Talk:United States/Archive 15

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Contents 1 Picture of the US 2 Religion Figures 3 More than just a Power 4 The United States: a great nation 5 Human Rights 5.1 The rights of children 6 Something is wrong.. not this is not spam 7 Current military involvement? 8 God Bless America 9 The motto 10 The map 11 Why "United States" and not "United States of America"? 12 POV 13 G'tanomo Bay 14 Needs improvement 15 The Coat of Arms Vandalism 16 E Pluribus Unum vs. In God We Trust 17 Former British colony 18 What? 19 Vandalism 20 Religion map 21 Health Care 22 E Pluribus Unum 23 Nit-picky Change. 24 Jews 25 Picture caption 26 Irrelevant clause 27 Moved text from the History of the United States article 28 Removed Iraqi death toll statistic 29 "Allegedly" line in 9/11 note 30 Use of the word America 31 Culture 31.1 Culture (Gun Control) 31.2 Religion 31.3 Language 31.4 Conservatism 32 Third largest for fourth, disputed 33 Talk:United States/Culture moved to Talk:United States/Conservatism 34 Where's the Good Article logo? 35 NPOV Dispute: The Human Rights Section is Much Too Long 36 Traditional Ally 37 History introduction 38 Article way too long 39 New History of the United States article proposal 40 Articles of Confed 41 SoCal culture, what? 42 Largest cities table 42.1 POLL 42.1.1 Remove from this article 42.1.2 Keep it in this article 43 Re-summarization of the Politics section 44 U.S. as sole superpower 45 Controversial issues in the intro paragraph 46 Opening section 47 An experiment 48 Few remarks regarding sections in this article 49 top 10 metro areas AND top 10 within city limits AND 11 global cities 50 Photo sizes 51 Politics section and Political divisions 52 Proposal to not do listings 53 why no bomb here, but a big bomb there? 54 Page spacing 55 Pictures in "Geography" section 55.1 Content re. location 56 largest city? 57 "Geography" wording difference between President Lethe and E Pluribus Anthony 58 Manifest Destiny- Occupying the continent? 59 Controversial Economy Section 60 Incorrect first statement 61 Links to Censorship and Propaganda in the US 62 Content to include and organization

[edit] Picture of the US

Use this link. [1]

[edit] Religion Figures

Are the religion stats correct? The CIA World Factbook lists them as"Protestant 52%, Roman Catholic 24%, Mormon 2%, Jewish 1%, Muslim 1%, other 10%, none 10%"

[edit] More than just a Power

I dislike the emphasis made in the opening papragraphs on the U.S. , as being practically nothing but a Power: almost as if the World should fear it, or that it exists to bully the World. Hey, the U.S. is my home. Most of the the people I love live here. This is where I learned about the world, grew up to be a man. This is where I learned that I am the master of my life. I think for myself. Yet I also learned to be responsible, productive, respectful. Having the ability to speak and do what I want with my time, doesn't mean I should always say what is on my mind or do whatever I please. Yet what I like the most about the U.S. is I am fairly free to figure it out all on my own, to work something out that allows me to coexist, at peace, with my fellow citizens. This is where I learned the value of a fair and ordered society. I feel safe and secure in my home. I don't worry about my future. My life is a life of the mind. I only wish I had more time to learn all there is to know!

I want the people of the world to feel as free and safe as I do. To never know hunger, civil war, unemployment, or persecution. Yet it is not all happiness. I don't always like the people I have to deal with, or my job, or where I live, but it is not so bad when I consider other things going on in the world. If people were more educated and less impulsive, I'd be happier. If I were more willing to take risks and explore and find a job or hobby that really sustains my mind, I'd be happier. If I could live a healthier life, I'd be happier. If the population stabilized and housing demand decreased and developers didn't keep bulldozing every last inch of open space, I'd be happier. We in the U.S. have a lot to do, to make this nation better.

Yet all I can do is try to be the best person I can be. I can either "write it all off" and remove myself from society or blame it for making me unhappy, or I can reject such defeatism and be a force for good. This society hungers for leadership. I am no leader, however. I just think it is important to be in the moment, to treat each little thing as something worthy of care, of effort, no matter how mundane. If I know I'm doing a good job (even if somebody says otherwise) that is enough for me! Just feed me and clothe me and give me some good books and I'll be fine. On the flip side, if I think I'm doing a poor job (even if somebody says otherwise) then I'm unhappy no matter how much I'm paid or rewarded.

If you must judge a nation, judge it by its people. And not just a few people, or the loudest, or the most brutal, but all people: including the quiet, the caring, the just. I refuse to be grouped among the imperialists, the warmongers, the racists, the classists, and the prejudicial haters in this nation. I am not a pacifist, however: I freely admit I do hate what some people do and say to each other in this nation, or anywhere in the world, and demand justice. But I hate these people, not the nation, or class, or race. I am tolerant, and sometimes I am forgiving: I'd rather be your friend then your enemy. Yet we must have justice. Not only here, but everywhere.

When are we going to stop with our state-centered view of the World and make it a people-centered view? It should not matter if you live in the U.S., or Mexico, or China, or Iran, or wherever, we are all citizens of the planet and should live together in peace, freedom, dignity, and mutual respect. I love the U.S., but I'm not attached to it, just to those good things within it. Just as the U.S. has no monopoly on goodness, it also has no monopoly on badness. Good and evil run in all circles.

Are you running for congress or something? This is an encyclopedia, not a campaigning platform. If you have a point to make, could you be a little more concise?

Answer to the above question: Why the harsh tone? Calm down. No, I'm not campaigning for anything. Just speaking from the heart, trying to give readers an example of an American who doesn't want the U.S. to control the world, to beat everybody up. Take it or leave it. You know, if you don't like it, you can always delete this whole comment. I don't care, now, since the site changed and my concerns were dealt with!

Note : The following paragraph was added before the previous paragraph was inserted:

I have to agree to a point, and have added something to the opening paragraphs about the country's philosophical founding which truly did represent a sharp break from what had gone on before. I'm sure it will be gone by tomorrow, but we really do need to have *something* that deliniates just how radical the governmental ideas were by 18th century standards, even if several countries have bypassed the U.S. in political development within the past two or three generations. Haverberg 18:12, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The United States: a great nation

I am a very proud 15 year old Australian and my nation is great ally of the USA. As people have previously said people are concentrating too much on the negatives of the US and ingnoring the positives: which greatly outweigh the negatives. Everyone should leave the USA alone. They have made some mistakes with going to war in Iraq but some good can still be done. the USA has contributed greatly to the history of this world and the west as we know it would not be the same without the USA. the US has contributed greatly to civilisation and they should be praised for being a nation of great morals. America you have 1 ally at least. and trust me there are many more pro-Americans over here in Australia. God Bless America

Your Australian and your 15, obviously the American mass media has succeeded in brainwashing you. *Attempts to teach you some things about your own nation, before you go complimenting others* You might be surprised just how special Australia is, and how great it could be if only we weren't so exploited by foreign mass media and cultural influence. Yours truly, *Your compatriot*

[edit] Human Rights

Not a flag waver or anything, we've got our problems; but this section only lists the negatives and ignores the positive influence the U.S. has had on the world in regards to this issue (despite the curre...no, I shouldn't get political). If this section includes information on slavery and voting restrictions it should also mention the bill of rights and other amendments. Support for repressive regimes should also be counterbalanced by the Marshall Plan, election monitoring, and democracy building (...sigh...so hard to write this and watch the news). I also don't see anything regarding U.S. historical (if maybe not current) leadership in environmental protections but that's another section. I did skim a lot, though, so I could be missing something - apologies in advance if I am being a fool. Haverberg 02:43, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't think you are being a fool. The section was way too focused on the negatives and did not point out any of the positives. I have expanded the section to provide a more balanced perspective.

PLEASE NOTE: I don't think I have removed a single negative statement from the original text. In fact, I have even added some more negative statements. However, I have balanced them out with some positive stuff that the United States has done over the years. More importantly, I have highlighted the fact that our values are for democracy and human rights. I have also conceded the fact that we have not always lived up to our own ideals.

I didn't put in very much about our commitment to promote democracy and human rights around the world (the election monitoring and democracy building that you mentioned). It is an insult to Jimmy Carter to suggest that the U.S. doesn't care about human rights. Someone should write something about the things he did as President and afterwards. Maybe you can do this.

Richard 07:40, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The rights of children

Maybe it should be mentioned in the human rights section that the US is the only country (except from Somalia) that has not ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. Not trying to bash the country or so but it is a rather glaring controversy.

--Torsken 20:05, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

It should be mentioned briefly, but with a comment on why the US did not ratify it. Thank you for pointing that out.--Ryz05 23:28, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

• This is a minor treaty that doesn't merit mention in the main article. There are lots of treaties that various countries have not ratified. Rights of children in the U.S. are based on the Constitution, federal and states law, and the common law. --JW1805 (Talk) 02:37, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Something is wrong.. not this is not spam

i was doing a project for school and im wondering why there are some spanish... i think its spanish next the the language box

quote None at federal level; English de facto

I dont want to delete this in case there is a good reason for it, just something i found thanks for your time. DarkShadowx180 DarkShadow 01:10, 28 February 2006 (UTC) sorry i forgot to do the date the first time...

Are you referring to "de facto?" That's a latin phrase, meaning that's the way it is, but there's no law saying so. --Golbez 01:48, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

i.e English is the unofficial official language. keith 02:53, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Why dont we write that in english for those who dont know latin? DarkShadow 01:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Because latin does in two words what takes English a dozen. It's linked. CLICK IT. --Golbez 01:42, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

De facto is so often used in English that, for all intents and purposes, it is English. See also: nearly every other word in English. android79 01:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not English to all intents and purposes. It simply is English, period. Its etymology is latin, and it was originally part of the latin language. However, once a word comes into common usage in a language other than its own (and starts to appear in the associated dictionaries) it comes part of that language. Where do you think most of the other words in the English language came from....? Saiing 01:39, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

English, by its very nature, borrows words and phrases from other languages. Other common Latin phrases:

e.g. "Exemplia gratis" or "free example."

i.e. "Id est" or "that is."

ad hoc or "to that particular purpose"

caveat emptor or "buyer beware"

AD "anno domini" or "year of the lord"

ad infinitum or "to infinity"

ad hominem or "to the person"

in vitro or "in glass"

quid pro quo or "this for that"

non sequitur or "it does not follow"

Rrhain 20:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)Rrhain

[edit] Current military involvement?

The foreign relations section states, about current military involvement, "The United States is currently involved in a war in Iraq, a war in Afghanistan, and an intervention in Haiti. It has also embarked upon a War on Terrorism." Might readers interpret this statement as meaning the United States is at a state of war with the countries Iraq and Afghanistan? Pardon me if I am ignorant, but it is my understanding that the Executive Branch, as well as the Department of Defense, refer to the United States' role in the conflicts in those two countries as parts of United States' involvement in the War on Terrorism.

