article. Or else, there should be a third paragraph offering the opinions and interpretations of left-wing intellectuals. Better, in my opinion, to delete the paragraph altogether. I did not do so because that would be a big change to a very visible article, and I think that such a change needs input from more than one person. What do others think? Marco polo 20:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Marco polo. I'm glad of your improvements in the article's language as well as some points of information. Also glad of your critical thoughts about possibly conflicting paragraphs. Today begins my brief vacation from Wikipedia, during which I may contemplate this stuff a bit. Maybe those of us who are interested can put together a list of reputable sources of facts, and their interpretations, about this topic and then come up with a paragraph or two that synthesize(s)/distill(s) what we've gathered. — President Lethe 21:16, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I got the feeling from reading that that the original author was anti-American. Personally I don't feel politics have any place in an article about the United States as a country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Disruptivehair (talk • contribs)

Okay. Now I have researched and added citations for the statements in the paragraph on social mobility. I removed disputable assertions for which I could not find citations. Having done this, I am inclined to delete the "conversely" paragraph presenting what I see as "spin" by conservative think tanks. If nobody presents a strong argument this deletion in the next three days, I will delete the paragraph. Marco polo 16:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure why it's a good thing. I mean you could concievably have a country with high social mobility that's getting poorer. I don't think that the US was ever about "high social mobility".--Rotten 19:40, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

About Marco polo's proposed deletion:

What is wrong with presenting the views of "conservative think tanks"? We present the views of various other groups that look at certain facts and interpret them in certain ways. As long as we say, either in line or in footnotes, whose view it is, and it has to do with the Wikipedia-relevant topic at hand, then it's fine for inclusion. Wikipedia isn't about excluding something just because one or more readers views the thing as "'spin' by conservative think tanks". It is about including varying and relevant views on topics from reputable, verifiable sources—which such organs as the Cato institute are, whether we agree or disagree with those organizations' views of one topic or another. We have to avoid our own weasel words and our own POV—but we can definitely cite others' points of view and quote their weasel words.

To Rotten's latest question:

Upward social mobility is inherently 'good', by definition. If upward social mobility is defined as improvements, achievements, successes, goal-reaching, in certain areas of a person's life, then the stuff is inherently good. No-one can reasonably say that success in general is bad; it's only what you're succeeding in (feeding your children, building a toy boat, murdering your neighbors) that can be good or bad. We would still say that someone who succeeds at burning all his/her neighbors to death is 'good' at burning the neighbors to death.
You cannot have upward social mobility with downward social mobility. Social mobility is indeed a zero-sum equation, while wealth is not. The "American dream" is about having a nice car/house and keeping up with the Joneses, not moving up or down social classes. You simply do not understand social mobility if you can't understand my point.--Rotten 03:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Also, I think that many who feel that among the unalienable rights of human beings are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", and that the U.S. is about securing these rights to human beings, would view the facilitation of upward social mobility something that the U.S. is about. Maybe I should express it in the opposite way: I think many would disagree with the idea that 'the U.S.' has an expressed desire to inhibit upward social mobility. In some social systems and their associated governments, there are expressed desires to inhibit class/caste-shifting.

To Disruptivehair:

I'm not sure what words you had in mind when you "got the feeling [* * *] that the original author was anti-American." (I'm not being sarcastic or rhetorical. I really don't know which words you meant and which ones you didn't mean.) But drawing attention to a flaw in a thing, or pointing out that another thing is better in one area, doesn't automatically equate to being 'anti-thing'. If your child (let's name it Sam) gets a poor mark on a test at school, is the teacher who marked the paper being 'anti-Sam'? Was the test 'anti-Sam' because it showed that Sam didn't do well on the test? And, if you tell Sam that there needs to be some improvement, are you being 'anti-Sam'?

President Lethe 22:53, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

What bothers me about that paragraph is that the argument makes no sense, nor does it really cite sources. It says that "social mobility is greater than numbers indicate". This makes no sense to me. The preceding paragraph cites studies that present actual data and statistics. This paragraph seems to be sheer opinion that dismisses the facts. I don't see the place that statements of opinion that dismiss or ignore the facts have in an encyclopedia. Furthermore, the rest of the argument makes little sense. The paragraph claims that free access to universities is limited only by the ability to pay rather than class or connections. This argument makes no sense because in other comparable developed countries 1) access to universities is not limited by class or connections, so this would not explain why social mobility is greater in the United States than the numbers indicate; 2) in other developed countries, such as Germany, access to universities is not even limited by ability to pay; and 3) the previous paragraph cites a source showing that in fact family connections do provide preferential access to elite U.S. universities. Thus the claim that the U.S. higher education system somehow offsets the data on social mobility lacks any merit. Finally, the paragraph links to our articles on these conservative think tanks, but does not cite any actual studies as sources for its (absurd) arguments. It is impossible to verify that the linked think tanks ever published such arguments.

The only citation in the article is a comparative study of "economic freedom" in the nations of the world. The study says nothing about social mobility. (I have perused it.) In fact, economic freedom may be a worthy ideal. I have no problem with the statement in an earlier paragraph that the U.S. has very high economic freedom. I think that that it is true. However, economic freedom and social mobility are arguably inconsistent. Economic freedom is in effect a lack of limits on what people with money may do with that money. One of the things people tend to do is to want to offer their offspring every possible advantage. Those with more money are able to offer their offspring more advantages in countries where economic freedom is more valued than equality of opportunity.

The reason that I would like to delete the paragraph beginning with "conversely" is that it seems rather ridiculous to someone who is knowledgeable and who examines the facts. I think that it weakens the article and makes it seem amateurish and naively ideological rather than encyclopedic and authoritative.

Another antidote to this unfortunate paragraph would be to add a paragraph citing left-wing institutions on the barriers to social mobility and the dangers this poses to democracy, but I think that this kind of point-counterpoint would also weaken the article, whose purpose should be to offer information about its subject, rather than a muddle of contrasting POVs and poor reasoning. Am I missing something?

I am very aware of the NPOV policy and avoid POV and weasel words in actual articles. My POV may show up on the discussion page, but everyone has one and to pretend otherwise is silly. The important thing is to know where to draw the line. Certainly the person who wrote the nonsense argument about economic freedom and social mobility had a POV and worked it into the article. What I am arguing is that it doesn't belong in the article.--Marco polo 00:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I may reply in more detail later tonight. Right now, though, I will say that I think I may have been confused earlier about which paragraph you meant. — President Lethe 01:48, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
O.K. Have read your post in detail now and had another look at the paragraph. Really, I was confused about which one you meant—which, regardless of what I might blame for that mental failing, is embarrassing. Anyway, yes, I agree with your criticism of the paragraph; it has always bothered me: but it, along with the History section and the one on Amerindians and a few other bits, are ones whose actual information I haven't yet concentrated on editing. I'm for removing it or really tidying it up. I also think the point–counterpoint business could get out of hand. — President Lethe 01:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Rotten wrote

You cannot have upward social mobility with downward social mobility. Social mobility is indeed a zero-sum equation, while wealth is not. The "American dream" is about having a nice car/house and keeping up with the Joneses, not moving up or down social classes. You simply do not understand social mobility if you can't understand my point.

Indeed I don't understand what you mean when you say "You cannot have upward social mobility with downward social mobility." What do "have" and "with" mean here? (I'm asking. Seriously.)

I"m sorry I meant "without downward social mobility". For you to move up, someone has to move down. Social mobility is a RELATIVE concept. You only move up or down in comparison to other people, not in any absolute sense.--Rotten 14:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Mobility is something that takes place over time. If there is a trend during a period for most persons of class n to progress to class n+1, then the persons who began at n have an upward trend in their social mobility; there may simultaneously be a trend for persons of class n–1 to move toward class n–2, which is downward mobility for that group. (The example I've just given might be called "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer", and shows that a certain segment of the population has upward mobility while another segment has downward mobility. If one segment is more populous than the other, and if they are the only two segments, then the average social mobility for the population as a whole is in the direction of whichever of the two segments is more populous.)

By definition of social mobility, as social mobility is a relative concept, you cannot have upward social mobility without corresponding downward social mobility. Remember, it's relative, it's about moving between quintiles within a population. For you to move up the social ladder, people have to move down it.--Rotten 14:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

As to definitions of the American dream: What it's about depends on whom you ask. For example, during 9–14 March 2005, a New York Times–CBS News poll asked respondents deemed a representative sample of the U.S. population "What does the phrase 'The American Dream' mean to you?" The results were "Financial security / steady job", 19%; "Freedom/opportunity", 20%; "Have a house/home", 13%; "Family", 7%; "Happiness / contentment / peace of mind", 19%; "Life in America", 1%; "Good job", 1%; "Successful", 7%; "Health", 2%; "Comfortable retirement", 2%; "To pay little/no taxes", N/A; "Doesn't exist / illusion / nothing", 2%; "Other", 2%; "Don't know / No answer", 5%.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000) defines the American dream as "An American ideal of a happy and successful life to which all may aspire". A large portion of the American population includes among these goals of success such things as increased wealth, increased/improved education, increased means to pursue one's interests, improved health and health care, &c.—each of which is often seen as connected in direct proportion to social class. Most Americans are not already at the top of the ladder in these various measures of which social class they occupy—and thus their desires to advance up these various ladders (money, education, whatever), their desires to be successful in this climb (thus, their 'American dream'), are desires for upward social mobility.

No they are desires for increases in absolute wealth, which has little to do with social mobility.--Rotten 14:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The preceding question in the poll, by the way, was "Do you think you will reach, as you define it, 'The American Dream' in your lifetime, or have you already reached it?" The responses were "Already reached it", 32%; "Will reach it in lifetime", 38%; "Will not reach it in lifetime", 27%; and "Don't know / No answer", 3%. Let's take the first two definitions, one of which was the most offered and the other of which tied for second place: "Financial security / steady job" and "Freedom/opportunity". If most believe they have not yet attained the Dream, and a plurality defines the Dream as financial security and/or a steady job, and another sizable portion defines it as freedom and.or opportunity (which may include financial freedom/opportunity), then we can conclude (1) that many see the Dream itself as something to be reached by some kind of progression, movement, mobility and (2) that many define the dream as something often considered connected to social class (e.g., less financial security means lower social class, while greater financial security means higher social class). So, for many, social class is part of the American dream, and, among those who feel they have yet to attain the Dream, movement up the social ladder is part of reaching the point at which they can say "We have lived the American dream" or "We are living the American dream". So, for them, upward social mobility is indeed part of the Dream.