I suggest these sentences to be rephrased as, "The United States is currently involved in a War on Terrorism, with major military deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan," followed or preceded by a sentence describing the intervention in Haiti. New User 17:12, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] God Bless America

Cause she really needs som help. One question to all you anti-american SOBs out there. Why the hell do you hate us so? It is not our fault our government is messing up, it is theirs. I am proud to be an america, and have the freedoms I have currently. When I see people viciously attacking our country, physically, liberally, every type, it breaks my heart. At least our government isnt corrupt, like N Korea. We might have gone into Iraq because of a bad political error, but in their hearts the soldiers know they are fighting for the american peoples freedom and the Iraqis freedom. How do I know this? Because I struggle through that every day, I am one of those soldiers. God Bless AmericaCadet 16:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with the article. --Golbez 18:16, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

It has something to do with the vandalization of the article. Let the cadet have his/her say. Alot of other people seem to have that ability. Squiggyfm 18:49, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, a lot of us are fed up with vandalism. Although I don't agree with your politics, I agree with the sentiment. At least from in my opinion, the only ones who can rightfully insult America are Americans. R'son-W 11:39, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

America may not be perfect, but I am proud to be part of it. I think it is wrong in any way to vandalise an article about any country. For example, I'm not the biggest fan of France but I wouldn't vandalise their page. Aaronpark 3 April 2006

Of course, vandalism is bad. However, anybody can insult America, Americans and non-Americans alike. We just want you to be civil about it. Then, we'll take any lumps that we deserve.

Richard 08:10, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

The point of the Wikipedia foundation is to provide free facts (knowledge) to anyone and everyone. The fact that people are allowed to edit these articles is amazing (you’ll never see Encarta do that) it gives people the ability to share there knowledge with the world. This vandalism is someone's opinion and does not have a right to be displayed amongst the facts presented here. They are entitled to their opinion and should say it and not feel threatened for saying it but don't even try to pass of an opinion as a fact.

I love this country. I just hate the government.

Then why not change it by voting different people and different parties? Isn't USA democracy, people choose the government - not vice versa. - G3, 12:02, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The motto

The motto seams to be strange. Vandaliasm? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.131.144.254 (talk • contribs) 00:32, 2 March 2006.

The motto is fine, unless I'm missing something, care to enlighten me to the strange part?--Dp462090 03:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The map

Is there a non-satirical reason that Iraq is highlighted in green on the map image of the US?

Sigh, nope. It's been removed. --Golbez 20:06, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why "United States" and not "United States of America"?

Isn't United States of America the official name of the US? I would think that United States should redirect to United States of America, not vice versa as is the current case. What am I missing? - Jord 19:42, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Scroll up, look at Table of Contents section 12. Please. --Golbez 19:58, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. - Jord 20:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps more sections were added since - to which section are you reffering? Sfacets 05:00, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

For background, please read sections 11 & 12 in Talk Archive 14. Still, feel free to leave comments here, since we may revote at some point. --JonathanFreed | Talk | 18:11, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

terrible. this is just bowing to american stupidity. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.201.43.192 (talk • contribs) .

• Shouldn't it be United States of America (USA)? When I see United States in the article name, I feel like something is missing, like it's short of a word: America. Why is China the People's Republic of China (PRC), why don't we also use the People's Republic? There is only one remaining country with the name People's Republic and that's China. 128.135.36.155 03:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

If United States of America redirects to United States, why doesn't Confederate States of America redirect to Confederate States?--Brendenhull (talk) [20:44, April 22, 2006]

[United Nations] list United States of America as United States of America and NOT United States. Same goes to United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (it's really long but CORRECT). All Nations and regional areas should be named after the UN imho 83.252.135.186 00:23, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV

Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as the dominant global influence in economic, political, military affairs. Because of its influence and power substantially superior to that of other world powers, the U.S. is the world's sole superpower.

What part of this statement is NOT objectively true? Is there another current nation-state whose economic, political and military influence one could also describe in such a way? The European Union is the only geopolitical unit that could match or surpass the US in this regard, but it is of course NOT a nation-state, and seems far from achieving this status. For better or worse, the US is unchallenged by any other single nation-state, and this situation will remain so for quite a while. Kemet 2 March 2006.

I've already tried to neutralise this section by removing "technological, scientific and cultural", but I find that it still strikes as biased. With what criteria can it be claimed that USA is dominant economic power on the planet? The EU is undoubtfully significantly richer, although not really a nation-state. Luxemburg, Norway and Ireland have higher GDP than the US, and China has more natural resources. Next we have "Because of its influence and power substantially superior to that of other world powers, the U.S. is the world's sole superpower."... I mean come on, this sounds as if it has come right out of Captain America. Next step would be to mark an American trademark on the word SUPERPOWER (TM) - All rights reserved. Miskin 10:33, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

The BBC = Captain America? [2] keith 21:09, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

The US has by far the world's largest economy. Though the EU as a whole is comparable, the individual constituent states are not. American firms, films, performing artists, and political and military policy regularly dominate news all over the world. Good or bad these seem to be the facts of the matter. Eluchil404 22:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

And about Luxembourg, Ireland, and Norway, they have higher GDP per capita, not higher GDPs. There is a difference, and in fact it is a very big difference. bob rulz 01:59, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not only what you say but how you say it. The current version looks much better. Miskin 10:14, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi. This article and its Talk page have too much going on for me to feel comfortable involving myself very much. But, as to this question, I do feel like reïterating a point I made in late 2005; and I may as well include the comments that others tacked to the end of it. The original is Item 14 in Archive 13. I am President Lethe. Here it is:

1. I used the word superpower in the introductory paragraph: "Also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S. (or the US), the U.S.A. (or the USA), the U.S. of A. (or the US of A), the States, and America^[3], the superpower consists of fifty federal states and one federal district."

2. It was removed as being point of view.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks to all for their efforts with this article.

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

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

The USA is as superpower. That is a significant and distinguishing status, and therefore appropriate in the introductory description. --StanZegel (talk) 18:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

This is not a matter of American nationalism; the United States is objectively the nation with the world's largest economy and military-industrial complex. It's the country's most defining characteristic, and deserves lead mention. Austin Hair ✍ ✉ 20:07, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Maybe some will find something worthwhile in that posting when considering how to begin the article (it does seem to be redone very often). President Lethe 00:26, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi all,

I'm late to this game but I think the introduction in the current version of the article has some problems.

Here's what it says right now...

"Following World War I, the United States has emerged as the dominant global influence in economic, political, military, cultural and technological affairs. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is today's sole global superpower."

Now, I'm not disputing the statement that the U.S. is today's sole global superpower.

What I am disputing is the following:

1) I thought this text originally read "Following WWII" not "Following WWI"? There's lot of room to dispute the statement if you use WWI as the starting point. You could modify it to say "Following WWI, the U.S. grew steadily in stature as a world power. Following WWII, it emerged as one of the two dominant superpowers. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, etc." That would be unobjectionable.

2) I think the sentence as it stands is overreaching. It's valid to say that the U.S. has emerged as "a dominant influence in ..." but not "the dominant". Are we the dominant culture? Do we dominate technology? (Well, OK, that's debatable) If we're "the dominant military power", why can't we kick ass in Iraq, Iran and N. Korea?

Please read my revision. I hope it captures the truth without stretching it.

Richard 06:34, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] G'tanomo Bay

I just rv'ed an anonymous edit that alluded to G'tanamo Bay human rights abuses. I feel it is important to incorporate human rights abuses in Guantanamo into the article; however the link provided dosen't explicitly state that prisoners are being detained without being charged. Moreover, most of the BBC article seems to contain allegations and not statements of facts. While I agree that US human rights abuses in Guantanamo need to be incorporated into the article, I feel that more concrete dispassionate evidence is required to support the statement. AreJay 00:24, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I've just reintroduced a reference to Gitmo in the Human Rights section. However, I don't think what I wrote addresses the issues that you raise. I hadn't read this comment when I wrote my stuff. Can you expand on what I wrote to hit those issues?

Thanks.

Richard 08:04, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Needs improvement

This article needs some major work done. First, almost the entire history of the country after the Civil War is completely missing. It would require cutting down the size of the current history section, but everything that's in this history description should be in the subpages. The government section needs to be trimmed significantly (it's way too long). I expanded the geography section and added climate and natural hazards sections to the article. As it stands it's, imo, too long to stay in the article, but we can work on expanding the subpages significantly. This article is far from exemplary in my opinion, and needs some major work to be considered a good article. There are many other countries I feel are better articles than the U.S. The actual diction and writing is good, but it needs work in other areas. What are your thoughts on this? bob rulz 03:17, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

• I tend to agree and would like more balance and greater use of proper Summary style used here per above. -- mav 02:03, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the article is too long, especially the Government and Geography sections. We should move some stuff out to subpages. What do you think of my work on the History section? It's long but at least it takes us up to the present day. Does it need to be cut down? The History of the United States article is a bit longer. I didn't copy everything that was in that article.

Richard 08:06, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Coat of Arms Vandalism

The Coat of Arms is a little owl saying "O Rly". Clearly vandalism. Someone fix it now.

Also the title says "United States of O RLY"

--Simtropolitan's Comments--

Truly disgraceful! I will fix it. Who in their right mind would do something so ridiculously stupid! Aargh! I think this was probably the work of the user "O Rly?". This is an utter outrage.

[edit] E Pluribus Unum vs. In God We Trust

As far as I know, both remain the mottoes of the United States of America (unfortunately on the second one). The only things I've seen to the contrary are in Wikipedia itself, and honestly no good encyclopedia references itself. I may be wrong on this, but I would be surprised if I didn't know my own country's motto. R'son-W 11:46, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Confirmed, [4]. I'll change the article. --Golbez 20:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

• that link does NOT confirm whether both or only one are current --JimWae 20:13, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

• • Then find a link that challenges it. I cited my change, your turn. --Golbez 20:24, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Why does E pluribus unum start with (Latin) with Latin wikilinked? I mean, most people can figure out that it's Latin (or at least not English due to the italics), and it does say "Translated" and it is wikilinked to it's own page. If anything, instead of

(Latin): E pluribus unum (1789 to 1956)
(Translated: "Out of Many, One")
In God We Trust (1956 to present)

as it is now, it should be

E pluribus unum (1789 to 1956)
(Translated from Latin: "Out of Many, One")* In God We Trust (1956 to present)