You still DO NOT understand the concept of social mobility I'm afraid.--Rotten 14:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

President Lethe 04:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad we are on the same page, Pres. Lethe! I am going to go ahead and delete, then. It has been a few days since I proposed doing so, and I was especially concerned about your opinion, since you have taken a strong interest in this article. I will move the citation at the end of the offending paragraph back to the sentence referring to "economic freedom," since that is the sentence that the citation really supports.—Marco polo 14:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

There needs to be a rebuttal to the paragraph though, especially since it's such a poorly understood concept. --Rotten 14:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Rotten,
Whatever rebuttal exists should be coherent and include citations. Restoring the incoherent bit is worse for the article than having no rebuttal.
As to the relativity of social mobility: It depends on which measurement you choose to concentrate on. Let's say we have a very simple society of three persons, one of whom has $10, another of whom has $5, and the third of whom has $2. Let us say that time passes and that the $10 person still has $10 and the $2 person still has $2, but the formerly $5 person now has $8. It is true that the $10 person is now only $2, instead of $5, ahead of the formerly $5 person. It's also true that the $2 person is now $6, instead of $3, behind the formerly $5 person. But, if we go that way, then this one person's actual gain of $3 has resulted in a $6 ($3 each) relative drop in the financial positions of the top person and the bottom person. But there is only so much value to this consideration. Another fact is that (1) the $10 person still has $10, still is $8 ahead of the $2 person, and still is in the top tier; (2) the $2 person still has $2, still is $8 behind the $10 person, and still is in the bottom tier; and (3) the $5/$8 person, while still in the middle tier, has moved upwards, from being closer to the $2 person originally to being closer to the $10 person now. Yes, there is a relative aspect to it; but this relative aspect is not all of it and doesn't make the entire concept moot.
When people want to know how much a society is conducive to upward mobility, they want to know how much the society allows a person to climb up to higher positions than others, even if it means (at least in a relative sense and maybe in other senses too) that others get pushed down. The question is whether, and how much, a society is conducive to this kind of climbing (with the accompanying relative falling). This is significantly different from (1) a totally static society, in which, over time, the $2 person still has $2, the $5 person still has $5, and the $10 person still has $10 and (2) a society in which, over time, the $2 person becomes a $4 person, the $5 person becomes a $10 person, and the $10 person becomes a $20 person, which involves an equal doubling of everyone's money (and maybe a corresponding devaluing of the currency, so that it doesn't matter that the difference between the poorest and richest has jumped from $8 to $16—because the dollar is now worth half of what it used to be) and no change in the three persons' relative placement along the spectrum (the richest person still has five times as much money as the poorest, and the middle one still has 250% as much as the poorest and 50% as much as the richest).
President Lethe 15:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Rotten, I don't see why a "rebuttal" is needed to a factual paragraph. Do we need a rebuttal to the statement that a majority of Americans speak English as their first language? If not, then why do we need a rebuttal of the finding (by several studies) that the United States has a lower rate of social mobility than most other developed countries?
I also disagree that social mobility is a vague concept. It is a very precise concept, albeit a concept based on statistics that probably aren't widely understood. Social mobility is the probability that an individual's relative economic position (usually measured as percentile position by earnings) will differ substantially from that of his or her parents' relative position. I think that the the link to the Wiki article on social mobility is the best way to help the reader who doesn't understand the concept. I don't see how it helps the reader to add a "rebuttal" paragraph that makes no sense and lacks citations. Marco polo 16:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Whether or not it is vague isn't the problem. The problem is that a lack of social mobility in the United States compared to industrialized European nations sounds inherently negative. In reality, the section of the article which discusses social mobility does not mention that social mobility means just that. It doesn't mean that nation's poor have a great opportunity to rise from poverty over the course of their lifetime.
Too, I know that the article doesn't mention whether this is positive or negative, but anybody who would casually read that section would probably assume that it is a negative attribute which the United States possesses.
Maybe the social mobility section should be replaced by something which is more obviously positive or negative. By that, I mean perhaps the article should discuss whether Americans are becoming richer or just the wealthiest are. Then we could compare it with European nations. It's not very easy, I know. This undisputable lack of information is probably a good enough reason to omit that section of the article until someone can analyze and present information on a person's rise or fall in terms of quality of life/standard of living. --Thethirdperson 14:58, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Embraced by the Majority of Americans

Under the "Government and Politics" section, the writer stated; "--discrimination is fading with a more tolerant culture and the passage of numerous anti-discrimination laws, embraced by the majority of Americans." If the laws are indeed 'embraced by a majority of Americans', then this passage needs to cite statistical data. If not, this should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.210.251.138 (talk • contribs)

Seconded. Most Americans probably don't know what goes on in the US Congress. The recent Immigration Bill, yes. But generally, no. User:Green01 1:47 PM, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I bet someone can easily grab us a reputable public-opinion pole to cite. The fact that most Americans and their elected representatives aren't constantly saying "We need to bring back discrimination and get rid of all these laws against discrimation" probably indicates something about how Americans feel about such laws. — President Lethe 04:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

There are really no relaible statistics on public opinion (yeah, there are polls, but their results vary greatly) as such is relatibvely objective. The passage sounds correct and I agree with Lethe that an opinion poll or respecatable source can be found. Regards, Signaturebrendel 05:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Hatnote

The second sentence of the disambiguating hatnote talked about "disambiguation pages" and didn't mention redirection. It seemed needlessly confusing (esp. to those not familiar with WP) and a bit self-referencing, so I've changed it to a more standard text, also including unpiped links to the dab pages (as it seems de facto to not pipe within hatnotes so it is clear where links go).

I was tempted to remove the first sentence of the hatnote for brevity, but I wasn't totally sure that it was unnecessary, so I left it. However, redirect here hatnotes usually don't include this article is about... text (even where it would help disambiguation), and English speakers should know that United States &c nearly always refer to the United States of America. Not to mention, that it is obvious at a fleeting glance what the article is about when viewing it (i.e: reading it through a visual as opposed to an aural or tactile user agent) with the infobox and all. Any opinions?

Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley talk contrib 01:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Taliban: "Regime" or "Government"

We had this discussion a while ago. And about 3/5 of the people wanted "regime" and about 2/5 wanted "government". Yet, when I try to change it to "regime", people remove my edit.

If there wasnt enough arguments for using regime instead. Here's another one:

The average person (90% of people) reading this will interpret "government" very differently than "regime". And so "regime" is more accurate, in the way the average person thinks of the word.

People reading Wikipedia are NOT political scientists or historians. They dont the complicated defintions behind these two terms.

In their mind, a government is an elected body. While a regime is ussually a dictatorship (in the way they think.

This way of thinking about the words is also used in the media, and even by government officials themselves. Even the President uses the words lik this. For instace, President Bush NEVER has said "Taliban government". He has always referred to them as "Taliban regime."

So if 90%+ of the public, the media, and government officials (including the President), are using "regime" instead of "government" then we should also use that terminology.

Also, its been agreed in the previous discussion that, it wouldnt make a difference which term is used.

So then why isnt Wikipedia using "regime" instead of "government" when referring to the Taliban? I think we should.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tajik-afghan (talk • contribs) 01:46, 17 August 2006.

I still propose we use neither (the phrase "controlled Afganistan" keeps comming back to my mind). Jaxad0127 15:54, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Tajik-afghan, can you cite some sources to support your idea of the way in which 95% of the persons reading this article will interpret the words government and regime, and that they don't understand the "complicated definitions" of the words?

Government, quite simply, is whatever does the governing, whether it's good or bad, elected or not—and I trust that most readers know this. If they want to know the nature of the Taliban's government, or how it came to power, all they have to do is follow the link to the appropriate article. It seems generally agreed here that government is the neutral term while regime, however accurate in the eyes of many (including me), is much more POV.

Also, can you cite some sources for your contention that President Bush has "NEVER" said "Taliban government" and "always" said "Taliban regime"? And can you explain why President Bush should govern Wikipedia's usage? Heads of state and chief executives are almost required to be in the business of "spinning" facts by using certain words.

And your "95% [...] of the media" contention seems to be quite strongly contradicted by the sources that I found when this was discussed here some weeks ago. I posted the results of that informal research. [Tajik-afghan has changed the text of his/her post since I wrote my reply. At the time, the wording was indeed "95%". — President Lethe 19:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC)]

President Lethe 16:14, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

The most recent Archived discussion is at Talk:United States/Archive 18#the Taliban were a regime, NOT a government. — President Lethe 16:17, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe regime should be used as it was most often referred to as such. Also, the Taliban as a movement might have controlled Afghanistan or parts thereof but the Taliban as a government was, if I recall correctly, only recognized by three countries in the world, only one of which recognized it at its demise.--Kalsermar 18:06, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

The Archived discussion shows that "it was most often referred to as [a regime]" is probably untrue. (For example, an actual search showed "100% usage of government, not regime, in two Reuters articles, an absence of regime in articles from the Associated Press and The New York Times, and a much greater occurrence of search results for "taliban government" than for "taliban regime" at Google (almost 20 million vs. almost 7 million) and at the website of BBC News (70 pages vs. 27 pages).") The Archived discussion also addresses the matter of "recognition". — President Lethe 18:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, using this site "Taliban government" returns 368.000 while "Taliban regime" returns 1.180.000 or a 1:3.2 ratio. Using the quotation marks (") makes it search for the whole thing, ommiting them will also include all mentions of government or regime not pertaining to the Taliban. Having said that, I can live with neither as stated below thus omitting POV claims against regime while also avoiding calling it a government even though hardly anyone recognized it as such.--Kalsermar 19:25, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, using that page and the terms "taliban government -regime" and "taliban regime -government" (to eliminate pages where both words occur), government has 10,100,000, regime has 885,000. Thats 11.4 governments per regimes. Jaxad0127 20:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
That's funny because I just did and I get 50 vs. 33. Doing the same but the -place opposing term here part outside the quotes yield 318.000 for regime and 184.000 for government, a 1.7:1 for regime.--Kalsermar 20:20, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I meant without the quotes. I only used them becuase of the complexity of the search terms. Using "taliban goverenment" removes similar, yet equal, phrases like "taliban, government" and "government, taliban". Jaxad0127 20:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, but without the quotes it will give all mentions of government, not just the exact phrase Taliban government. My last searchresult is thus probably the most accurate as it includes the whole phrase but excludes the opposing one.--Kalsermar 20:39, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
But you're still excluding equivelant phrases, reducing the amount of occurences for "government." Many would consider that constructed, becuase your choosing a specific phrasing to favor your oppinion. Jaxad0127 20:42, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I still say we use neither word. 'Government' has it's own POV issues (makes it sound like the Taliban was official/legitimate). How about:
..., beginning with the overthrow of the Taliban, who controlled Afghanistan, in October 2001.
It gets the point across without any POV (unless you want to get technical about how much of Afghanistan they controlled). Jaxad0127 18:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

The Taliban isn't yet overthrown as an entity. It is overthrown as the government of Afghanistan. This is why we have to be specific that it was the Taliban government that was overthrown. Also, apart from Tajik-afghan's personal view of what 95% of Wikipedians think the word government means, I've yet to see the 'POV-ness' of the word brought to light. The definitions cited in the Archive show that, while regime has plenty of POV attached to it, government is about as NPOV as we can get while still concisely being specific that it was the Taliban government that was overthrown (as opposed to the Taliban entity that still exists but no longer governs Afghanistan). — President Lethe 19:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok then, how about "beginning with the overthrow of the group that controlled Afghanistan, the Taliban, in October 2001?" It avoids both words with less ambiguity than my last suggestion. Jaxad0127 05:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
The Taliban has not been overthrown. Only the Taliban's government has been overthrown. We would have to get into several words about overthrowing them as the government or as the group that controlled the country. There is a significant difference between (1) saying that a group that controlled a country was thrown out and (2) saying that a group that controlled a country was thrown out of its controlling position. The former is not true of the Taliban, while the latter is. It's like the difference between saying that U.S. President So-and-So was removed (removed from what? the bathtub? the White House? the country? the office of the presidency?) and saying that President So-and-So was removed from office. — President Lethe 15:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Then what about this: "beginning with the overthrow of the Taliban's control over Afghanistan, which they ruled, in October 2001?" Its quite clear what was overthrown. And my last suggestion could easily be taken as the groups control was ended. Jaxad0127 16:47, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I like your edit summary, Jaxad!
You are right about what your previous suggestion could be taken as meaning. But it equally could (and reasonably so) be taken as meaning something else.
I'm glad you continue to try different ideas. I understand how you see a problem in 'government'—and I'm glad that you seem to understand the problems I've pointed out in the various other options that have been tried or suggested.
Sometimes I have to push my brain to get loose of the wording we have and loose of the suggested replacements, and think of something new (as sort of happened with the issue about the U.S. being the only superpower immediately after the Soviet collapse and the inferences about the U.S. position in 2006).
Maybe we could say something like "beginning with the removal of the Taliban from the seat of Afghan government". This doesn't directly say that the the Taliban was a government (which you and some others seem to dislike because of the idea that government is too positive a word for the Taliban (a viewpoint that I don't share but that I do understand)) but also doesn't imply that the Taliban was entirely destroyed or that it no longer has any control over anything in Afghanistan (which, along with not using regime, is one of my concerns).
What do you think?
President Lethe 17:08, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good, but it still uses the contested word "government." Maybe a mix of our two approaches: "beginning with the removal of the Taliban's control over Afghanistan." I always look forward to reading your replies. They're always so well thought out. You should write a book. Jaxad0127 17:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, originally, which I guess was a few weeks ago, I made the point about the 'least common demoninator', what with our agreeing that a regime was a kind of government, agreeing that the term government included, among other things, regimes. Also, when the Taliban came to power, what they did was take over the government. I really think government is the best available word, in an imperfect language, in an imperfect world, for talking about control of a country. The Taliban was a unified group that exerted control over a large portion of Afghanistan's geography and population, and had a specific (albeit nasty) form of exercising this control, and had persons occupying various positions and offices, and had a specific seat of control, in Kabul—all these things are part of the definition of government.
I understand that you don't want government to be taken as conferring some kind of legitimacy on the Taliban. (But the legitimacy isn't ours to judge at Wikipedia, and government seems to me to be the word that is least POV while still accurately describing what was happening when the Taliban governed Afganistan.) Anyway, it's because of your concern, along with the fact that the Taliban did kick out the previous government (also not a free democracy) and did end up being replaced by another government (heading a bit more toward freedom, &c.), that I thought we might say the Taliban were removed from the seat of government without actually directly calling the Taliban a government. The seat of government is definitely what they occupied. They were the ones making and executing and judging the laws; they were the ones ordering public projects, commanding the military, &c., &c. That's the stuff of government.
I look forward to your posts too. :-)
President Lethe 17:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
In response to Kalsermar's above post beginning "Actually":
You are right about the problem of searching without quotation marks around the pair of words. The problem of searching with quotation marks around the pair of words is that not only leaves out such results as "The Japanese government didn't recognize the Taliban" but also leaves out such results as "The Taliban was the government of Afghanistan".
I repeat that the issue of "recognition" was addressed in the Archived discussion.
But let's take a look at the results of the search without the quotation marks at Google.com. I'm relying on the 'snippets' that appear on the search-results page.
1. [2] mentions "the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan" and mentions "the Taliban Government".
2. [3] mentions "the Taliban government".
3. [4] mentions "Afghanistan's infamous Taliban government".
4. [5] mentions "The Taliban government".
5. [6] mentions "the Islamic Government of Taliban".
6. [7], from May 2001, describes "the Taliban regime" as "the government in Kabul".
7. [8] mentions "the Taliban government".
8. [9] describes the Taliban's origins in a group "intent on once again dominating the central government in Kabul".
9. [10] mentions "the very Taliban government".
10. [11] mentions "the Taliban government".
A search at http://www.nytimes.com for "taliban government" and "taliban regime", each with quotation marks, provides 167 for regime and 408 for government.
With quotation marks, a search of news at Reuters.com gives 0 results for "taliban regime" and 5 for "taliban government". The snippets from those five different articles, dated 19 and 25 July and 1, 8, and 12 August 2006, have "US-led forces toppled the Taliban government, allied to al Qaeda, in 2001", "US-led coalition troops overthrew the Taliban government in 2001", "US-led coalition forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001", "US-led forces overthrew the Taliban government in 2001", and "the ouster of the Taliban government in 2001".
Even when we dig down to the 36th page (each page bearing 10 results) of the Google results for "taliban government" without quotation marks, there are seven results ([12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], and [18]) whose snippets mention the "Taliban government"; another talks about recognition of "the Taliban as the legitimate government in Kabul"; another result indeed comes from finding the two terms independent of each other on the same webpage (though that webpage links directly to an article from November 2001 that mentions "Afghanistan's Taliban rulers" without ever using the word regime); and the remaining one of those ten on the 36th page of Google results also comes from combining the frequent mentions of the Taliban with the frequent mentions of Pakistan's government (yet, even that article, which uses the word Taliban twelve times, fails to use the word regime even once).
President Lethe 20:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Anoter factor that we should consider is that only 3 nation-states recognized the Taliban as a government. They were Pakistan, U.A.E., and Saudi Arabia. There were no other nation-states that considered the Taliban as a government. And neither did the United Nations, or any other organizations. So if almost all political entities in this world did NOT consider the Taliban as a government, then how can we call them a government? troy 01:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

As I pointed out in two different posts above, the Archived discussion of this topic deals with the "recognition" issue. There, one user made this post:
Hello, all. If you'll indulge me, I'll venture to stick my nose in here momentarily. As a political scientist, I can assure you that the Taliban was the de facto government of Afghanistan. They exercised soveriegn control over all areas of economic, social and legislative policy within the country and were responsible for foreign relations, affairs of state and managing (or mismanaging) taxes -- all of which, by definition, made the Taliban the government. Not being "democratically" elected or "recognized" by other countries does not equate to "not a government"--WilliamThweatt 22:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
In response to that post, another user wrote
Thank you. It's really very simple. "Government" is NPOV, "regime" is POV. We are an encyclopedia, and we are not bound to follow President Bush's usage, but rather our own policies. --Guinnog 22:10, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
In one post there, I wrote
"Taliban Movement" has a section called "Life under Taliban government", which uses "government" and similar words in more than just the section heading. The article's intro also talks about the Taliban's recognition by the unrecognized government (government, not regime) of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. The article mentions the Taliban government more often than it mentions the Taliban regime; in fact, the word regime occurs only once in the whole article.
In another post, in response to another editor's idea that we call the Taliban the "de facto government", I wrote this:
I think getting into "de facto" would look like getting into the matter of, say, Israel as a de facto state. (I'm always amused by the idea that people are trying to destroy a state whose existence they don't acknowledge. It's like when Pan-Am 103 exploded over an island that, on the maps in the background of Libyan TV news sets, didn't even exist.) I think "de facto" is both unnecessary and somewhat POV. The many nations that never "recognized" the Taliban as the government Afghanistan still griped about the fact that it was ... governing Afghanistan. If it hadn't been the government of Afghanistan, there wouldn't have been an effort to knock it out of the position of ... governing Afghanistan. I myself think the Taliban was a nasty regime; but I still think Wikipedia would do better just to call it a government in this sentence. This also reminds me of the scene in The Madness of King George when, well after the Treaty of Paris, George III is looking at a globe and speaking contemptibly of "the Colonies" and an advisor says something like "they are called the United States". Whether we like it or not, the Taliban was the only group governing Afghanistan when it was in power. Groups that govern for several years are usually called "governments", regardless of how people feel about them, not "de facto governments". In fact, in talk of the Taliban, "de facto government" seems even less supported by other reference works and the media and general popular usage than "regime". — President Lethe 19:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
This whole matter of 'recognition' is really a game of avoiding ascribing too much legitimacy to someone with whom one disagrees. It's like refusing to talk to a family member at the dinner table, pretending the person isn't there. The fact is that a main reason most countries didn't 'recognize' the Taliban government of Afghanistan is that they didn't like the way in which the Taliban was governing Afghanistan. I didn't like it either, but this is exactly what it was. Governing.
President Lethe 04:03, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Demographics

Can anyone offer proof of the 80/20 ratio for the country's distrubution of wealth or is this an assumption based on urban legend and the pareto principle. I think it should be taken out. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 192.91.147.35 (talk • contribs) 16:14, 17 August 2006.

Hi, 192.91.147.35. Please, sign your posts on Talk pages. I suggest using a web search engine to look up such terms as "income distribution united states" and reading some articles on it. For example, in the near future, I may end up reading http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/income.html, http://www.econlib.org/library/ENC/DistributionofIncome.html, and http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/CDA99-07.cfm, among others, which I found by that method. — President Lethe 22:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

As an European, I'm afraid that the sentence "Obesity is also a public-health problem, which is estimated to cost tens of billions of dollars every year." may be confusing: are we talking in "american billions" (1.000.000.000) or in "european billions" (1.000.000.000.000)? Maybe adding an approximate figure in parentheses can solve this, if anybody else finds it potentially confusing, as in:

Obesity is also a public-health problem, which is estimated to cost tens of billions of dollars (between 70.000.000.000$ and 95.000.000.000$) every year.

212.170.237.65 14:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi there. The U.S. billion has nine 0s after the 1. In the U.K., although the billion once commonly had twelve 0s, it now has 9. The reader should consider the context. That said, I will link the word in this article to the "Billion" article. (This confusion, by the way, is why I prefer to use numerals, instead of words, to represent those large numbers. But (1) it gets us into the problem of significant figures and (2) the style preferred by other editors is to use the words instead of the numerals.) — President Lethe 15:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Sports

This is a very small thing, but is Ice Hockey really that popular in here that we'd say The Big Four as opposed to the big three? C'mon, here Hockey is definitely a niche sport. 68.48.204.116 10:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I would say it is. --Golbez 10:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree that Ice Hockey is a niche sport, although a large one. Half of the players in the NHL are from Canada, and while college games are broadcast regularly in the other three sports, it's rare to see a broadcast of a college hockey game at all. Howaboutadog 01:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I have never seen a brodcast of a college baseball game. And the main reason they don't brodcast hockey games is because of the lack of teams in the southern areas. I'am from New York and 90% of the people I know perfer hockey over basketball.


hawaii

Hawaii, the fiftieth state, is an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean.

i find this sentance problematic. the entire archipelago is not the state, the midway islands aroung otheres are part of the hawaiian archipielago but not part of the state of hawaii

i think it would be accurate if it were worded

Hawaii, the fiftieth state is located in an archipelago of the same name in the Pacific Ocean. or Hawaii, the fiftieth state constitutes the majority of the archipelago of the same name in the Pacific Ocean.

any thoughts??Qrc2006 09:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Qrc2006.
I see your point. But I have two counterpoints to it.
1. Saying an apple is a fruit is not the same as saying all fruits are apples. In other words, saying that Hawaii the state is an archipelago is not the same as saying that an entire archipelago is occupied by nothing but Hawaii the state.
2. I'm not sure that, when the word archipelago is used to mean 'a group of islands', it is required to mean 'the entire group of islands that could be considered a group'. It would indeed be screwy to say that Canada is a continent, because it's only part of the continent. But, I've never before encountered this 'all or nothing' definition of archipelago. By the definitions I find in dictionaries, we could have a group of 100 islands relatively near one another in a large ocean and we could (1) call the whole group an archipelago and (2) pick out any, say, 30 of those 100 islands and call them an archipelago too.
Still, if we were to change the wording, how about something shorter, like "Hawaii, the fiftieth state, occupies an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean"?
President Lethe 15:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


i see youre point, but there is indeed a Hawaiian Archipelago and a designated area which constitutes this which does not match up with the borders of the states. so maybe...

"Hawaii, the fiftieth state, occupies an most of an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean"?Qrc2006 19:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Most of an archipelago is still an archipelago. This is getting overly pedantic, and should be dealt with, if at all, on the Hawaii page, not here. --Golbez 22:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


ok someone changed it but the new wording is also confusing.

The island state of Hawaii is situated in the Pacific, southwest of the North American mainland. the island state of hawaii is great, too bad hawaii is not one island it is several

Im going to change it to

The state of Hawaii is situated in the Pacific Ocean, southwest of the North American mainland within a chain of islands.