• [or possibly even flip the translation with the note saying it's been translated--or best, drop any comment of translation since it's obvious]
  

or something like that, since it's sort of distracting and unnecessary to start with with a parenthetical comment that it's in Latin... I would have changed it myself, but since this section about the mottoes is on the talk pages, I figured it'd be best to mention it here first. //MrD9 20:30, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I noticed this as I was making the previous change, and I agree. I'll fudge it. --Golbez 21:28, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I would like to point out that E Pluribus Unum is still on our coinage, the only denomination of currency without both is the penny, and it retains the latin, affixing dates as above seems irresponsible and unfounded. Nmpenguin 01:39, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Except the fact remains that in 1956, the single official motto switched from E Pluribus Unum to In God We Trust. --Golbez 02:12, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but that's the problem. I've found no source other than Wikipedia that says that the motto of the USA is no longer E Pluribus Unum. Furthermore, it wasn't until recently that the USA article said such. R'son-W 21:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I just checked the copy of the United States Code at Cornell's Legal Information Institute site. 36 U.S.C. § 302 unequivocally states that "In God We Trust" is the national motto. [5] The only mention of "E Pluribus Unum" is in 31 U.S.C. § 5112,[6] which describes the denominations and designs of coins. If anyone following this conversation does not know how to read U.S.C. citations, follow the link to the United States Code article, where there is an explanation. I hope this resolves the debate. --Coolcaesar 00:57, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Here's my understanding of the matter. Specific directions and laws created an official Great Seal of the United States. This seal has two sides, one of which includes the motto E Pluribus Unum, the other of which includes the words Novus Ordo Seclorum and Annuit Cœptus. The laws make it clear that this is the official Great Seal of the U.S., and that it is to bear a motto reading E Pluribus Unum; but I have never seen a law regarding the Seal that says that the motto on the official Seal is also the official motto of the United States. My understanding is that, before 1956, there was no law saying, in essence, "The official motto of the United States is ...", but that there were only laws governing the seal and mottos that would appear on it. Then, in 1956, a law was passed to say explicitly that the motto of the United States was In God We Trust. So, it seems that, if anything, the most accurate statement to make would be (1) that, until 30 July 1956, the United States itself had no official motto, but that E Pluribus Unum, the motto that appeared on the Great Seal (and the Seal itself was official) was used as a de facto motto, and (2) that, from 30 July 1956, the official, declared motto of the United States has been In God We Trust. Several sources seem to support this understanding; I don't mind listing them if someone wants me to. But, unfortunately, even if we rely on official sources of the federal government, we may get evidence of conflicting stories; that's how history and laws are. President Lethe 16:45, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Former British colony

Is there a reason why the Category:Former British colonies is not on this article? An editor is making a big on the Pakistan page because, if the United States is not in the category, then Pakistan should not be in it either. Pepsidrinka 21:54, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It could be argued that only 15 of the 50 states were ever British colonies (including Hawaii). User:Zoe|^(talk) 22:18, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, make that 17 -- West Virginia and Maine, I forgot about them. User:Zoe|^(talk) 17:11, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

To offer a possible argument (not saying I agree with it), but the "United States" was not a former British colony. Massachusetts Bay, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, et.al. were, but the heavy bulk of the United States was never claimed, nor colonized, by Great Britain. If anything, the "Former British colonies" category belongs more rightly on the individual states, just as Goa was a former Portuguese colony, not all of India. (And I note Goa is indeed in that category, and India is not.)

In fact, it already is, somewhat. The thirteen colonies (an example is Province of North Carolina) are in the category Category:Thirteen Colonies, which is in the category of Category:British North America, which is in the category of Category:Former British colonies. Category:Thirteen Colonies is also in Category:Pre-revolutionary history of the United States, which is in Category:Eras of United States history, which is in Category:History of the United States, which is in Category:United States, which United States is a member of.

Remember, categorization is solely for, well, categorization. It doesn't matter where in the tree a subject is as long as it makes sense. It's not a political thing. IMO, Pakistan DOES belong in that category, or at the very least, somewhere along the line, Pakistan belongs in a "British Raj" or something category, which then belongs in the Former British colonies cat.

In fact, I'll look at it now. Pakistan is in Category:Pakistan, which contains Category:History of Pakistan, which contains Category:British rule in India, which does not lead us to "Former British colonies". Sounds like an oversight to me, and somewhere in the chain belongs the "Former British colonies" category. --Golbez 22:18, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Edit conflict: Good point, Zoe, I hadn't thought of Hawaii. --Golbez 22:18, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The US is listed on Category:Former British colonies. The name of the category is probably simplistic, but more true than not I'd say. keith 22:36, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

That's what I get for not confirming myself. *sigh* Four paragraphs. :P --Golbez 22:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Quite ironic because I thought I did look and didn't see it. Actually, I know I looked. Maybe I tricked myself into thinking that it wasn't there, so I just came immediately here. Double *sigh*. Pepsidrinka 22:58, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, the same happened to me. I looked and missed it. :P --Golbez 23:00, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually I added it earlier today so you probably already saw the article before I added it. ;) So you won't need glasses. --a.n.o.n.y.m ^t 23:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What?

How come this article never got renominated for FAC? When I checked out the details I saw the most of the article had been tailored to suit those "faults" with the article. I say we renominate it. Oh, wait. I'm still new here. Eh, ah well. Guess I got to wait until I've been here 4 yrs until some takes me seriously on nominating an article, huh? Crad0010 23:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

You can renominate it if you want, but if the concerns of the previous nomination (or removal) are not addressed, and the article doesn't meet the criteria, it will be pointless and wasting the community's resources. The subpage is probably under a different name, and it got lost through a move or something. Pepsidrinka 23:37, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Martyrdom gets you nowhere. --Golbez 18:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Insert non-formatted text here== Foreign Relations / Military ==

I am kinda new to all this editing, been a member for about a year, but have not been a big editor. However, I did edit the section on military/foreign relations removing: "The United States armed forces are considered to be the most powerful (of any sort) in the world and there force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any nation or collaboration of nations. They are dominant on land, water, air, and space." based on "considered" being point of view, inability to measure such a statement, poor grammar/spelling, and the serious doubt that the US has a greater force projection than any "collaboration of nations". The reverting from my removal was accompanied by the comment this has already been discussed and decided on (for which maybe being new to this editing I am not looking in the right place, but I cannot find it in here)... I do not know how something with such a point of view, whether it be by an individual using Wikipedia or cited from a US Gov't website to promote their agenda can remain in the article? I find the rest of the article to be relatively well worded, and I am very proud of our military history (for the most part - there's always the exception), and the notion that it is the most powerful/best or whatever we want it to be, but I think Wikipedia is more about reporting the facts, and facts that can be measured and verified. MJK 22:18, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

The reason you couldn't find the discussion is probably because it has been archived. This Talk page has 14 archive pages! I haven't found the discussion either. It would help if there was an index into the archives but that would be a lot of work to build.

Actually, I think that the statement you deleted was pretty good "The United States armed forces are considered to be the most powerful (of any sort) in the world and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any nation or collaboration of nations. They are dominant on land, water, air, and space."

It's true. Really. I think the U.S. could probably defeat the entire world put together in a conventional or nuclear war. The only problem is that the Iraqi insurgents have found our Achilles heel: unconventional war. The weakness of our foreign policy is that we are discovering that having the most powerful military in the world by far isn't enough to allow us to dominate the world.

Sic semper tyrannis (yes, it's the Marine motto but it was also used by the Romans whenever they killed a tyrant. It means basically "Death to tyrants")

Richard 08:00, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Close. Marines use Semper Fidelis meaning "always faithful", Virgina uses Sic semper tyrannis, meaning "Thus always to tyrants". Booth also shouted the later after shooting Lincoln. Squiggyfm 18:25, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

"I think the U.S. could probably defeat the entire world put together in a conventional or nuclear war." Well, er, yes, but what would be left? -- Mwanner | Talk 14:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Remember the context of my comment. MJK deleted this text:

"The United States armed forces are considered to be the most powerful (of any sort) in the world and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any nation or collaboration of nations. They are dominant on land, water, air, and space."

What I am saying is that the above statement and the one about being able to defeat any collaboration of nations is factually correct. It's not idle boasting or arrogance. However, there are limits to the use of power, most notably that our economic welfare is dependent upon a healthy international trade. We also believe that national and international security depend upon strong, democratic institutions both in other nations and in international organizations. Arbitrary use of military power in our own self-interest undermines these institutions. Finally, we believe we are a moral country and should not act arbitrarily and evilly in our own self-interest. If we feel we should effect regime change in Iraq, we need a fig leaf of WMD and terrorism to do it.

I would like to get the following ideas into the intro. (1) We have the strongest military in the world (2) We try to be careful how we use that military because using it can cause economic and political damage to the international systems that far outweighs any benefits we get. (3) Asymmetric warfare against insurgents has shown that even the most powerful military in the world is not omnipotent.

Richard 16:06, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

I'll post this here, since I don't know a better place to ask this question. But seeing has how a large portion of the vandalism, on this page and most other pages are done by users who simply have an anonymous IP address as a user name, why not make all users just have a name?

Now, some people may (will) rise up and complain that this will only further stifle valid contributions. But seeing as how registration is free, and typing in a name takes little to no time...what’s the problem? If you look at the useful contributions from anonymous IPs, I'm sure they'll be dwindled by the vandalisms.

If there is a better place for this question, please let me know...I'll gladly ask this question there. Please don’t take this as a Gestapo like suggestion, just wondering if there was a way we could more efficiently use the minds of the world, rather than spend the time reverting vandalisms. Thanks. Squiggyfm 06:02, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

This has been asked countless times, so many times that it's on Wikipedia:Perennial proposals. --Golbez 09:29, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protection solves this on pages where its necessary -- Astrokey44|talk 14:13, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

But why not solve the problem at the source?Squiggyfm 16:05, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Because we simply don't do that. Read the perennial proposals link. --Golbez 17:00, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I've read it, but, no offense, not doing something "just because" doesn't seem right to me.Squiggyfm 19:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Nonetheless, there are reasons presented there and elsewhere, and this is not the talk page to make the case for it. --Golbez 19:54, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Religion map

-The inclusion of that map on religion was discussed once a while back, and a consenus was reached to remove it. While it would be a good idea to have a map illustrating the major religious denominations in the U.S., that particular map conveys no useful information at all with a confusing "Total Adherents as Percent of Population for Participating Groups." If anyone can make a convincing case that the map is useful for some reason, please discuss it here before you re-post it. --Jleon 13:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Health Care

The information on the page does not seem right. The information says that, "The United States does offer a number of limited forms of socialized medicine, which occupy a larger portion of the U.S. Federal budget than any other class of programs, such as defense." However, that information doesn't include past and current military spending, which currently makes up 49% of the total federal budget, far more than the combined sum of socialized medicine. [7] I figure however that this area has been contested before, so I'd like opinions before I change anything.