Furthermore, pedanticism is quite useful on a project like wikipedia, wheras the best written and most accurate collaborative wording can evolve. Qrc2006 10:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

education

After high school, students may choose to attend universities, either public or private.

i find this sentance somewhat problematic, i think it should refer to a few more things.

such as, if Grades and Money permit it, since poor people and those with poor grades cannot simply choose to go to college. or perhaps refer to the more affordable and grades-not-mattering community colleges aswell Qrc2006 09:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

why don't united states sign ctbt

i am sushant from india. i just want to ask united states government that you are compelling others to sign ctbt. first why don't you sign it. afterall you are also the part of this world. let us all take pledge to destroy these weapons. but i only want united states to sign it first. then i am sure that india will sign ctbt.

your welwisher Sushant gupta 15:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)sushant gupta

You mean the NPT? The behaviour of the British Empire pre-1914 is a good example. A small effort was made in the European capitals to restrain themselves from killing civialins. Air power was just developing, so a treaty was proposed that meant it's illegal to kill civialins by air. By ground it would be legal, but not by air. The treaty was never signed because Britain refused. David Lloyd George, Liberal Prime Minister, praised his Foreign Secretary and justified the literal veto in a letter saying "We have to reserve the right to bomb the niggers." The US is behaving like other world powers today and as in the past.

Can I just point out what the guy above says above Lloyd George is a lie? The word "nigger" was not in common use in Britain at the time for one thing - its an American form of abuse --SandyDancer 00:53, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Double standards are the same for just about any country and politican, pick your favourites to mention if you want but it's generally the same. Do you think the French denounciation of the FLN in the Algerian War of Independence for terrorism was without hypocracy? User:Green01 2:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC).

No, I think Sushant meant the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which we have signed but not ratified. The U.S. is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That said, Talk Pages are not the place for extended discussions of national policy or any other topic that is not directly related to the editing of Wikipedia articles. Take this discussion to a different forum, please. --Richard 06:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Administrative Divisions

Insular Areas

There is a major error in the Administrative Divisions section of the page. When discussing insular areas, the article puts in parenthises "United States Minor Outlying Islands." This is a specific group of islands which by no means encompasses all United States insular areas - the largest of which, Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Marianas Islands all have a different status than the Minor Outlying Islands. I would fix this problem myself immediately, but the page is locked to non registered users so I hope someone makes the changes as soon as possible. 128.59.180.62 15:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure someone will look into it. Or you could register yourself and make the change yourself. You don't have to give up all kinds of personal information when registering. — President Lethe 15:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

"Administrative" should read "Political"

The heading "Administrative Divisions" is a misnomer. The 50 States, DC, etc., are NOT administrative divisions of the United States -- they are Political Entities. In particular, the several states are constitutionally parallel jurisdictions to the United States (i.e., the federal state), not subdivisions of it.

The ADMINISTRATIVE Divisions of the United States are:

I. U.S. Congress
A. Senate
1-50. The several states
B. House of Representatives
1-435. The Congressional districts
437. Non-voting delegates
C. Article I Courts (tax, bankruptcy, etc.)
Etc.

II. U.S. Executive
A. The President and Presidency
1. Executive Office of the President
a. White House Office
Etc.
B. The Cabinet and Cabinet Departments, Agencies, etc.
C. Government-owned Corporations (e.g., U.S. Postal Service, etc.)
Etc.

III. U.S. Judiciary
A. Supreme Court
B. U.S. Court of Appeals
1. First Circuit
Etc.
C. U.S. District Court
1. California
a. Northern District
b. Eastern District
c. Central District
d. Southern District
etc.

Since the information currently labeled "Administrative Divisions" is about Political Entities, not about the actual administrative divisions of the United States as a federal state, the heading should be changed to "Political Entities" or at least to "Political Divisions," though constitutionally they are not actually divisions of the United States. The territories are real property owned by the United States, and they can be sold or disposed of by the United States. The District of Columbia is also real property owned by the United States, but the U.S. Constitution effectively forbids its sale by requiring the United States to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over it. The 50 individual states, on the other hand, are sovereign entities which are NOT the property of the United States and cannot be bought or sold, or their boundaries changed in any way, with their express consent. 207.200.116.138 23:35, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

This bit of terminology may be tricky. "Political entities" could also mean "politicians", "political parties", "public policy", &c. The administration of government within the United States is divided between the federal and the state; on the state side, it is divided among the states. Right beneath the section header, the linked article is about "Political divisions". I'm not sure what change, if any, would be best for this section name. I thought of "Subnational divisions", but that seems also open to misinterpretation. Anyway, the body of the section should (if it doesn't already) make quite clear what is meant by the name of the section; after all, we should no more base our understanding of a section on just its name than we would think the content of a whole book is limited to whatever the title brings to mind. (By the way, in I:B above, where is 436? Is it just a typo or am I misunderstanding?) — President Lethe 04:24, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

new colonies?

"After European exploration and settlement in the 16th century, the English established new colonies"

there were old ones? maybe drop the "new" or change to new settlements? maybe mentioned that these were conquests of allready inhabited lands? Qrc2006 19:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Good point about "new". Paragraph already says lands have been inhabited for 15,000 years. I'll remove "new". — President Lethe 20:57, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Oops. I was just going to remove "new" when I remembered why it was there. It was to differentiate English control of colonies STARTED BY ENGLAND from English TAKEOVER of colonies STARTED BY OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES. Still, the differentiation remains without "new"—so I'll still remove "new". — President Lethe 20:59, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Human rights

I just browsed throught the corresponding article about Iran, and saw that there's a section about human rights there. Shouldn't there be one in this article also? Of course not written in an anti-US manner, but it's an issue in a large part of the world, and I think it should be mentioned.62.142.46.22 22:55, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

In two different places, this article has links to "Human rights in the United States". Plus, the "History" section mentions the civil-rights movement, and the "Government and politics" section mentions various human rights (speech, religion, &c.) and links to more articles about these rights. Human rights in any country, including one as powerful as the U.S., are extremely important—but how much mention they deserve in an article that is a general overview of a country is another question. — President Lethe 23:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I suggest a Criticism of the United States section, with dodt points of regular and recent criticism of the US. We have 'contraversy' sections in bio pages on politicains like Bush and Blair and considering the US is probably the most opposed nation in the world on froeign policy, from Iraq to the Kyoto protocall I propose we have one. The human rights dot point/paragraph can include Guantanamo Bay, Abu Griab and US prison standards, for example. User:Green01 1:25, 23 August 2006 (UTC).

The examples you cited are criticisms of the foreign policy of the United States, not the United States itself. Unless you're planning to print a more direct criticism of the country, you should keep foreign policy criticism to a separate page. If that is your intention, I would suggest putting it on a talk page first, since ideas like this can get personal pretty quickly.Papercrab 15:21, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
No more stupid criticism pages. Hell even the ones I agree with shouldn't be there. Criticisms are NOT encyclopedic. Encyclopedias state the facts. Leave the politics at home, nimrods.--Rotten 20:01, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Let's be nice and stay clam. Few countries have a critism section here on WP. Rotton is correct in stating that "Criticisms are NOT encyclopedic." Here on WP we can only cover an issue (e.g. The Kyoto protocall) and must represent all possible vantage points. Adding a crisitms section would be unecyclopedic as cirtisms are featured within each section in order to provide the balanced, neutral and facutal view we are striving for here on WP. Regards, Signaturebrendel 20:26, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't we have a "Support" section for every "Criticism section", if we're to be "balanced". 2nd Piston Honda 05:15, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Which is why we're proposing to keep this in a seperate article, where more room could be given to keep things balanced. Jaxad0127 05:18, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I mean, in general. There are so many articles with criticism sections but no support sections. It's one of the things that really bugs me about WP. 2nd Piston Honda 06:19, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
So true, so true. If the article's name includes the word "criticism," it's kind of hard to provide support information without going off-topic. Those articles usually maintain balance by listing several different criticisms, types of criticisms, etc. Jaxad0127 07:46, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Criticisms are valuable in my opinion. People have criticisms, so we can report those. We state that they are opinions, so what is the deal. If we were only to state dry facts, Wikipedia would become more dictionary like I think.
I do agree that this might not be the right place for such a thing, though I think we should mention it on the foreign relationsship part.Now it only says the policies cause "discussion", which seems a bit of an understatement, if it isn't a weasel word. HichamVanborm 17:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

First European colonization of the Americas

The start of the History section says, "Before the European colonization of the Americas, a process that began at the end of the 15th century, the present-day continental U.S. was inhabited exclusively by various indigenous tribes ...". Shouldn't this be qualified in some way to take account of the Vinland colonization, which was an earlier European colonization of the Americas (even though it didn't last)? Nurg 08:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

What is the opinion of the US from non-americans

Just asking Zazaban 03:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Uhh... no offense but... I don't think that there is going to be any authority or validity on this pole. Such as complex question cannot be answer by just asking a few persons. You'd need to ask a lot of people. But let me try and answer your question from my vantage point-that of a German-American. In Germany sentinemtns are generally very pro-American for a ouple of main reasons. One, the US was Germany's first big ally after WWII and of course the Marshall plan helped Germany back on its feet. Also, American are generally speaking more fond of Germans than many other Europeans (more so in the past-this is espcially true of older generations). Many Europeans still think of Germans as arrogant and nationalistic-American do not. Yet another important reasons is, at least, in Germany there is image of the friendly American, greating you similing from ear to ear-something many German tourists note when they travel to the US is the high degree of politness and friendliness. For these reasons and the general similarities between American and German cultures the US has enjoy quite great esteem among Germans. Oreo cookies and Brownies, for example, were sold wrapped in partiotic American packaging and when Bill Clinton visited Cologne people lined up for hours just to catch a glimps of him. Of course, the recent disagreement concerning the Iraq conflict and the rise of fanatical evangelsism has strained American-German relations. While Germans are very capable of distinguishing between having a dislike for the Bush admin/its forgein policy and the American people. The rise of fundamental chrsitanity in the US is another cause for concern for many Germans. To be blunt for Germans its like "Our Big Pal across the pond is going nuts." So, while pro-American sentinments are still stronger than anti-American and the image of the similing American persists in Germay, recent trends have hurt relations somewhat. Regards, Signaturebrendel 06:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

You have no idea what it's like being next to it Zazaban 16:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Back and Forth

Preslethe --

The reasons for the revision (re: the ancestry of the referenced slave labor) were most certainly addressed in the talk page for this encyclopedia entry (before said talk page was archived, purportedly due to its length: see USA Talk Page: Archive 18). Addressed there and at your personal talk page, before you removed said extended response and placed it within your history page, sans a response of your own (aside, of course, said removal). Such activities ( along with your fourth redaction of any reference to the ancestry/race of the slaves) can only lead me to rather obvious conslusions as to your agenda.

As I consider this overt agenda less than worthy of time, effort or belabored contention, I leave this U.S.A. page to you, as you like it: no reference to the genocide of the indigenous peoples of this continent without whose slaughter none of these Anglo/Franco/Iberian-American settler nations could have been forged, no reference to the fact that it was Black slaves of exclusively African hertiage who were sold and carted across the pound as chattel who would engage cotton/tobacco/indigo -picking labor in a system of race-based exploitation which was ultimately responsible for the rise of American agrarian hegemony, scant reference to the immigrants who were lured here in the late 19th century only to be brutally exploited and forcibly ostrazized in the burgeoning American city (and on the frontier) to engage in the most arduous of factory work, thereby allowing the Industrial Age to take root in postbellum America without interrupting the standing U.S. class hierachy, no reference to ninety years of Jim Crow apartheid, marginalizing and disenfranchising the former Black slave as the U.S.A. used its agrarian riches as a capital-buouyed springboard in propelling itself into its new twentieth century identity as 'the' industrialized warfare-waging global power. No reference, no context, little clarity, little significance, grand ambiguity, "profound" superficiliaty: bleached blabber. Enjoy.

sewot_fred 06:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

B ojikutu / sewot_fred, there tends to be an expectation that talk archives will not have lengthy posts added to them. Archives are generally left untouched except when editors resurrect entire sections of them by moving those sections back to the current talk pages. It is reasonable that readers who keep an eye on current talk pages may not see your additions to the archives of those pages. — President Lethe 06:22, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I do recall that my response to the prior Talk Page discussion was added post archival, however. Yet I certainly know that I addressed the matter of your revisions clearly in your own personal talk page long prior your quasi-archival/removal of all Talk from that Page. This is significant because you assert that the matter of the edits in question was left unaddressed, although you were apparently well aware of the "lengthy" treatment afforded said edits, well aware that it was within your discretion to cut-and-paste said response to the USA discussion page (as you'd done with prior commentary regarding the same subject matter), rather than disingenuously asserting that the edits in question had been left un-addressed by the editor (me). Peace.

sewot_fred 06:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

• "no reference to [* * *] Black slaves of exclusively African hertiage"? — "And Soul food, which originated among African slaves, is extremely popular in the U.S. as well"; "Descendants of enslaved West Africans preserved some cultural traditions from West Africa in the early United States"; "African Americans, or Blacks, largely descend from Africans who arrived as slaves during the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, and number about 35 million or 12.9% of the population."
• "no reference to the immigrants"? — The article mentions immigrants several times, including "After the Civil War, an unprecedented influx of immigrants, who helped to provide labor for American industry and create diverse communities"
• "no reference to [* * *] Jim Crow"? — "At the same time, discrimination across the United States, especially in the South, was increasingly challenged by a growing civil-rights movement headed by prominent African Americans such as Martin Luther King, Jr., which led to the abolition of the Jim Crow laws in the South.[5]"
President Lethe 06:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

We we/are treating the history section of this piece, no? Aside that, your first rejoinder is inane -- I hope you intended that diversity/Soul Food/pap response as a joke. If not . . .

2) This is prime e.g. of this section's tendency toward bleached blabber --as you choose to frame this American history as conflict-neutered as possible. You think such innocuous pap does justice to the late-19th century/20th centurey immigrant experience . . . and the manner in which the immigrant came here to be exploited by the burgeoning industial infrastructure? Conflict between the immigrant workers, the capital class, the rising union movement, and the eventual Black northern migrant/worker fueled America's domestic history in the 20th century. And you seek to portray some spiel about an influx of workers helping to provide labor and diverse communities (ethnically and racially stratified, but in your apple pie jargon, "diverse") as a means of addressing the significance of the immigrants. Again, you lobby for superficiality over substance.

3) Jim Crow was the system of economic, political, cultural, race- based apartheid imposed upon the "freed" slaves at the end of Reconstruction, and it remained law of 1/3 of the US's land though the mid-1960s in the American South, where almost all "Black Americans" lived until the post-Depression, post-World War II epochs. Thus, your reference to the paragraph about "discrimination across the United States"/Martin Luther King/Civil Rights Movement truly has little-to-nothing to do with the legacy of Jim Crow in this America, the manner in which the country's eco-cultural-social and racial reality was born out of a system of de jure stratification protected, preserved and promulgated in eighteen of the states for a full century after the Civil War ended.

You seek to propogate, then defend, the most banal treatments of this country's seminal circumstances. It's fine, do as you may, and spin whomever wants to ride upon your trite rhetorical merry-go-round in the process. God bless.

sewot_fred 07:18, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. This huge article recently underwent drastic revisions to cut down its length, so that it is accessible to as large an audience as possible (Wikipedia is an international project). The inevitable result is that its treatment of any particular topic will be light, bland, and superficial, but that's because, as a compromise, we've shifted all the treatment of all the complicated issues into subarticles. For example, as a expert on the history of technology, I would prefer more treatment of that topic in this article, but I also concede that history of technology is a rather dry subject for most people and therefore I'm satisfied with the brief mention and links it gets. Everyone had to give a little to make the current readable version possible; the earlier versions (check the history) a couple of years ago were really bloated. --Coolcaesar 07:41, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Coolcaesar --

That is fine. Understand two things as you enter this discourse, however: 1) The tone of the current U.S. history section is quite distinct from that of other global-cultural crossroad nations as presented within Wikipedia's own "pages". Compare the narrative presented here to that contained within the shorter history sections for countries such as India, South Africa and Brazil. In far fewer words, those pages offer allusions to the manner in which lineage, race, ethnicity and economics collided to shape the chronological progression of such nation states -- references that might actually lend one to the further exploration of such nuanced elements of history. Conversly, the U.S. history page reads like a glancing pre-middle school, "color blinded" civics-building treatment of the evolution of two centuries plus of this country's narrative. Replete with bullet points; devoid of anything that might suggest complexity or beneath-the-surface nuance.

2) The current conversation is not about an attempt to add layers of information to the United States history page. No, Coolceasar, it is about my attempt to edit the reference to "slave labor" within that section such that it referred to said chattel as Black and/or of African descent. My only other earlier edits as per this topic were less than ten words which alluded to the fact that the Civil War was about more than one region embracing slavery and another seeking to end the peculiar institution. Period. One-to-three words this time around -- the removal of which seem to have far more to do with an attempt to fallaciously revise the historical chronicle itself (perhaps for easy postscript global, and future, domestic digestion) -- than it does with any effort to preserve the articles' concision. Wordiness came in Preslethe's belabored attempts to refute these one-to-three words, and in my own responses thereto. Best,

sewot_fred 16:40, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

A problem in B ojikutu's / sewot_fred's more-recent edits of the slavery sentence has always been that they misplace the emphasis. What I keep removing is this idea that "The South wanted to keep slavery because it enslaved black people."
I have never objected, or said that I object, to this article's making a huge mention of what group of human beings was enslaved in the U.S. I will continue to object, though, to putting into this sentence words that put the emphasis in the wrong place.
The reason for which the South wanted to keep/extend slavery was that, regardless of the color or sex or age of those enslaved, it kept the Southern economy working. The point was about having unpaid, forced labor from "owned" people.
Sure, the country had loads of racists who thought it fitting that black people, and not white people, were slaved. But their main reason for defending slavery was that it occupied, in the economy, the place that only slavery can occupy (no matter whether the people are black or of some other race, no matter whether they have long hair or short).
I have never once tried to keep out of this article the racial nature of slavery (in fact, I think my edit history will show I have never tried to keep out of the article the facts that B ojikutu wishes it had more of); but I will always press for appropriately placed specifics.
I would not object to the facts presented by such wording as "Slaves in the U.S. were of mostly black ancestry; they and/or their ancestors were forced out of Africa, across the sea, into hard labor in the U.S., at the hands of whites. Because the Southern economy depended on slavery, many whites, especially those in the South, wished to maintain or even expand slavery. Many proponents of slavery were also racist against blacks." (I'm not suggesting that we put those words into the article. I'm just giving an example of the kind of facts, presented in proper relation to one another, that I have no 'agenda' to keep out of the article.)
But I will continue to object to any wording that, instead of keeping the "Who were the slaves?"/"Who liked slavery?" question separate from "Why did people want to keep slavery?" question, has the effect of "Southerners wanted to keep slavery in the Southern economy because the slaves were black."
I also point out that there is a difference between saying "The article makes no mention of x" and saying "I don't like the way in which, or the degree to which, the article mentions x". One gives a straightforward impression of the writer's feelings, while the other, if the text in fact does mention x, contradicts facts and makes the writer seem either unaware of the facts or in denial of the facts.
It's my impression that most regular editors to this article and this talk page already understand my history here and probably have a better idea of my motives and goals than B ojikutu / sewot_fred has explicitly indicated; but maybe another explicit statement from me will help clarify my stance.
President Lethe 19:44, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

We disagree here. The doctrine of Euro-Caucasoid racial superiority to the African Negroid was concocted to justify the institutions of the Transatlantic slave trade and, then, the sustenance of the U,S. Southern plantocracy. The emergence and predominance of Jim Crow and all of its contingent codas in the former Confederate and border states in the postbellum U.S. clearly evidences that there existed a significant cultural, economic and social investment in the subjugation of the former Black slaves of the American Southern landowning aristocracy. De-emphasizing, or obliterating, reference to race within any context that addresses the codification of human chattel when addressing U.S. slavery obscures the social circumstances of U.S. slavery itself -- potentially obscures the peculiar institution such that it might seem, in retrospect, to resemble slavery of the classical era as practiced in the Roman and Egyptian empires. Slavery throughout the Americas (including the Southern States of this US) was not in line with past manifestations of forced labor -- it was an institution instrinisically, specfically, irrevocably and emphatically entwined with race. Despite what you proclaim as your rhetorical intentions. Lincoln had this correct at least: indeed, American slavery was a "peculiar institution", due to its entanglement with the notions of race. Historically, speaking. Thus referring to the slave labor as "Black slave labor" or "slave labor of African descent" is wholly and historically appropriate in this context.

sewot_fred 21:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

This is where I must disagree with you. Not all "slavery" in US history has been black. White slaves were common in Georgia, which was founded as a debtor's colony, where those in debt would be sent to work it off for their freedom. That practice ended, presumably with the Revolution, but possibly before. Despite that, slavery was not originally about race, but about the perceived "superiority" of caucasians. After the inportation of slave labour was abolished, the only slaves left in the country were black, hence black slavery. Jaxad0127 01:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

sewot_fred,

I don't think anybody here is denying that race and U.S. slavery were highly intertwined, and that there's a huge, ongoing legacy left over from this. But the truism's placement that you've pressed for is a distraction from the issue at hand, which is that the South took the side of defending/keeping slavery.

Human sex roles and culture are hugely linked to why the U.S. has never had a female president; but, when we talk about the historical facts of how, say, the presidents have worked with the Congressional leadership, we don't say "The male presidents and the leaders of both houses of Congress have had [* * *]". Omission of "male" is not a denial of the 100% maleness of U.S. presidents: the word is left out because it's unnecessary and strays from the point; the subjects in such a sentence would be the presidents and the Congressional leadership, not the male presidents and the Congress leadership.

This is a matter of the function of language. When certain words and punctuation are put in certain positions in relation to other words, it is to make specific distinctions.

Note the difference between "The typewriter that's broken is on the desk" and "The typewriter, which is broken, is on the desk". The former has a defining/restrictive relative clause, while the latter has a nondefining/nonrestrictive relative clause. The former one restricts the subject specifically to the broken typewriter; the latter talks about a typewriter, with a sort of "And, by the way, it's broken" stuck in the middle.

I object to your various edits that have implied that the primary reason for militarily defending slavery was the race of the slaves and their captors, instead of the fact that the slaves were enslaved.

If you're a boss sitting in a fancy office building with a bunch of unpaid secretaries who have to do whatever work you assign them, the reason for which you fight if someone comes along to say "We're gonna stop you from having unpaid servants" is probably that you want to keep on having secretaries who do whatever you say, and without pay, not that they're of this color or that color.

It's simple selfishness: "I'm a rich planter, and I want slavery to go on so I can keep my way of life." Hypothetically, let's ask such a person "Why are you willing to fight a war to maintain this institution?" The answer will be "My civilization, culture, economy, depend on it." Sure, if we dig deeper and ask "And why do you want only the blacks, and not the whites, to be slaves?", we may get an answer like "It's the proper place of the inferior race; whites couldn't survive slavery; there is no reason to enslave whites; &c."—but the overlying thing is "Whatever reason (racial superiority/inferiority, for example) you use to justify the racial divide between the slaves and the slaveholders, just make sure that the divide persists—so that I know I, as a white, need never fear that I might become a slave—, and also make sure the slavery persists, so that this economy doesn't fall apart and I don't lose my way of life."

The basic point here is "The Civil War ended up being mainly about slaves, who were black" (nondefining), not "The Civil War ended up being mainly about slaves who were black" (or "[* * *] about black slaves") (defining).

This whole back-and-forth on that sentence could be as simple as a comma. It doesn't have to be about "overt agenda"s, "trite rhetorical merry-go-round"s, "God bless", "Godspeed", "the One in whom you trust", "a minion that aims to propagate the agency of ambiguous imprecision on behalf of the very forces whose hegemonic complicity you seek to edit from history", "your attempt to revise slavery itself as some raceless American phenomena is tragically ahistorical and ideologically rather vapid", &c.