My second concern is in the latter part, which states that, "It should also be noted that any licensed emergency care facility is required by law to provide emergency care if needed, regardless of the patient's ability to pay." I am changing this to say that, "By law, licensed emergency care facilities are required to provide emergency care regardless of the patient's ability to pay, but only in cases of immediately life-threatening situations and if they have space. If the patient is stable and able to walk out of the hospital, they may be turned away if the hospital lacks space or cannot afford the patient." This change is to reflect information with places like California, Texas and Colorado, where people with broken bones and other emergency, but non-life-threatening situations. [8] [9] Ecopirate 22:07, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Take the health care anecdotes to the sub article. The text tersely describes the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. Obviously someone has to decide what is an "emergency" and what isn't. And when the hospital is full, what do you expect but to get referred elsewhere? keith 06:27, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough for move to sub-article. I'll return the text to its original form. The problem is that the ER care portion presumes that A. There is funding for hospitals and B. There are facilities for them. The articles cited also state that newer hospitals are being built without ERs for this express purpose. It gets more complex there though, such as the factors of preventative care for the uninsured versus ER visits for them and such. My original change was an attempt to condense things, obviously not working well enough. Ecopirate 09:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I wrote the original text of that and already thought it was pretty long for an article summarizing the whole country, but obviously it's how many people receive primary care so quite an important facet of the system. If the point you are trying to get across is that many patients are unhappy with the implementation because of some reason, or that the laws have caused financial problems for hospitals in states with high illegal immigrant populations, or whatever the summary of the issue really is, then just put that, like with the HMO criticism. keith 10:36, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] E Pluribus Unum

As of 2006, the U.S. was still producing money with the motto "E Pluribus Unum" on it, along with "In God We Trust". This would suggest at least co-equal status today. Moreover, the State Department website contains the statement, The motto of the United States, E pluribus unum, means "out of many, one." [10] This would indicate that "E pluribus unum" isn't just a motto, it's the motto. Hope this convinces you, Golbez. —Ryan McDaniel 04:48, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

The money argument doesn't mean much to me, since my one dollar bill also says "Novo ordo seclorum". The mint does not dictate mottoes. However, the state department citation IS good enough for me. However, we DO know that "In God We Trust" is ALSO *a* motto. --Golbez 06:25, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Here's my understanding of the matter. Specific directions and laws created an official Great Seal of the United States. This seal has two sides, one of which includes the motto E Pluribus Unum, the other of which includes the words Novus Ordo Seclorum and Annuit Cœptus. The laws make it clear that this is the official Great Seal of the U.S., and that it is to bear a motto reading E Pluribus Unum; but I have never seen a law regarding the Seal that says that the motto on the official Seal is also the official motto of the United States. My understanding is that, before 1956, there was no law saying, in essence, "The official motto of the United States is ...", but that there were only laws governing the seal and mottos that would appear on it. Then, in 1956, a law was passed to say explicitly that the motto of the United States was In God We Trust. So, it seems that, if anything, the most accurate statement to make would be (1) that, until 30 July 1956, the United States itself had no official motto, but that E Pluribus Unum, the motto that appeared on the Great Seal (and the Seal itself was official) was used as a de facto motto, and (2) that, from 30 July 1956, the official, declared motto of the United States has been In God We Trust. Several sources seem to support this understanding; I don't mind listing them if someone wants me to. But, unfortunately, even if we rely on official sources of the federal government, we may get evidence of conflicting stories; that's how history and laws are. President Lethe 16:42, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nit-picky Change.

The United States of America is a great place.

That is the first line of the article. Not to be nit-picky, but for someone to say that it is a great place, would be someone's opinion. While i agree with this opinion (being of sound mind and born of the country United States of America) i do recognize that some people do not like the United States of America, much less think it is a great place to live. Can someone please change it to be more neutral and less opinionated.

Again sorry to be picky. But eventually someone would bring it up (and someone probably has before.)

- Theropissed.

I don't know what you're talking about, so I'm assuming it was removed. You spent a couple of minutes mentioning a vandalism that you could have fixed in a couple of seconds? --Golbez 04:31, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I probably did. Nevermind then.

[edit] Jews

In wich area or state from the USA are living the most (Yidiš-spoken) Jews? Šalom, Simon MAYER

Los Angeles and New York, primarily, where it is very common to see Jewish-Americans walking to synagogue on Saturday morning. There used to be a very large population in the suburbs just north of Chicago (in and around Skokie, Illinois) but I am not sure if that is true any more. There are also substantial populations of Jewish-Americans in most other large cities. --Coolcaesar 01:02, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I found this .... Can You tell me the names of the areas witch are red? Are the Jewsh integrate in America like nowadays in Europe or live they in their own Štetl, the jewish part of a village/town/city ?

I live in one of the "pink" areas of that map, Palm Beach County, Florida. (Nearby Broward and Miami-Dade counties are also shaded as having a large Jewish population.) Jews in America, other than the Hasidim in Brooklyn (who keep to a closed community), are very well integrated and may be found spread all over, though there are some clusters in particular neighborhoods. *Dan T.* 13:01, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Though Jews arrived in the United States are early as the 1600s (the oldest such community arrived in New York City in the 1620's from Brazil when that colony was transferred from the Dutch to the Portuguese, and one of the transfer protocols was that all Jews had to be evacuated. The Dutch moved them to NYC, and they and their decendents have been there ever since. Jewish immigration grew in the 1800s. During the early 1800s, many secular Jews from Germany arrived in the United States and primarily became merchants and shop-owners. As a result of persecution in parts of Eastern Europe, Jewish American immigration increased dramatically in the 1880s, with most of the new immigrants coming from the rural populations of Russia and Eastern Europe. A large number of these immigrants settled in New York City and its immediate environs, establishing what became one of the world's major concentrations of Jewish population. There are somewhere between 5.1 and 5.8 million Jews in the United States. In descending order, the cities with the highest Jewish populations are: New York, New York; Miami, Florida; Los Angeles, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Chicago, Illinois; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; and Washington DC. Jews in America are inteernaly divided into Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements, and the Orthodox are sub-divided into the Modern Orthodox and the Hasidm, and are further divided into SatmarandLubavich, and other groups. Only the Orthodox communities have maintained any intent to retain segregated neighborhoods, and they have gone to the extremes of buying all of the property in established Villages, such as New Square, New York and Kiryas Joel, New York, patterned after the communities they left in Europe. There are still other, smaller communities in Boston, Cleveland, Ohio; Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Maryland; etc., which did not have all the established institutions of the dominant community in New York, but even they managed to put many of these institutions in place, thereby preserving their insularity. The Conservative and Reform groups have assimilated into mainstream America to one extent or another. SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 13:21, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank You for this interesting information about Jews in America. I think the Jewish people are speaking American-English, but are there Jews who are speaking Yiddish?

50 years ago, many American Jews spoke Yiddish. These days few American Jews speak Yiddish although there are groups who try to keep the language alive. Most American Jews know a few words of Yiddish as do some non-Jewish Americans like myself.

Richard 00:20, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Picture caption

The caption of the photo next to the Civil War heading reads "American westward expansion is idealized in Emanuel Leutze's famous song Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way (1861). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem..." Should the word "song" be replaced with "painting"? I do not know and thus will not change it myself, but someone ought to. Ari 06:32, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Irrelevant clause

"The United States is a constitutional republic, that is in many forms Capitalistic."

Capitalism is an economic system, not a form of government. I don't really see how or why that clause belongs anywhere in a paragraph about the U.S. Government itself. Theoretically, the structure and function of the U.S. Government would remain mostly unchanged if the U.S. functioned predominantly under socialism, although the size, scope, and power of the government would be increased substantially. Discussion of capitalism belongs in a section about the economy of the United States, not its government.

I also corrected some of the grammar in that posting. People really need to do better proofreading before clicking "save page."Antodav 10:22, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Why not add with plutocratic tendencies, which is a factual state of matters in the USA? - G3, 12:10, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moved text from the History of the United States article

Hi Golbez,

Wow, that was a fast revert of my edit. Look, I understand the point of there being two articles, one on the United States and one on the History of the United States.

I have just finished an extensive restructuring of the following articles: Mexico, History of Mexico and Spanish Conquest of Mexico. It took me several hours of moving text around from one article to another and merging text where the same idea was said in different ways.

It would be fine if the United States article had a complete and good summary of U.S. history up to the present. However, it doesn't. It stops roughly at the Civil War and does a pretty poor job with the last half of the 19th century. There's nothing on the 20th century at all.

I propose to fix this by bringing stuff over from the History of the United States article and doing the same restructure and merge exercise that I did with Mexico.

I understand that we don't need all of the text of the History of the United States article in the United States article. However, the easiest way to do that is to copy it all over and then delete parts during the cleanup process.

I know that temporary work should be done in a sandbox page. However, being a newbie, I don't know how to set one up.

Any suggestions or advice will be welcomed. (except for the one about the long walk off a short pier).

Richard 08:38, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've finished the first cut of the changes proposed above. The History section is longer but at least it covers U.S. History all the way to the present date. I have tried to edit out extraneous stuff so that this is truly a summary of U.S. history. If you can find a way to make this section more concise, please go for it. Your comments and suggestions are solicited.

Richard 09:12, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed Iraqi death toll statistic

It's out of place here unless we provide statistics for the other issues being debated as well. It's also POV since some estimates of the Iraqi death toll are significantly lower.

Richard 07:52, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Allegedly" line in 9/11 note

To quote from the Wiki article on Osama Bin Laden:

"In December 2001, U.S. forces in Afghanistan captured a videotape during a raid on a house in Jalalabad, which allegedly shows bin Laden discussing the September 11th attacks with a group of followers. However, the quality of the tape is poor, and bin Laden is seen writing with his right hand, although according to the FBI he is left handed. Furthermore, he is shown wearing a gold ring, which some claim is forbidden for men by orthodox Islam. This idea has been disputed by numerous videos and photos of Bin Laden wearing the same ring on many different occasions. [18] In some low resolution pictures of the video, bin Laden appears smiling with a more round face and a nose which is different to the one seen in previous images of him. However, this is also disputed by higher resolution photos of the same video which show a man who does resemble bin Laden [19]. Still, because of the anomalies surrounding this video, the authenticity of the tape remains highly disputed."

The statement "allegedly" seems justified and proper, since imperical scholarship (as opposed to the court of public opinion, which Wikipedia has no interest in) still has the jury out on whether he was directly responsible or not.--Primalchaos 11:55, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• More to the point, it is the proper phrase in any publication or public venue until and unless someone is actually convicted... at least as far as American Law, Mores, Practises, and Culture is concerned. FrankB

[edit] Use of the word America

The footnote currently reads: "In the U.S., America is more commonly used to describe the United States and less often to refer to the Americas, the lands of the Western Hemisphere (North and South America); the latter usage is more common in the rest of the world." Is this documented somewhere? Are we talking about the usage of "America" in English throughout the world or the use of that and similar words in other languages? - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 00:04, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Culture

Apologies if it's already discussed in some sub-article I haven't read, but isn't it noteworthy that the US is unique (or nearly so) among Western nations in allowing personal firearms? It certainly ties in closely to the inversion of the attitudes towards (public/media depictions of) sexuality and violence relative to, say, European culture. It seems to me that this deserves some sort of mention under "culture" or so. --Tardis 16:44, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

You might want to start by looking at Gun politics, but I think a brief mention here with a link would not be out of place. -- Mwanner | Talk 17:05, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we could but then you're opening the door to a bunch of other things we could mention about American culture. The U.S. has the death penalty whereas European countries do not.

The religion section provides statistics but doesn't mention the sharp divide between religion and secularism. Europe, in contrast, is much more secular and much less religious (except for the Muslims).

We should also mention the power of religion on public policy (e.g. the debates on abortion and same-sex marriages).

All of this discussion to be done with NPOV, of course.

Richard 17:18, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that all that you mention belongs in the article (and I'm American), but I agree that it will be difficult to write it well, and could be edit-war prone. Seems worth doing, though. -- Mwanner | Talk 17:25, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Check out the culture section. It's a mish-mash but at least I got it started. Now let's see what other people think it should say. BTW, I'm an American too.

Richard 17:47, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed the culture section as very badly researched, and seems to be the kind of political 'common knowledge' edit we should be trying to resist here, presenting a very limited and POV version of political influences in the United States.

Primalchaos

Primalchaos deleted the entire "Culture" section that I had created on grounds that it was "unscholarly and highly inaccurate". Of course, I was miffed since it was my idea and I had invested some effort into it. However, since I don't like edit wars and I have to admit he has a point, I would like to suggest a different approach.

I hadn't had time to write a full section so I figured that I would write a stub and let people add to it. Primalchaos obviously didn't like that approach. An alternative approach is for us to work on it "off-line" and then put it back in when there is a consensus that it is ready for prime time.

To this end, I have created a sub page "Talk:United States/Culture". Please make any proposed edits there but let's talk about it here. I'm open to changing the name of the section and rearranging the structure of the sections in addition to changing the text.

The sub page "Talk:United States/Culture" no longer exists because it got hijacked (and I use that word without any resentment or bitterness) by Bruce Hallman who wanted it to be about conservatism.

It has therefor been moved to Talk:United States/Conservatism

Richard 06:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I do think there are important points to be made about the American culture including things like the evangelical Christians, gun culture, distrust of big government, the tax revolution, a penchant for free enterprise and deep-rooted emotional support for rural agrarian lifestyle (even if most of us don't live it). All of these things need to be explained in order for someone to understand what the American ethos is all about.

If we want this discussion to move away from being a description of conservatism, we could also add labor unionism, feminism, affirmative action, illegal immigration.

I know this sounds like a list of political issues but there are cultural undercurrents which drive the political debate. It is the cultural themes that I want to focus on.

Richard 06:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

*** NOTE *** I'm not saying that all of the above points describe the same group of people although I'm sure there is a group of people that support all of the above. I'm saying each one of those is an important "meme" in American culture and needs to be understood if you are to make sense of what goes on in American politics and newspapers. I don't want to express support or opposition to any of the above points, at least not in this Wikipedia article.

It's a big task and maybe it's like making sausage. Better not to let the end reader see how we make it. Let's just work on it and then put the finished product in the main article when we're comfortable with it.

I recognize that this will be highly controversial and that NPOV will be difficult to achieve. Let us take up the challenge and try anyway.

Richard 16:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Except everything you cited there is aspects of a part of a specific subculture or set of subcultures of America (distrust of big government, gun ownership, etc.), whose values differ greatly from other subcultures of equal size and scope in America. There is no monolithic culture in America, and it continues to fracture more and more. That is where all this inaccuracy really lies. If you want to start a list linking to prominent subcultures in America and their respective articles, I would support that, but you are trying to label all Americans in very limited terms that the statistics frankly don't play out. If there was an accurate title for the section you are proposing, it would not be Culture, but Stereotypes or Image.

I accept that some of these themes are taken as Stereotypes but that's a different issue. I'm not trying to say something about all Americans. I am saying that on many of these issues, many Americans identify themselves on one side or another. Well, duh, you say, that's how it works in politics. Yes, but what is the cultural underpinning that drives the debate?

Why do some people cherish gun rights? Some of it goes back to the history of and myth of the American frontier. That's culture.

Why do some people distrust big government? That goes back to Jefersonianism, Jacksonianism and the populism of the 1800's. That's culture.

Empathy for the rural, agrarian lifestyle. Think "American Gothic" and Norman Rockwell as icons of American life. That's culture.

Maybe you think it's a world long left behind or wish it were. Some people don't at least not in their hearts and dreams.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just saying it is there.

Richard 06:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

In more general terms, the articles on the Second Amendment and gun control handle the issues you want the article on the country of the United States to feature more extensively and more appropriately, which this article links to. Same with religious freedoms/religiousity.--Primalchaos 18:30, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, maybe but you have to know to look over there. What I want is to provide a "lay of the land" that gives someone an idea of what the highlights of the cultural landscape are. I was actually displeased to see Bruce Hallman go into more detail about gun control. I wouldn't want an explanation of the justification for gun ownership or of gun control. I would just want the reader to understand that the gun control debate is probably more heated in the U.S. than in other countries and the reason is because of the historical truths and myths of the American frontier. Then, if the reader was interested, there would be a link to the gun control article.

Richard 06:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I am fine talking about subcultures on both sides of an issue and the fact that there are trends moving from one side of an issue to another. Please believe me, I do not have a political ax to grind here. See my comments below...

Richard

Last night, after I had shut down my computer, it came to me how to express what I'm trying to do with the "culture" section. I'm open to renaming it to something other than "culture" but I do not want it to be about conservatism.

When I was growing up in the 60's and 70's, there was a widespread cultural phenomenon among people who had lived through the Great Depression. These people tended to be more careful about how they spent money, not buying things that they didn't need and avoiding debt. This was because they grew up in times of great privation. This phenomenon was often pointed out to explain how this subgroup viewed the world and to explain why they acted and voted the way they did. Most of the people who thought this way have either passed on or are among the very elderly so this mentality has largely passed from our culture. It was part of American culture 30-40 years ago. It isn't anymore but, if you wanted to understand how people behaved in the 50s and 60s, you had to understand that.

You also had to understand World War II and the Cold War to understand why people acted the way they did int the 50s, 60s and 7y0s. It wasn't just about foreign policy but it also drove domestic debate about wiretapping, the FBI and civil liberties.

Watergate has had a smaller impact on the American psyche but it did affect it for at least a decade. To this day, we measure constitutional questions like "domestic wiretapping without warrant" against Watergate.

The Vietnam war has had an influence over foreign policy and the use of military power over the last 30 years although that influence has faded quite a bit. There is still a political current of "No More Vietnams".

In contrast, Iran/Contra and Monica Lewinsky seem to have had relatively little impact on our culture and national psyche. Those events happened and we moved on. Not much lasting effect as far as I can tell.

It's too early to tell how much 9/11 will affect our national psyche. I think it drives current political debate quite a bit but 5-10 years from now, we may find that it isn't as big an influence as it is now.

America also became increasingly a member of the international community after WWII. We broke out of our isolationism and became familiar with the cultures of Europe and Japan first and eventually of other countries as well.

Your thoughts and feedback are solicited and welcomed.

Richard 16:31, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting ideas, but based on WP:NOR, I am not sure they have a place in the article unless you can cite verifiable reliable source(s). BruceHallman 16:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I am confident that verifiable, reliable sources can be found for all of what I've written. Do I have them at my fingertips? No. Much of this stuff is basic knowledge in Political Science and History at the high school and college level. If you're an American, you should have been taught a lot of this in high school and college. If you weren't, it's more evidence for the sorry state of American education.

In the words of Santayana, "Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it." And then there's Murphy's variant of Santayana's aphorism: "Those who don't sutdy history are doomed to repeat it in the worst possible way."

I don't think the fact that I don't have sources for it makes it original research per se although anything that is not adequately sourced is immediately vulnerable to the charge of being "OR". There's lots of stuff in Wikipedia that is inadequately sourced.

If you challenge my assertions, I will go and find the sources but it will take some time as each statement is a research effort unto itself. There is probably no single source that says all of what I have asserted above. I'm just explaining that I haven't made this up out of thin air. It's not original research.

Assuming that I can find these sources, the real question is: do these ideas belong in this article? If not, where would they belong? That's what I'd like to discuss for now while I'm digging up the sources.

Richard 18:43, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Richard, I certainly didn't mean to offend you. If '==Culture==' is not the right title, what is? Does this subculture to which you refer have a sympol/spokesman/mouthpiece? Sorry, I just don't follow your idea or get your point. BruceHallman 20:23, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

The simple answer to your question is "No, because I'm not talking about a single subculture." That's where you and I differ. You and primalchaos assumed I was talking about about conservatism because the person who got me started on this first mentioned our attitude about guns. It took me a while to move away from the issues that concern conservatives and more into a general discussion of culture.

It's primalchaos who sees American culture as an increasingly fragmented set of subcultures. And maybe he's correct. But I don't see it that way. I see certain common themes in American culture.

If you go back 20,30, 40 years, there was certainly a more monolithic culture in which we believed the same things: democracy, freedom, individualism, civil liberties, small business over big business, rural agrarian over urban, etc. That this could be considered "conservatism" rather than simply "themes in American culture" baffles and perturbs me. I think labeling those values as "conservatism" is very POV.

I think we do still believe similar things even if those things have changed over the last few decades.

Some of the points I made earlier might be more conservative than liberal, but many of them have broad bipartisan support.

I'm looking for ways to answer questions like the following:

From a Briton, what is it with this gun culture thing you Yanks have? Why don't you just make it illegal to own one or use one?

From a Frenchman, why don't you just have the government bureaucrats in charge of everything?

From a German, why don't you Americans follow the laws and regulations? It's simple. We make a law. People follow it. What's so difficult about that?

From Europeans in general, what's with this entrepreneurship thing you Americans do so much of? We're not much into that over here.

From Europeans in general, what's with this religion thing anyway? We don't take God seriously here in Europe.

From Europeans in general, you guys work too hard. Why don't you take it easy and enjoy life?

From Europeans and Japanese, what's this love affair you Americans have with the internal combustion engine? Isn't it far more cost-effective and less polluting to use mass transit? Get a real train system in place, for crying out loud.

From the world at large, why do you Americans always play the cowboy? What makes you think you have to run around the world, doing good, offing the bad guys and saving the oppressed?

All of this is culture. It's not art or music or literature. It's about the way people think and how that affects the way they live.

Yes, I know this rant uses stereotypes for different countries. Please don't string me up on that. I'm just trying to give you an idea of what I think is worth talking about.

How could you talk about Italy without talking about the influence of the Catholic church?

How could you talk about Russia without talking about the effect of Communism?

How could you talk about France without talking about the way they view government? BTW, did you know that burning cars is a form of protest there? Hell, if people burned cars in America, the governor would call out the National Guard to put down the riot. You wouldn't be watching this night after night on TV.

Or about Germans without talking about the way they view laws and regulations?

How would you talk about Singapore without talking about their no-nonsense attitutde towards law enforcement? Did you know that importation, sale and possession of chewing gum is a crime there? Drug dealers get executed. Spray painting cars can get you caned.

All of that is culture. They got theirs. We got ours. How do we communicate to someone outside our culture the things that are unique about our culture?

I'm not saying all of the above features of our culture are good or that all are bad. They're just there. It's part of who we are. Not everyone of us has all of the above traits. But most of us have some collection of them.

Enough of that, I'm probably starting to repeat myself. I hope you can see where I'm going with this.

Richard 21:36, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Culture (Gun Control)

"The United States is unique (or nearly so) among Western nations in generally allowing firearms."