At my talk page, you once wrote "any reference to this human property as African slave labor was/is wholly and historically appropriate" (emphasis mine), where you also wrote "Race is never immaterial in the discussion of slavery and its economic ramifications" ("never" emphasis mine).

Your "any" and "never" go too far, as I see it. A different example of the same linguistic issue: we probably can agree that Christinity has played a huge role in the history of post-Columbian Mexico, that post-Columbian Mexican history is intrinsically linked with, among many other things, Christianity; but we do not insist that, every time anyone mentions Mexico, the only way (s)he can be accurate and fair about modern and historical Mexico is to remind the listener of the Christianity. It would be screwy, for example, if this article said "Some in the U.S. are highly concerned about the number of illegal Christian immigrants who cross the Mexican border into the U.S. each year."

I find that, in working with other Wikipedians, I have more success when I stick to questions of article content, Wikipedia policy (e.g., AGF), and how language and visual illustrations can be used to present that content to readers in the Wikipedia framework. This is why, for example, when you spent words on assumptions about on which minion's behalf I was working, I didn't spend words replying to that part of your writing.

If you want to present some of the many racial facets of U.S. slavery in this article, it might be beneficial if you consider how to convey the information in the appropriate places—by which I mean not just where in the article, but also how the location of words and punctuation in sentences affects the sentences' meaning and focus. The presidential focus, in the example, is not on their maleness; the illegal-immigration focus, in another example, is not on Christianity; and, regardless of how very much slavery and race were wrapped up together, the answer to "What was the big, critical, 'needs immediate attention' reason for which people wanted to preserve/extend slavery?" is slavery and economics, not race and racism. I've given examples of how it would be quite fine to surround that information with all kinds of stuff about race and racism. But it's not fine to switch gears suddenly in the middle of explaining one fact, to bring up another fact, with the result that the latter fact is presented as the reason for the former when it wasn't.

I really, really hope that you now understand that I'm not, and have never been, out to keep you from editing this article and I have no wish to hide ugly aspects of the U.S. and its history. Every time I've offered explanations of the problems I've seen in your edits, I've done it with the goal of showing very specific problems to avoid. When, for example, I point out that "African slave labor" is too vague (Belgium's African slave labor worked in the Congo, not Belgium, for example), I'm not at all trying to keep you from mentioning Africa or race or racism in the discussion of U.S. slavery: I'm trying to make sure the article sticks to straightfoward presentation of plain facts.

This article isn't any more mine than it is yours (except, perhaps, in the work that has already gone into it). I'm not trying to keep you or your facts out. But, in your edits, there has been an issue about presenting facts through language and the placement of facts and pieces of facts. Every time I've changed something you've written here, I've tried to explain, in few words or many, the reasons for the changes. Despite your assertions about whose agent I am, or my reasons for clearing all the messages (not just yours) at my own talk page, or all kinds of other extraneous things, I have consistently tried to show you what kind of edits would be more in line with straightforward presentation of the facts with appropriate weight. A look back over the last several weeks should reveal that I never once told you or anyone else to keep, say, the fact that slaves were black, out of the article; it will show that I consistently pursued the same goal of retaining the main, basic facts in the sentences about the causes of the Civil War. It mystifies me that instead of just inserting an appropriately separated sentence or clause to spend as many words as you wanted on the racial nature of slavery, you kept trying to make the article say that the South wanted to preserve slavery because slaves were black or because their ancestors had come from Africa or whatever else (when the operative fact was the benefits of slavery, not the skin color).

... I've been beating this for a while. Time to move on with life.

President Lethe 02:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I've just seen Jaxad's post, made while I was writing the above. Jaxad brings up two points I had considered making but left out because my post was already so long. One is the whiteness of some persons forced into labor in what became the U.S. The other is that, surely, many white slaveholders would've been happy to have Chinese, Amerindian, Mexican, and other non-black, slaves (in addition to, or maybe even instead of, black ones) if they could've gotten away with it. Surely a certain number would even have kept white slaves if they could have. Kind of funny that we were thinking of the same stuff, Jaxad. — President Lethe 02:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I remembered the two examples I wanted to use:
1. "Our family owns a three-wheeled vehicular tricycle" is not a very good way of presenting the combined information "Our family owns a tricycle" and "A tricycle is a three-wheeled vehicle".
2. "Alex and Sam arrived earlier because they went in a mostly blue car" is not a very good way of presenting the combined information "Alex and Sam arrived earlier because they went in a car" and "The car that they used was mostly blue".
The same kind of problem comes with "The Northern states were opposed to the expansion of slavery whereas the Southern states saw the opposition as an attack on their way of life, since their economy was dependent on slave labor of primarily African descent" (emphasis mine), the latest version—which also again talks about the descent of labor rather than of people.
Time for bed.
President Lethe 04:51, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


As mentioned several days back, I do not agree with your editorial rationale in this case (even as you attempt to steep your supporting argumentation in sophistry and grammatics). As suggested in prior occassions regarding this redaction, I find your analogies lacking in relative context as pertains both history and logistics -- my appreciation for the comparisons progressively diminishes with their accumulation. But that is fine.

The fact that you proclaim that this Jaxad cohort shares your thoughts as you think them (yet type something else) is not particularly germane here, aside the fact that I believe it begins to speak to the agenda truly at work in these editorial endeavors -- an agenda to which Coolceasar hints in his earlier commentary. As stated in my response to that User, the rationale s/he affords regarding the need to whittle the piece in favor of mass palatability is holistically fine, even where it does not address the specific edit in question. Coolceasar's position was at least driven by real world circumstantial pragmatics, rather than by impositional obfuscation and rhetorical diversion. Circumstantial pragmatics, I respect, particularly when they're communicated "straight-out."

As I said before, I leave this US article to you and those who are pleased with its content. There are far more probing, substantive, sophisticated pieces to engage regarding a plethora of nuanced matters in this cyberspace, even in this wikipedia collection. As I said days ago, Preslethe, enjoy the US as you believe it to be . . . and sleep well. Peace.

sewot_fred 03:04, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Alrighty. Tschüssi. — President Lethe 03:34, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I shall sleep boldy! — President Lethe 04:15, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Ha-ha. Boldly indeed, as long as you're protected by the inane status quo of your rhetorical fiefdom. Sleep, friend, with peace.

sewot_fred 15:21, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Cold War template?

Why is there a Cold War template at the bottom of the page? Surely we can't expect to have a template for every war America has been involved in on this page, so why this one?--Daveswagon 19:57, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Religious numbers

"In the U.S. women are generally more religious than men, at 42% and 31%, respectively." These figures, giving an average of 36%, don't seem to square with the general religious figures (46% attendance or 86% who are non-non-religious). Ditto Blacks and Asians at 49% and 28%. What measure of "religious" is used to deduce these sub-figures? Marskell 10:12, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I've noticed the same thing and sometimes wondered about it. Perhaps, if I look at the source cited in the footnote, I'll understand it better. Looks pretty interesting; may read it today. — President Lethe 16:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
This graph explains at least part of it. It's the division into 'shades' of religiosity: "When it comes to your outlook, do you regard yourself as" "Secular", "Somewhat secular", "Somewhat religious", "Religious", "Don't Know, Refused". — President Lethe 03:33, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, in light of that, what do others here think about changing the statistics we list in our article? For example, if the breakdown of Asians is 21% "Secular", 9% "Somewhat secular", 34% "Somewhat religious", 28% "Religious", and 8% "Don't Know, Refused", then there is significance in the combined percentages for "Somewhat religious" and "Religious" (34 + 28 = 62). We should figure out a good choice of words that represents the combined figures but also won't cause some source-checking reader to say "You write that Asians are 62% religious, but the graph at the cited source clearly shows that they're only 28% 'Religious'." — President Lethe 03:42, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

United states of Americana

Did america used to be called Americana? Just i have heard this used alot and can be synonomous to mean america. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.132.0.93 (talk • contribs) 12:43, 31 August 2006.

Hi, 81.132.0.93.
Please, sign your posts on Talk pages.
The word Americana is a noun that means "American things", "American stuff". The things can be concrete, like food or architecture, or abstract, like laws or culture. If someone points at a building and says "This is an example of early Americana", it doesn't mean "This is an example of the early United States", but instead means "This is an example of early American stuff [(in this case, architecture)]".
Other denotations for Americana include "books, papers, maps, etc., relating to America, esp. to its history, culture, and geography", "Materials relating to American history, folklore, or geography or considered to be typical of American culture", "The culture of America", and "any artifact (such as books or furniture or art) that is distinctive of America".
Americana is also "A city of southeast Brazil, a suburb of São Paulo. Population: 153,779."
President Lethe 17:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey 81.132.0.93. america was once called americana by spanish people, mainly in the 1590's and 1600's by the spananish people who lived in the west way before other european people came to the east coast. most people will know this if the know about history. The Second settlement in The Present day US was Santa Fe in 1598 were many newcomers from italy & spain called it Americana land and some called Ameristan. There was journals that call it Americana, before the ever called it America. The earliest spelling of America, outside of europe was in journals of a Jewish silversmith Named Rodrigo de Triana III( 1600's) the great-great-grandson of a man who came in 1492 here with columbus. But before that they used it in europe in the late 1500's, before they called it america in the new world. Alot of latin americans still call it americana. Does President lethal know about the language called spanish ?? spanish people use americana, just like the use mexicana , but it usualy does refer to people not the land. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.209.210.158 (talk • contribs) 00:20 UTC, 11 September 2006.

Hi, 71.209.210.158. Please, sign your posts on Talk pages. Well, 1507, the first known use of America certainly antedates "the 1590's and 1600's", "1598", "1600's", and "the late 1500's". Yes, President Lethe does know about the language called Spanish. :-) Thanks, though, for pointing out more Spanish uses of Americana. I had interpreted the question as being about English names for the United States. — President Lethe 01:56, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Passports & Geography

Some friends of mine told me a couple of facts that sound more like urban rumour...so to ask the questions: What is the proportion of Americans who do not have a passport / have never been abroad (except on another document to Canada) ? Is it true that American schools, when teaching geography, seldom dwell on anywhere outside of the USA ? Urban legend that I have heard tells me that a survey was done in the 1990s where a group of American school-children were asked to point out London on a map of the world, various possible cities were dotted on the globe. Seems the most likely candidate for London chosen was in fact Reykjavik......Anon

Hi Anon, please be sure to sign your comments with your IP address or your Wikipedia member name.
To answer your question about passports however, according to the U.S. State Department's website, a record number of 10.1 million passports were issued in FY 2005, which is up significantly from the 8.8 million issued in FY 2004. Most U.S. passports are valid for 10 years at a time, with the only exceptions being children's/minors' passports which are valid for only 5 years at a time. Assuming that most of the issued passports were for adults, as of the end of FY 2005 about 70 million American citizens had valid passports. With the U.S. population quickly approaching 300 million, that means that approximately 23% of all Americans had passports (up from 21% in FY 2003).
I think it is interesting to note that despite the perception that Americans are somehow becoming more fearful of all things "non-American", both the number and percentage of American citizens with passports continue to increase with each passing year.
Regarding the American teaching of world geography, I have to admit that most of my peers in high school (and even college) had a difficult time locating some countries and major cities. However, I must also reveal that my experiences with non-Americans was conversely similar. They had no idea where or had never even heard of many American cities that I would consider "major". But even with those that they did know of and knew where to point them out on a map, they had a difficult time understanding that Hollywood, CA and Orlando, FL were not just a quick drive from Cincinnati, OH (where I live).
The point is, every nation (or continent) tends to focus on their own geography and neglect to teach beyond their borders. Europe is a unique exception because of its relative geographical and political fragmentation (something which is not typical in the Americas). In reality, most European nations are more similar in size and distribution to a U.S. state rather than the U.S. as a whole.
tpetross 05:50, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Interesting information, tpetross. I thought I'd throw in some of my own thoughts, too.

I attended several American public and private schools in various jurisdictions in multiple states and overseas. While I would say that the 'social studies' (history, geography, &c.) classes each year did teach about the U.S. (each subsequent year teaching new material, or previous material but in greater depth), I also remember concentrating on other countries in these classes. A far from complete list of my memories: it may have been in 1st grade that, in our study of Africa, an ambassador from a sub-Saharan country came to talk to us; in 2nd grade, we had a big unit on Japan; in 3rd, lengthy study of Mexico; I remember Canada study in 5th grade; much on the U.S.S.R. and Russia in 6th (this was also the grade in which every pupil had to do a big project on a randomly chosen country; mine was Senegal); just about all I remember of the class in 7th grade is Latin America; I think the concentration in 8th grade was on the U.S., as it had been in 4th; in 9th, the class was called World Regions, about lands and peoples around the world (for a big country project, I chose Russia; for a state, Alaska); in 10th, it was World History; 11th was U.S. History; 12th was A.P. U.S. Government & Politics. Kids attending DoDDS schools outside the U.S. also have lessons concentrating on their host countries.

The "Elementary School" article of the 2001 World Book Encyclopedia says

Elementary schools seek to help children expand their knowledge of the world around them. The curriculum in many schools is based on a theme of expanding environments. In the first grade, pupils learn about the home and the family. Second-graders study the school and the neighborhood. In the third grade, teachers introduce information about one's own community in comparison with others. The fourth-grade program deals with the state. Fifth-graders study the nation, and sixth-graders the world. In all grades, teachers help children develop social skills and help them learn to get along as members of a group.

I would say that that was somewhat true of the education I had in those grades, especially for 4th–6th; come to think of it, 4th was more about that state in specific than the U.S. as a whole.

Obviously, the amount and quality of this instruction on the U.S. and other countries vary, depending on the teacher, the classroom environment (including the pupil's classmates' interest and behavior), the school, and the school system, as well as the teaching materials, the budget (e.g., for fieldtrips), and the prescribed curriculum.

I have met plenty of ignorant people in my life, many of them American (but also several of them not American). But I sometimes wonder whether the tests demonstrating awfully bad American ignorance of the rest of the world are gauging things accurately. I have seen it suggested, in more than one article, that a certain portion of the bad scores comes not from ignorance but from not caring about the test. There are always stories of kids who, when taking standardized tests, just fill in random answers, even when it means putting down a wrong answer when they actually know the right one—and I knew kids who did this.

Also, yes, each country tends to give the most attention to itself. (After all, why shouldn't a child learn about its most immediate environment?) And, yes, while I've met many wonderfully thoughtful, informed non-Americans, I've also encountered plenty who were much less so. I remember one person who was sure that Hollywood, the land of movies, was in Florida, because she had a friend who had visited Hollywood, Florida—and, if I remember right, asked to point out Florida (one of the most popular U.S. destinations for non-Americans) on the map, she chose the wrong place. Of course, we all have our own (and sometimes quite misrepresentative) anecdotes of such things.

Of course, when Jay Leno highlights ignorance on his TV show by editing together street interviews of people who get every academic answer wrong, it adds to the negative picture—but such entertainment wouldn't work if the majority of the audience didn't know the right answers to the questions that the people on the street got wrong.

There must be a certain number of Americans who are actively isolationist toward the rest of the world, in addition to those who are passively ignorant. But, of course, they aren't all the Americans.

It has also been my experience that some non-Americans are convinced that they know the U.S. better than they actually do. After all, American culture (TV, music, movies, clothing styles, &c.) are heavily exported to the rest of the world—and items of American news are regularly reported prominently in other countries. Such an influx of things American may give a person an impression of greater familiarity than (s)he actually has. ... In my own experience, the amount of British material, and material about the U.K., that I had taken in during my childhood still allowed actually moving to the U.K. and living there to have a very strong effect. I think no amount of reading, watching TV, seeing pictures, hearing accents and languages, can fully prepare a person for actually suddenly setting foot in another culture, in another land, being entirely engulfed by that foreignness.

But what about other cultures and other lands? I think there are some more points to keep in mind as reasons, if not excuses, for why many Americans haven't ever left their own country, or at least North America.

• One is that, because the U.S. is such a melting pot, and because (at least in certain parts of the U.S.) it's so easy to meet immigrants and to get one's hands on foreign goods, Americans may feel less impetus to visit other places (though, as I said, 'arm-chair travel' is not at all the same as real travel).

• Another reason, which those who live in geographically smaller countries may sometimes not think of, is what the great size of the U.S. allows. When you can be in your own country, board a plane, fly more than 3,000 miles in a straight line, and still land in your own country, but be visiting quite a different landscape and climate, with a somewhat different cultural mix, and yet still have the convenience of prices you're used to, currency you're familiar with, a language you know, and brands and businesses that you trust, then you may prefer that mix of variety (especially geographical) and convenience (not leaving your own country) and decide to travel within your own country instead. Add to this the fact that most Americans can also visit Canada and Mexico without a passport (and these three countries together have close to 440 million people (the residents of not many countries can truthfully say "By just staying within my own country and two neighbor countries, I can surround myself with almost 7% of the world's people") and more than 8.33 million square miles (about 14% of the Earth's land)).

• Plus, there is cost. Someone in the middle of England can, within a 300-mile radius, choose from Belgium, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; much of this travel, too, can be done without a passport; and, except to get to Ireland and Northern Ireland (for which a not-too-long ferry ride or plane flight is necessary), it can all be done in the car or on the train; this person could also get to Asia or Africa almost entirely (or really entirely?) by land vehicle; and, within the many countries of the E.U., most citizens of one such country can travel to another such country without a passport, for big variations in culture, climate, and geography. Someone in Kansas, home to the geographic center of the Lower 48, has to travel about 700 miles in a straight line to leave the U.S. (but still won't need a passport)—and can travel thousands of miles in a straight line and still be in the U.S.—but, to get to Europe, Africa, Asia, or Australia, has to arrange for passports and transoceanic airfare or ship passage, and, in some cases, visas and vaccinations.

(Your bit about Hollywood and Orlando not being a short drive from Cincinnati reminds me of the scene in Fiddler on the Roof in which two Russians converse about their immigration destinations in the U.S. and conclude that, living in New York and Chicago, they'll be neighbors. In the '80s, we had a well educated teenage girl from outside Paris as our guest one summer; we went on road trips, and she kept wondering why, even when we went on the fast roads, it was taking whole days to get to our destinations—and then we showed her about how relatively little space all of France would've taken up at the same scale on a map we were using, and she understood.)

It would be better if Americans knew more of the world (the same can be said of all nationalities, though), and better if they travelled outside their own country more. But, if we lament the way things are, we must also consider the reasons why they are as they are.

According to the U.N., in 2004, 763 million human beings went to visit other countries—and they spent more money in the U.S. than in any other country (which may give some Americans a feeling of "If the U.S. is the primary tourist destination for non-Americans, why shouldn't it be my primary destination, too?"), visited only two countries (France and Spain) more than they visited the U.S.—and, until 2003 (when the changing dollar/euro exchange rate meant that Germany pushed the U.S. to second), the U.S. had, for several years, been the top source of tourist money spent in countries other than the U.S. Of course, this is to be expected when the U.S. is the world's third most populous country and the two countries with greater populations don't have nearly as much disposable income for the average person.

... Well, I'm babbling.

President Lethe 18:45, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

The reasons that Preslethe provided are all very logical explanations for why Americans may choose to stay within the U.S. as opposed to traveling abroad. It is unfortunate that Americans are given a bad wrap about being culturally insular. It's actually quite ironic that we get this label because, as Preslethe so eloquently pointed out, the U.S. is a melting pot of cultures. While many of these individual cultural identities have become rather bland and homogenized, the U.S. is an interesting bastardization of European, Latin American, and Asian cultures. Of course, there are good and bad things about it, but in the end we are no more guilty of being culturally self-righteous than the French or British or Japanese are.
The U.S. is also the country primarily responsible for globalization and the pursuit of developing business in foreign markets. I would say this is evidence enough of our nation's willingness to learn about and understand different cultures.
Getting back to the geography issue now--I would challenge any European to name all of the 50 states and capitals in the U.S. Or even better yet--I challenge those same people to name all of the provinces in Canada and the states in Mexico. I'll bet that most couldn't do it. I personally could not tell you every single country and capital in Europe or Africa. This is primarily due to the fact that there are so many nations on both continents, many of which have no true economic significance on a global scale. This is especially true of Eastern Europe, a part of the world that has struggled to pull itself from the grips of communism or even establish firm national borders among themselves for longer than a year or two. And let's not forget about how absolutely tiny most of them are.
The fact of the matter is, it will take a long time before we'll be able to completely shake off the "loud, rude, ignorant American" label. Sure, there are some Americans who are like that, but this is true of every nation-state. Not every Briton or Frenchman has impeccable manners and personal hygiene habits. In the end, most Americans tend not to be curious merely for curiosity's sake. For most of us, there needs to be some empirical reason to spark our interest. We know where London and Paris are because of their economic impact. Similarly, we don't know where Latvia or Montenegro is because of their relative insignificance on the world's economy.
tpetross 09:34, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

On US history - Capital

== I noticed that there was no mention of the original capital of the United States. York was the first Capital of the United States, it was the birthplace of the Articles of Confederation and it was here that the words "The United States of America" were first spoken. Please see http://www.yorkcity.org/history/index.htm Breecher 13:36, 1 September 2006 (UTC) Breecher

Hi, Breecher. I'll put in a link to "List of capitals in the United States". But I think the words "united States of America" were probably first spoken in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was drafted, approved, and signed—and, right across its top, it has those words. — President Lethe 18:50, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Actually Annapolis, Maryland was "the temporary capital of the United States after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Congress was in session in the state house here from 26 November 1783 to 3 June, 1784, and it was here on 23 December 1783 that General Washington resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army" - before New York. Signaturebrendel 16:37, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Introductory sentence

'The United States of America, also known as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the U.S. of A., the States, and America, is a country in North America.'

I think this seems like an ugly and inappropriate way to begin the article. I don't think all the different names are necessary. Different names should be given at the start of an article so that people who refer to the subject by a different name still know what the article is about. Every english speaking person surely knows what 'United States of America' means, we don't need to make the introduction uncomfortable to read by including all these short-forms and nicknames. Sincere apologies if this has already been discussed. Abc30 20:45, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

The intent is to assume nothing in the intro and lay the ground for all alternate namings. I agree that it is confusing; the center subordinate clause should be shifted to the end: "The United States of America is a country in North America; it is also known as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the U.S. of A, the States, and America." --Mmx1 20:52, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

John Lennon Day

Okay dudes, we HAVE to put this thing in here. I mean if it's going to be an international holiday, like Martin Luther King Jr. Day then we HAVE to put this in here, you guys got three days to do it, or I'll put it in here myself. -The Bird

Why's that relevant to the United States page? Looking at your talk page, you have a history of vandalism, plus the John Lennon Day page has been deleted, so please don't put it in yourself. Cordless Larry 11:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Martin Luther King Day isn't actually mentioned in this article (though King himself has a brief mention), so there probably wouldn't be cause to add John Lennon Day even if it were a sufficiently significant holiday to have its own page (which apparently it isn't, given that it was deleted). *Dan T.* 11:28, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Geography and Climate

The caption about Mount Hood:

"Mount Hood, an active volcano in the Pacific Northwest."

Should read:

"Mount Hood, a dormant volcano in the Pacific Northwest."