Highly inaccurate. Other Western nations with just as liberal or even more so gun control policies include Switzerland, Norway, Israel and South Africa.

also Canada and Australia, regardless, these countries are a minority of the total number of Western nations BruceHallman 13:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I alway felt that Western nations refered to nations in the Western hemisphere. From your list of Western nations I would only include Canada. But you do have a valid point that the United States is not unique in allowing firearms. Simply wondering if this 'Western' nations is due to a cultural difference. Rithiv May 4, 2006

"The Second Amendment of the United States declares the importance of militia and protects against infringement of the right to bear arms."

Best dealt with in elsewhere in the article.

Could you then have moved it instead of deleting it? BruceHallman 13:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

It is already dealt with under articles about United States government and the Constitution, which this article links to with appropriate prominence.--Primalchaos 18:50, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

"There is a long history and tradition behind the collective and personal ownership of firearms and these are deeply-cherished rights for some Americans."

Heavy POV, no citation.

I disagree about the POV, a 'gun culture' exists, perhaps the most famous recent example was Dick Cheney, etc.. The wording of the sentence you deleted was a NPOV description of a real POV. There was indeed a citation, that was Gun_politics_in_the_United_States. Indeed, those gun politics is a major thing in modern USA. BruceHallman 13:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I further disagree about the POV (well, OK, I would think so since I wrote it).

But still my point was to say that there are many Americans who staunchly defend these rights. They might be in the minority and we could say that if we can find polls to support the statement. Nonetheless, they wield a lot of political power. What I'm looking for is an NPOV way to say the following:

1) America has a relatively liberal legal policy about gun ownership (liberal meaning not very restrictive)

2) there is a vigorous political debate over whether that legal policy should be made more restrictive

3) many Americans staunchly defend their individual and collective gun ownership rights

4) whether those Americans are in the majority or minority (based on credible polling data)

5) regardless of whether the pro-gun lobby represents a majority or minority, it wields a lot of clout politically

All this can be said without favoring pro-gun or pro-gun control if you word things carefully.

All I was trying to do was make a point about culture. The political debate probably doesn't belong in this section. The above points don't all belong in culture but rather in some other section like "current political issues".

Richard 16:26, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Richard wrote: "1) America has a relatively liberal legal policy about gun ownership (liberal meaning not very restrictive)".

Well, that is not uniformly true. (In my California based observation at least.) Since 1939, with US v Miller, local jurisdictions have been allowed to restrict gun ownership almost without limit. Some States have chosen to not regulate, some States (and Cities) have regulated a lot. There is a popular myth that the Second Amendment prohibits gun regulation, but the reality of case law is quite different. BruceHallman 22:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe a few cities like NYC and DC require registration of all guns, but everywhere an adult with no criminal record is allowed to own guns. There can of course be lots of background checks and waiting periods and whatever annoyances you need to follow to, for example, sell your gun to your friend. In California (where I also live) they are rather pesky about handguns, but I don't think registration is required on anything except assault weapons that were banned. 69.105.138.104 07:20, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Religion

This section is (a) dealt with elsewhere in the article and does not deserve such outward prominence, and (b) suggests that this phenomenon is unique in the United States.

Also, polling suggest less than 25% of American voters consider moral issues prominent. Environmentalist issues, which have the same percentage, don't get similar treatment. --Primalchaos 13:29, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The sense that I have is that Europe is largely secular with big empty churches and the United States has this difficult to explain thing called "evangelical Christianity". The old mainstream denominations (e.g. Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran) are losing members and the evangelical churches are growing fast. More importantly, the evangelicals have hijacked the conservative movement. (Yes, that's POV and I wouldn't word it that way in the Wikipedia article.)

Why does religion wield political power in the United States when it doesn't wield the same power in Europe? Well, I wouldn't necessarily want to discuss the answer in the United States article but this article should at least mention the power of religion in the U.S. and contrast it to the almost absence of religion in the European political landscape. Then, once again, we could link to more detailed articles on the pheomenon and the reasons for it.

Richard 06:36, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Richard. As I stated yesterday, in the "Conservatism" section below, I think the topics and questions you bring up are well worth inclusion in Wikipedia—and I especially like that you seem to be thinking in terms of using Wikipedia articles to explain things to people who wonder about those things—because gaining knowledge and explanations is the point of looking in an encyclopedia. I also said yesterday that I have strong doubts about how to fit those things into this United States article. Also, I see in one of your posts above that you concede that the possible questions you presented (from a Briton, a German, &c.) involve stereotypes of those cultures; I'm glad that you see this, and your seeing it makes me feel much less like bothering to point it out.

But, in regard to your point that appears in the two paragraphs right above the one you're reading now, I see a view of Europe that strikes me as too simplistic. Yesterday, I wrote just a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of what could be written about religious culture in other Western countries; I quickly replaced it with a much shorter posting, though. But I am now getting a stronger idea that, if you haven't read it already, you might indeed benefit from reading it. It's the very long posting from me that appears in this section of the history of this discussion page and begins with "Hello. Prepare yourself for my ridiculously long posting." Religion is still very important in Europe—but not in exactly the same set of ways as it is in the U.S. It may seem more subtle, may not come across so easily in the international news that we tend to get in the U.S., may not include so many politicians going on about 'God this, God that' either because they really believe it or because they think it will get them votes, and may not include a bunch of evangelizing Christians. But religion is still important in Europe, and still affects politics and government and legal matters in myriad ways. Just not always the same ways as in the U.S. What I wrote yesterday was a tiny example of it; but one can come up with highly interesting studies for all the 'other' Western countries, too, showing related things—in the sentiments of the general populaces, in the views of the politicians, and in the laws on the books (including the ones regularly enforced).

I'm getting really into stereotypes and opinion here, but I posit that part (and maybe only a very small part) of the reason for which the evangelicals are growing in the U.S. but not exploding so much in Europe, and why politicians here seem to say "God" a lot more than European ones, may be that, in many jurisdictions in Europe, they've already achieved part of what they want. Yes, the average European may bring up God, religion, faith, sprituality, &c., less in describing what drives him or her than the average American might; and, yes, Europe may be the birthplace of atheism. But Europe has had influential Christian populations far longer than the Americas have. Europe, as you point out, is full of big old empty churches. The churches may be relatively empty—but the culture and even the laws (and laws are the result of culture and politics) are full of things handed down from the ones who built those churches. Perhaps some evangelicals here are so vocal because they want something that they don't have yet. Poll many Europeans, and you may well find that many populations (some national or local populations more than others) already have more-quietly held sentiments to match those voiced by louder persons in the U.S. I mean such things as views on gay marriage, views on Muslims, views on Jews, (views on anyone who isn't nominally Christian, really), views on Catholics (though of course this depends on whether one is in a predominantly Catholic country in Europe or not), views on immigrants, views on people who don't want to be just like the majority, &c. Things are just voiced in different ways, done in different ways—and some of the things are already done. Let's hypothetically consider divorce. Say you don't like divorce. Say you want to ban it. In the U.S., you might be shouting your head off about it—because, in what has become the U.S., it has, in one way or another, pretty much been allowed since non-Catholics started showing up on this land (and it existed in pre-Columbian American cultures too). But, in Italy before the 1970s, you'd've been quite content—because divorce was illegal.

Anyway, my tangent about what may be too simple a view of the world outside the U.S. is that: a tangent. Your basic desire, to explain things to those who want explanations, is valid.

One last thing I would suggest, though, is that we actually think not just in terms of what a stereotypical person from a certain other Western country might be wondering about—but also in terms of what someone from any point on the globe might be wondering about. The explanation that may be offered to a Belgian about issue x might highlight aspects quite different from those that would come up in explaining the same issue to a Mongolian or a Zimbabwean. I think we should expand the imaginary audience when trying to explain things to others. President Lethe 00:18, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Wow, and I thought I was longwinded. I will try to read your long posting although tonight is probably not the night for it as we are getting ready to go on vacation. I will comment briefly on your last point. I wasn't really meaning to target any particular audience although I mentioned French, Germans, etc. What I meant is that people from other cultures could come to America and scratch their heads wondering what kind of stuff was in the water that we drank because we're do things so differently from the way they do back home.

Here's one last installment for tonight. How do Americans treat getting in line? Answer: Most Americans are quite conscious of who's next in line. If you're not sure, it's courteous to ask "Am I next or were you before me?".

Now, I know this is an isolated case but I had a curious experience in Germany while I was waiting in line to buy a train ticket. While I was waiting, I was trying to read the signage (which was in German, of course, and my command of German is very weak). Well, an available booth was open and it was my turn but, since I was still looking at the signage, someone walked right in front of me and took his turn ahead of me. I was a bit miffed and made sure to be eagle-eyed for the next available ticket seller. It was later explained to me, "Well, obviously, he thought that you were unsure of what you wanted and he knew what he wanted so he jumped right ahead." To this day, I still think that most Americans would have said "There's someone available, are you waiting?" and only gone ahead if I had said "No, go ahead."

I read an article some time ago that tells me that something as simple as lining up to be served is thought of differently in different cultures.

That's enough for now. I'll be gone for a few days. When I get back, I'll try to organize all the stuff that I've written in this talk page into some kind of outline for a section to be placed somewhere in the Wikipedia.

Good night and happy Wiking.

Richard 05:08, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Language

Shouldn't Arabic be listed in the language section as well, I mean its not even mentioned. Perhaps my location in suburban Detroit gives me a biased view on this subject, but it seems to me that enough people in the United States speak Arabic for it to at least be mentioned.

Madelinerock 17:30, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

There are probably very few of the world's langauges which aren't spoken by somebody in the United States. We should develop some kind of general standard with which to decide whether a specific language should be mentioned. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 21:40, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

The U.S. Census Bureau's 2006 Statistical Abstract of the United States includes a table of languages spoken at home by members of the U.S. population aged 5 years and up; it's on page 47 of this PDF. "The American Community Survey universe is limited to the household population and excludes the population living in institutions, college dormitories, and other group quarters." The table is "Based on a sample and subject to sampling variability". The numbers are rounded to the thousands. The table is dated 2003. Here are the contents of that table, reordered by rank:

Rank	Language	Speakers
1	English only	214,809,000
2	Spanish or Spanish Creole	29,698,000
3	Chinese	2,193,000
4	French (including Patois, Cajun)	1,379,000
5	Tagalog	1,262,000
6	Vietnamese	1,104,000
7	German	1,094,000
8	Korean	967,000
9	Italian	782,000
10	Russian	705,000
11	Polish	601,000
12	Portuguese or Portuguese Creole	560,000
13	Arabic	558,000
14	Other Asian languages	525,000
15	Other Indic languages	524,000
16	African languages	503,000
17	French Creole	483,000
18	Japanese	475,000
19	Hindi	396,000
20	Other Indo-European languages	376,000
21	Persian	360,000
22	Urdu	335,000
23	Greek	333,000
24	Other West Germanic languages	311,000
25	Other Pacific Island languages	300,000
26	Other Slavic languages	284,000
27	Gujarathi	280,000
28	Serbo-Croatian	234,000
29	Armenian	195,000
30	Miao, Hmong	175,000
31	Laotian	174,000
32	Hebrew	168,000
33	Other Native North American language[s]	166,000
34	Mon-Khmer, Cambodian	163,000
35	Yiddish	142,000
36	Other and unspecified languages	142,000
37	Scandinavian languages	136,000
38	Navajo	136,000
39	Thai	112,000
40	Hungarian	90,000

President Lethe 22:05, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conservatism

Moving some discussion here that was posted on Talk:United States/Culture. Let's keep all the discussion in one place so as to make it easier to read.