Yes, technically it should. But some might mistake the term "dormant" for extinct-though I do not think such confusion is likely. In order to be clear that Mt. Hood is still active and could erupt the editor must have decided to use the word "active" instead of dormant. Both terms are okay IMHO. Best Regards, Signaturebrendel 06:29, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Name

Under the name section, I think it would be of interest to add the Najavo (Dine) name for the US: Wááshindoon bikéyah ałhidadiidzooígíí. Clearly it related it to Washington, but if there were anyone who understands Navajo its precise translation would be great to find out... --198.59.190.201 22:45, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it's some 'trivia' 'worth including' in the article. Many languages' names for the U.S. are just literal translations of "United States" and/or "America"—but a name that mentions either George Washington or the city named after him is something else. Does anyone know someone with more Navajo knowledge? — President Lethe 00:51, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The attribution of the name to Amerigo Vespucci seems a little abitrary. I have seen some discussions about this that seem to have some validity, specifically that place names were never derived from a person's first name, other than royalty. In these discussions, it was considered probable that the name came from William ap Meric, an Irishman of Welsh decent. Since I can't specifically attribute or verify this information, I thought it best to add it here. Can anyone contribute more, or does anyone have a POV on this? I certainly can't think of any other country named after a first name! Adamhighway 15:58, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps "disputed" or "uncertain"—but "arbitrary" implies that there was no thought behind it. In fact, Vespucci definitely had something to do with 15th-century Europe's discovery of the place, and it seems that the first recorded use of the word came after Vespucci got involved. Also, when the name was given, it was given to a place, not specifically a country. And there are other places whose names are based on a person's first name: Georgia (George), Maryland (Mary), St. Petersburg (Peter), Constantinople (Constantine), Chiddingstone (may be "Cidda's stone"), the Philippines (Philip), Cooling (may be "Cul's family"), the Carolinas (Charles), Chattenden (may be "Ceatta's hill"), Chilham (may be "Cilla"), Chillenden ("Ciolla's valley"), &c. ... (Very many places in the U.K. have their origins in persons' given names.) ... Cambodia (named after Cambu Svayambhuva), Israel, the many places named after mythological figures (Rome, Romania, &c.), the many places named after saints, Leningrad, Stalingrad, the Solomon Islands, Alberta, &c. ... And the text does link to a webpage about other theories about the origin of America. — President Lethe 16:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Three proposals

I think there are three things whose standardization might make things here go more smoothly:

1. Let's agree on how often the population and GDP figures should be updated, using what source—and, then, until it's time for another update, undo any changes that deviate from what we've agreed on.

2. Let's agree on how many times the article will mention the Sino–American dispute over 3rd place among big countries in the world, and where those mentions will be.

3. Recently, Jaxad0127 shifted the placement of someone's new post because it was dropped right in the middle of someone else's post. ... Let's pretend, for a moment, that we have two posts, the older of which is A and newer of which is B. Then someone comes along and offers post C. My personal view is that putting C right in the middle of B (or A) is not to be preferred—and neither is putting C between A and B. I think the best place for C is after B—even if C is in response to a small point made at the very beginning of A. I bet not everyone here shares my view. But I prefer to read one complete post, then the one that was made immediately after it (in terms of chronology), and then the one that was made after that, and so on, rather than to be in the middle of reading A and be suddenly interrupted by C, then see the end of A, then see D, and then see B (the first response that anyone posted to A). I just like to see it all in order, with oldest at top and newest at bottom, without skipping around in time. I think the small effort required to begin one's post with "I write in response to [So-and-So]'s statement that "[Bla bla]" is worth it for the courtesy it gives other readers by not making them read interrupted individual posts or asequential series of posts. (Asequential supposedly isn't a word, but I'll use it anyway.) Do any others here share my wish for some kind of informal guideline about where to place replies to other posts?

President Lethe 02:26, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Re #1: Don't use population clocks. Either use the CIA Factbook, the UN figure, or the Census Bureau monthly estimate (which is a month behind the current month). My preference is the Censu Bureau monthly estimate. If people insist on population clocks, they must state the exact date and time of the figure not just the month and year. For GDP, the IMF figures are the basis of the international ranking so I would use that. --Polaron | Talk 02:31, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
RE: Lethe, For GDP the World Bank should be cited for the infobox; they are not a government agency and most likely to be impartial. Also, there are different ways of measuring output, none better or worse than the other. In order to be inclusive both PPP and nominal need to mentioned- they should be updated as often as possible but only through authorative sources (e.g. World Bank, etc...)-commonly such rankings are provided on an annual basis. As for population, I agree with Polaron, and would definitely recommend the US Census Bureau's monthly estimates. The "Sino–American dispute over 3rd place among big countries" should really only be mentioned once, perhaps twice (once in the info-box and once in the article). As for posts "RE:" is a good idea. Regards, Signaturebrendel 03:29, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
(Just to clarify: I don't mean every post should have to have an "Re:" in it (because, obviously, most posts are in reply to something, and it's often clear which something). I just mean I think it's better to put a new post at the end and, if there needs to be clarification about what it's in reply to, then to provide the clarification—rather than putting the post somewhere other than the end. I hope I came across right the first time, but am just trying to make sure. — President Lethe 04:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC))
No, no, that's not what I meant. I proposed to use "RE:" when there is a chance of misunderstanding (I used it above as an example-ironically to clarify what I was saying). I think the phrase "if there needs to be clarification" is key. Regards, Signaturebrendel 05:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

There's been another figure change. Once we agree on what sources to use and when to update, maybe we should put a hidden warning in those areas of the box, to deter edits that don't fall within the agreed terms. — President Lethe 18:58, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

In regards to the "Sino–American dispute", I agree with Signature it should only be mentioned once in the article and once in the footnotes of the infobox. Furthermore, the ranking in the infobox should not be 3rd/4th1 but rather just 3rd1 with the reference to the dispute in the footnotes. My reasoning for this are sightlyness and that China's infobox does not use the same 3rd/4th1 ranking; only a footnote. —MJCdetroit 14:52, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
A comparison has been in my head for a while. It might be sort of applicable here. Say there's a ranking of the top five something-or-others, and the second and third ones are tied. Those lists are often written like this:
1. Blabla
2. Bleble
    Blibli
4. Bloblo
5. Blublu
China and the U.S. aren't tied—depending on the inclusion or exclusion of Taiwan, one is definitely third and the other is definitely fourth—; but maybe it would be good if, in each article (China's and the United States'), the present country were given the benefit of the doubt and listed with just a "3rd" and a footnote. ... But "3rd/4th" also seems O.K. with me. In the box, anyway. Whatever happens, there should be coördination between the two articles on this point. ... Maybe, for the U.S. article, it would go like this:
Box: "3rd" with footnote.
Paragraph in intro that says U.S. is third most populous and third largest: just "third", with same footnote.
"Geography" section: the sentence that goes into more detail, without a link to the footnote.
Just an idea. The matter is somewhat tricky.
President Lethe 15:40, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
We really need to coordiante with the China article. They mention the dispute in the info box like we do, don't even acknowledge it in the intro and say the dispute is 'due to a recent change in the method used by the United States to calculate its surface area, ....' Who's surface area? Jaxad0127 16:27, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
We should try and come to an understanding with some of the leading editors of the China article. Currently both are listed as 3rd in the infoboxes with footnotes (which is fair in my mind & benefit of the doubt as Pres said). Good point Jax about the China article: Who's surface area? Another thing to keep in mind is that the figures vary slightly according to the source used just compare both articles and infoboxes to the List of countries by area. I know that this issue has come up in the past. — MJCdetroit 16:57, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I think we should make a central location for the coordination, like Talk:United States/Sino-American Area Coordination. That way, the articles could be coordianted and that coordiation would be documented for future editors and avaliable for readjustments. Jaxad0127 20:02, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I have draft for this here: User:Jaxad0127/Sino-American Area Coordination. Jaxad0127 22:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I read your page, Jaxad. For the moment, anyway, I'll keep my posts here. I differ with your proposal on just one point. I think the article introductions should say just "third" and then have a footnote (or some other link to details of the matter). I just think the articles' "Geography" sections (in addition to footnotes) are better places to mention it; I think that kind of detail doesn't quite fit in an intro (just as details about the negative feelings that some have about America(n) for the U.S. aren't in the introduction). That's my view. But, either way, it's not a huge deal to me, as long as this is settled and consistent for a good while. — President Lethe 23:01, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. I need to work on the wording some more. I was thinking the intro should mirror the infobox (say third with reference to geo section). Jaxad0127 23:14, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I've fixed the wording of that proposal. Feel free to edit the draft page. The discussion notice is for later. Jaxad0127 23:19, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

I confess I feel inclined to say "See? See what happens when we unprotect the article?" :-| — President Lethe 07:03, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Mmmmmhmm. --Golbez 08:15, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes you are right the unprotection is a great success. It was vandalized 4 times in 6 hours and It hasn't been vandalized in over 4 hours since. :) —Centrx→talk • 08:18, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
So it's been vandalized 4 times in 10 hours. That's not a sterling success. Lower than usual, but don't worry, the vandals will figure out that it's unprotected. --Golbez 08:53, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
It certainly should be semi-protected if there is an attack. It has throw away edits and more frequent attacks because it is high-profile, but it is not like Gay where the very subject of the article is to some fools an invitation to vandalize. It doesn't need to be protected for a whole month, at most a few days every once in a while. Counting by users/IPs, which is more accurate, and discounting some edits and users that would on first glance appear like they might be vandalism that would have been blocked by a semi-protect, there have been only 4 users vandalizing in the past 20 hours that would been blocked by the semi-protect. It is a rather low level of vandalism that is usual for any frequently visited article. —Centrx→talk • 15:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
"but it is not like Gay where the very subject of the article is to some fools an invitation to vandalize" It's not? A lot of people hate America, or think it's funny to pretend they do. --Golbez 17:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately a lot people do thinks its funny to vandalize the US article. I think semi-protection is more than justified, considering that this is not only a super high-profile article but also one of which many people think its fun to vandalize. Besdies having vandal edits may seriously compromise the intergrity of WP, even if we clean them up quickly. Regards, Signaturebrendel 18:17, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

To me, it's a simple question of probability and of the use of human beings' time and effort. For some reason, creating an account (for which not all kinds of personal information are required) and logging in seem to be an easily surmountable threshold for most persons who want to make serious edits at Wikipedia—while the same things (creating an account and logging in) seem to be just enough to deter most vandalism. Vandals are willing to waste their own time by vandalising, and the time of legitimate editors by giving the editors vandalism to revert; but they are less willing to make an account and log in to do their wasteful 'work'. Either you take one minute and make an account and log in, and then spend your time being more likely to make productive edits that people don't end up using their own time to undo—or you don't spend that one minute logging in, but you do spend plenty more minutes vandalising, and then legitimate editors spend plenty of their time undoing your vandalism. Plus, the toll it takes on the computer resources. I personally don't have a big objection to making Wikipedia editable only by logged-in accounts—but I know not everyone shares this view. Anyway. — President Lethe 18:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually that has suprised me many times. The simple act of creating an account-which is really simple does deter most vandals. I think many anon IP vandals are just struck by the mood and start vandalize, then they get into it and do not even consider signing up. (My theory on anon vandals) Nevertheless I do think that semi-protecting this page is a good idea, although there arn't many problems at the time. Also, I am in favor of making WP for registered users only, but that's a different issue I guess. Regards, Signaturebrendel 19:08, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Actually just making an account doesn't work, as semiprotection also locks out new accounts. So they have to make a new account, then wait a few days, before they can vandalize a semiprotected page. --Golbez 22:35, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Right, so only a vandal you is very serios about his destruptive business would do so. As I said, commonly vandalism is a spur of the momoent thing. Regards, Signaturebrendel 01:02, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
And accounts used exclusively, or mostly (I think), for vandalism are closed. Jaxad0127 03:55, 11 September 2006 (UTC)