I understand the point of this section, that is: to capture the cultural/political shift that started with Barry Goldwater=>Ronald Reagan=>'Contract with America'=>Conservative Talk Radio=>Bush#43. To call this simply '==Culture==' is vastly imprecise! Regardless, it is a real phenomenon deserving attention in Wikipedia. BruceHallman 17:11, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

No, it may seem that I'm talking about the cultural/political shift but I'm not interested in talking about the above topics from that perspective. I'm interested in documenting what American culture is about today and maybe sketch out briefly how we got here although that discussion arguably belongs in History of United States.

I don't see firearms as being part of a "Goldwater shift". There was a time when many young boys grew up learning to shoot a rifle and hunt. It's part of our tradition. Maybe it isn't any more for most of us but that's what motivates people who still care about stuff like that.

Christianity is also part of our culture. Maybe not for a everyone of us but it's there and has been there for 400 years. It has driven a large part of what we have done in our history and still affects how we do things today. Not everybody may agree with the extent to which it still influences politics and attitudes but the disagreement is what I want to document.

A nostalgia for the farmer lifestyle has been there for 300 years (cf. Thomas Jefferson) even though Americans have been leaving farms for the last 100 years.

A distaste for big government has been around for 250 years (cf. Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson). It ebbs and flows but that's part of what drives American politics. Presidential candidates often run on the basis of being someone from outside the Beltway. That's one reason why Governors do better than Senators and Congressmen in the race for the nomination.

An empathy for the "little guy" has been around for the same time. That's why we have the Small Business Administration and anti-trust laws.

This stuff is part of our history. If you don't understand it, you don't understand America. You don't have to like it but you can't make it go away by ignoring it. Is the list complete? Probably not. So, add to the list. I don't agree that the list is already adequately covered by having it mentioned here and there throughout the article.

Maybe this stuff should be an article unto itself. Maybe it should be in an article called "United States politics" or "United States political culture". I really don't want it to be POV. I want it to be as NPOV as possible with as many credible sources as possible. Imagine a college-level course with one of the above titles. Would these topics be covered in such a course? Great, then let's put it into Wikipedia somewhere.

Richard 19:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

This text replaces my very long posting here. If you want to read it, just check the history. The points were (1) that we really should know about the other places we're comparing the U.S. to before we make comparisons, and (2) that, to be useful, these comparisons have to be so detailed that they might better be kept in other, separate articles. President Lethe 22:07, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

It seems you are pushing for a very political viewpoint about 'United States conservatism' being part of a cultural paradigm shift that no real scholar has commented upon, only political pundits. This is a viewpoint a small political group is pushing to justify its policies currently, but is not a point of scholarly record. Until you produce verifiable data, other than common knowledge, with fully cited and neutral sources, it has no place here. I suggest you take this to the Politics in the United States articles, where it belongs.

This section simply should not exist in an overview of the government system, geography and overview of the United States. The Goldwater shift finds no more place here than the New Deal and the FDR administration, which is mentioned in passing with a link to the appropriate article for people who want to know more, and is far more established as considerable and influential amongst historians. I will be very vigilant about editing political spins, either way, in regards to this, unless extremely strong scholarly records of this so called paradigm shift are cited.--Primalchaos 23:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Third largest for fourth, disputed

I know the data used here is from CIA, but some sources give China as the third largest country, including Britannica. And all official data from China states the country as the third largest, so I suggest add a disputed tag in the info box. Schrödinger's cat 16:35, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

This discussion of Size in a previous Talk page about this article might be of interest. President Lethe 19:01, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I see. But since no one could say which measure is more "official" at this time, so we cannot simply write data from CIA, and ignore others, so for NPOV, I suggest list the both answers and add a disputed tag after them. — Schrödinger's cat 16:44, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I don't have a big preference on this issue and am not gonna make the change.

The impetus for my original posts was that I was simply tired of seeing people bicker, in different articles and Talk pages, about the ranking of the Canada, China, and the U.S., often saying nothing more than "I thought x was bigger" or "In school, we learned that y was bigger" without ever just going to a source and seeing what it said and then sharing that with the others.

Still, it's interesting to me that most (though not all) of the English-language sources I've consulted, whether American or British or Canadian or Australian or whatever, have listed the U.S. as bigger than China, while, apart from Britannica, the only ones I've seen saying China is the bigger are Chinese-government sources and a few websites that might be described as more personal (instead of belonging to large organs like the BBC).

Anyway, as I said, the issue isn't of huge importance to me; I'd just rather people share their sources and then debate the reputations of the sources (showing good reasons for supporting or rejecting a source), rather than just pluck an old memory from school out of the back of the brain.

The person who brought up that Taiwan may be the issue in determining China's size had a great idea, by the way. It seems to me that, in the end, the Taiwan issue is what's making the ranking disputable at all.

Oh, one last point: while it's true that, in ranking, there are only two possible choices (U.S. is third, or U.S. is fourth), there are, in terms of the actual sizes of the two countries, more than just two choices/options/answers when we consult various sources. President Lethe 18:45, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:United States/Culture moved to Talk:United States/Conservatism

Perhaps a better title would be ==Modern American Conservatism==. BruceHallman 20:03, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The title was changed by Bruce Hallman to "Modern American Conservatism" indicating an intent to flesh it out in that direction. Being a conservative, I have no objection to having such a section somewhere in Wikipedia although there is already an article titledConservatism.

I moved the page because it was clear from the section title change that Bruce and possibly others wanted to talk about conservatism in the United States.

As should be evident from my earlier messages, that's not what I had in mind at all when I started the "Culture" page. I don't see the topics I raised as necessarily being conservative vs. liberal. That's just the lens that politicos see it through.

Guns, hunting and the American frontier are part of our myth-making. Maybe less so now than 20-30 years ago but they are still part of our culture. Some Americans still fantasize themselves as cowboys even if they aren't. It's also part of how the world sees us.

An empathy for the rural, agrarian life cuts across party and ideological lines. It's just part of our culture.

A distrust of big government also cuts across party and ideological lines.

An empathy for small business and a distrust of big business also cuts across party lines and ideology.

The tax revolution isn't just a conservative issue. Otherwise, how do you get Prop 13 in California, a state that is one of the bluest in the country?

And on and on. There are just some themes in the American cultural ethos that need to be documented somewhere.

I may yet try again later to write the section that I had in mind. In the meantime, however, it seemed silly to have "Modern American Conservatism" be on a page called Talk:United States/Culture so I moved it.

I may help work on that one but I didn't what I wanted to say to be branded as describing conservatism even if there are strong resemblances on some issues.

Richard 06:00, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where's the Good Article logo?

• It says at the top of the page that the article has been listed for a good article. Where's the logo at the top of the screen?

Also, could someone give me link to the section where I nominated it? Thanks. Crad0010 14:09, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV Dispute: The Human Rights Section is Much Too Long

The Human Rights section has been extended to a ridiculously long extent. It is now 9 percent of the entire article by word count, overemphasizing the issue. No other country article has anything close to the size of the discussion of human rights on this page. While it is proper the mention some of the problems and criticisms, the article now makes it appear that the US is unique in the abusing human rights. In the context of this page, the section on human rights should be no longer than one paragraph. Cutting this section down to its proper size would not be vandalism. Nicholas F 05:34, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I've placed a NPOV dispute tag on this article. The long list of charges reads more as a bill of indictment than a summary of the state of human rights in the United States. The amount of space in this article taken up by these allegations gives, particularly when compared to what appears in the articles on other questions, gives the false impression that the United States is largest violator of human rights. Nicholas F 22:37, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I concur with you on this one. We already have an article on Anti-Americanism, so we do not need to recap all the criticism already articulated there in this article. --Coolcaesar 04:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. This section is just ridiculous. It jumps from topic to topic. It's in the "Government" section for some reason. It is part historical narrative, part list of indictments. No other country article that I can find has anything like this in the main article. --JW1805 (Talk) 05:20, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Good lord. So now Guantanamo Bay is a "concentration camp"? I'm deleting this section again. --JW1805 (Talk) 16:43, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the "Human Rights" section in this article was too long. I also agree that it had become very POV "anti-American". However, any attempt to simply wish away the controversy by deleting the section is likely to just invite people with that POV to reinsert their POV resulting in edit wars.

I am annoyed that JW1805 committed a wholesale deletion of the "overly long" section without attempting to save the NPOV work that I did. It is my opinion that the text, while long, was closer to NPOV than previous versions of the section. By throwing out that text, JW1805 left open the possibility that someone else would come in and introduce text that was less NPOV than what he deleted.

I was going to move the "overly long" section to the Human rights in the United States article but hesitated because that article has been nominated for deletion (although the votes are running overwhelmingly in favor of keeping it).

After moving the "overly long" section, I was going to leave behind an NPOV summary. This is what JW1805 should have done instead of committing a wholesale deletion.

If you read the old "Human Rights" section [11] and the current Human rights in the United States article, you will see that the text in both locations makes an effort to provide an NPOV balance by mentioning the positive aspect to Human Rights in the U.S. We Americans have a lot to be proud of in the human rights arena. We should focus on presenting the positive to counterbalance the negative rather than just deleting the negative. There is truth to the negative criticism. Ignoring it won't make it go away and violates WP:NPOV.

If the text is POV, then make it NPOV rather than deleting it. They have their POV, you have your POV. WP:NPOV requires that both POVs be mentioned and sourced.

If the text is too long, then move it somewhere else and summarize it.

JW1805's deletion of the "overly long" section was overly bold and violated WP:NPOV.

Please don't do it again. I will be trying to fix the current Human Rights section to be more NPOV (see my most recent edit).

BTW, this is a quibble but inserting a POV-section tag is not a "minor edit". See Help:Minor edit.

Richard 17:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

• Sorry, I just don't think the section is necessary, certainly not in the form that I deleted, which was a ridiculous rambling rant. Does any other country's article have a "human rights" section? I agree totally with Nicholas F's comments below. --JW1805 (Talk) 04:12, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, OK, touche. It turns out there are a bunch of articles similar to Human rights in the United States (see List of human rights articles by country). However, a quick sampling of country articles (Brazil,Argentina,China) indicates that these three countries with poor records on human rights do not have sections on human rights.

We should probably put out a request for comment and then make a decision. I'm happy to get rid of the section on the grounds that no other country has such a section and that human rights is usually discussed in a separate article. However, doing this doesn't actually solve the problem, it just moves it elsewhere. Check out the article Human rights in the United States, the "AfD" discussion and the Talk:Human rights in the United States, page to see what I mean.

I also agree that the stuff in both this article and the Human rights in the United States article have been overly POV (anti-US). I do think we need to address the points raised rather than try to eliminate them.

Richard 05:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

This section is still needs to be further shortened. It should only be a summary of the CURRENT state of human rights in the US, not a list of all of the complaints throughout US history.

I disagree only in that the history is relevant to our current state. Current racial tensions are a legacy from our history of slavery. We don't have to trace the entire history of slavery and civil rights but discussing a few key events is valuable.

Richard 05:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Multiple subheadings, each which is itself a charge against the US, pushes this well into the POV realm. Here are my more specific complaints against the current section:

Traditionally, the U.S. has been a staunch proponent and leader in the development of the Western ideology of democracy, civil rights and civil liberties. This tradition dates back to the inception of the republic starting with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Despite the noble ideals espoused in these documents and the pronouncements of its political and civic leaders, the United States has had to struggle to achieve those ideals, succeeding at times yet failing miserably at other times.

Yes the US has struggled, and at times, failed to meet its own ideals, it is a nation of men after all, not saints. Nonetheless, the US has generally been at the forefront of advancing human rights. The idea that a country should have protecting the rights of its citizens as its raison d'etre was radical at the time of the founding of the US and is still radical today. It could be pointed out that the US has been seen by many people around the world as a sanctuary against even worse failures in their own countries. If world migration patterns can be viewed as people voting with their feet, then the US appears to have much more in the positive column than the negative one.

I wrote the text that you are objecting to. My intent in writing it was to counterbalance the previous text which was extremely one-sided in focusing only on the human rights violations. I agree 100% with what you have written above and would be happy if those points were incorporated into the introduction of the human rights section. I just didn't have time and energy to write everything all in one sitting.

Richard 05:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

The U.S. is currently criticized for violations of children's rights, death penalty, torture, discrimination against sexual minorities, immigration and treatment of non-citizens, worker's rights, police brutality, prison conditions, racial persecution/discrimation and women's rights.

This list is comes down as an anti-US POV in that either assumes that the US position on these issues are violations of human rights or gives no context for the degree of the problem, suggesting any failure at all is a gross violation of human rights. A similiar list of charges could be made for every country.

Well, yes a similar list could be made for every country but that doesn't mean that the list of charges against the U.S. isn't valid. The problem is one of degree and comparison. Is our treatment of immigrants and non-citizens worse than other countries? Better than most, worse than some. Perhaps the problem is the fact that this is a summary section rather than a full article. Of course, the current state of the Human rights in the United States article isn't much better. sigh....

Richard 05:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Slavery and racial discrimination

Several states maintained slavery until 1865, and various forms of ethnic and other discrimination were not prohibited until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The effects of this history are still apparent in the social structure.

This sentence is about history, not the current state of human rights, and should be removed. Its a truism that the past affects the present. When discussing German human rights, should we note the prior existence of Nazi concentration camps? What about the Reign of Terror or the Dreyfus Affair when discussing French human rights? or the the Inquistion for Spain? Should the Bataan Death March be included in a discussion of Japanese human rights?

This is sophistry. The relationship of slavery to present-day racism is more relevant than any of the above comparisons. It is valid to reference WWII when discussing Japan's relations with the rest of Asia. Similarly, it is valid to reference Russia's Communist history when discussing Putin's movement away from democracy.

Richard 05:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Interventionist policies

The United States is sometimes criticized for interventionist policies in Latin America, Middle-East, South-East Asia and elsewhere, and for aid (financial, military and otherwise) given to repressive governments and warlords. During the Cold War period, aid policies were considered a counterweight to the aid the Soviet Union was giving. Critics of U.S. foreign policy charge that U.S. foreign aid has been driven by profit motives and self-interest. Examples offered by critics include support given to South Vietnam, South Korea, Ferdinand Marcos, Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran, Suharto, Saudi Arabian dictators, as well as a number of dictatorships in Latin America.

This subsection is not even discussing human rights, its a critique of foreign policy. What nation does not conduct its foreign policy in its own self interest? On the other hand, have there no pro-human right elements in US foreign policy? There was no idealistic element in the Monroe Doctrine? Wilson's Fourteen Points and his push to found the League of Nations? Would the United Nations have been founded without the US? What about the US opposition to the continuation of the European colonial empires after WWII? The Marshall Plan? The Berlin Airlfit? The dispatch of the US armed forces and relief aid to just about every natural disaster around the world? I could come up with more, but do we want this to become a battle of competing lists?

I worked on the paragraph you are criticizing. I can't prove it right now but I think my version was more balanced. I specifically tried to raise good points about our foreign policy such as the points you raised.

For example, I think an early version of my text did mention the Marshall plan and hinted at the other points made above. Once again, I heartily support inclusion of the above points to counter-balance the POV (anti-US) charges made.

I also agree that there is room for debate about whether foreign intervention is relevant in a section on human rights. I guess the argument is that we have worked against the "self-determination of peoples" at times.

Richard 05:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this section has nothing to do with "human rights". --JW1805 (Talk) 02:59, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Military tactics

At times, the military tactics of the U.S. have been questioned, such as in the Vietnam war in which U.S. explosives and chemical weapons left much of the region uninhabitable to the locals. Recently, civilian devastation caused by U.S. military use of banned chemical weapons in Iraq operations, secret prisons and detention camps like Guantanamo Bay, torture and restrictions on access of the press to detainees have been among the criticisms posed by the international human rights community.

Again, another long list of charges. The Vietnam War was over 30 years ago.

I didn't put the Vietnam War in there but I think it is an example of a long period during which our foreign policy was oriented more towards stability than democracy. In fact, my text said as much. It has since been deleted.

Mentioning that the US policy in Iraq has been critiqued is legit, but listing multiple charges without giving the other side introduces a POV. But laying out the full debate would be inappropriate here, a simple mention that there is a dispute over US policy in Iraq would be sufficient.

No, I disagree. I think there is clear room for charging the U.S. with human rights abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo. We should at least acknowledge the charges and, if anyone wants to mount a full debate, we should move that to a separate article.

Richard 05:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Civil liberties

Traditionally, the U.S. has been committed to the Western ideology to pursue civil liberties. In the early 21st century, following the September 11, 2001 attacks and the ensuing War on Terror, issues regarding intrusions upon privacy, invasive inspections, detentions under the USA PATRIOT Act, and restrictions on freedom of expression are currently debated questions. While opponents see them as a dangerous decline in human rights and democracy, supporters see them as positive and necessary actions for 'security'.

Yet another list of charges!

I agree that there is only a single sentence to talk about our commitment to civil liberties when, in fact, as you point out above, we have been at the forefront of civil liberties for much of our history as a country.

I do think that the points raised in the rest of the paragraph are serious issues and that it is not POV to say that these are "currently debated questions".

Richard 05:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

See also: List of United States foreign interventions since 1945, Propaganda in the United States, and Censorship in the United States

Links only to articles that support the US as a human rights violator. Need I say more.

I agree. I noticed the same thing.

Richard 05:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

To make this section NPOV while keeping all of these lists would require both the counter to each point and another list of what the US has done to advance human rights. Even then this would be inadequate for the very size of the discussion of the debate over US human rights would suggest that the US has a human rights problem that is significantly worse than other nations. Nicholas F 01:44, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. The section should be short and acknowledge that there are human rights charges that are arguably valid but that these should be taken in the context of our overall record on human rights and civil liberties. Any detailed discussion of specific charges should be put in the Human rights in the United States article.

Richard 05:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I think this is very factual and NPOV, and belongs in the article simply because these points are facts. If you are worrying about how this would make the US appear in relation to other countries, feel free to edit the respective articles. Wikipedia isn't supposed to be about promoting.

Sfacets 03:48, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• Calling Guantanamo Bay a "concentration camp" is factual and NPOV? I don't think so.... --JW1805 (Talk) 04:17, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, as much as we may hate to think of it as such, Gitmo sure bears strong resemblances to the Soviet gulags. It's not for nothing that we have been practicing "extraordinary rendition" of prisoners to secret locations in Eastern Europe.

Hey, let's not get so wrapped up in defending America's good name that we can't see that there are some pretty evil things being done in the name of Homeland Security.

Those who would give up a little freedom for a little security wind up having neither.

Richard 05:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Guantanamo Bay is not part of the prison system of the United States. It is not located in the United States. US citizens convicted of crimes under civil or common law are not sent there. It is a military facility that houses military prisoners, prisoners of war, or unlawfal combatants (whatever you want to call them). Blanket comparisons to gulags or concentrations camps have no place in an encyclopedia. --JW1805 (Talk) 02:57, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

While it is true that the US has been charged with these violations of human rights are facts, whether the US is actually guilty of all of these violations or whether the actions in and of themselves are violations of human rights are not facts, just opinions. If you want to write an article on all of the allegations made against the US, feel free, but they don't belong here. Nicholas F 04:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. If the charges can be sourced to Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, they belong in Wikipedia (though not necessarily in this article). If the charges can't be sourced, then it's OR>

Richard 05:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the human rights section is an important section to be included in this article. Although many countries might not have a human rights section, many people criticize the US on the issue of human rights and feel strongly about it. Some historical examples of human rights abuse might not be included, such as with the Vietnam War, etc, it is important to include the issue of slavery and the struggle for civil rights. Also, it will be better to talk a bit more about the present human rights issue. The following is an earlier edition of the Human rights section that downplays some of the issues, so maybe this could replace the current version:

The internal struggle to define the nature of human rights in the context of the U.S. Constitution began at the very inception of that document and continues to this day, with people of good conscience on both sides of many controversial issues. The U.S. has often been criticized for seemingly contradictory stances, on the one hand supporting the human rights laid out in its Constitution and Declaration of Independence, while not always living up to these ideals in practice.

For example, the compromise to maintain slavery was made at the drafting of the Constitution to secure the ratification of Southern states whose economy was thought to depend on this practice, even though this was a clear violation of the principle, laid out in the Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal". Several states maintained slavery until 1865, and various forms of ethnic and other discrimination were not prohibited until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, a bloody civil war and a long struggle for civil rights were prime examples of the internal concern with the definition of human rights in the U.S. Some of the effects of this history are still apparent in the social structure.

This is about history, and is mostly covered in the History section. No need to repeat it here. --JW1805 (Talk) 16:29, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

At times, the United States has been criticized for interventionist policies in places like Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, as well as for its support of repressive governments and warlords, particularly during the Cold War, when many of these decisions were based upon a calculation of the greater good as a counterweight to the influence of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was seen by many in the U.S. as the world's greatest threat; to be opposed with methods that might not otherwise be considered ethical.

This is about foreign policy. It is also POV. Where is the counter argument? Where are the foreign policy interventions that are applauded by the world (what about the Marshall Plan, for example? --JW1805 (Talk) 16:29, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Following the September 11, 2001, attacks and the ensuing War on Terror, the continuation of this debate has surrounded the USA PATRIOT Act and other measures which proponents say are necessary to preserve the country's security. However, opponents criticize the policies as unnecessary and see it as a potential danger to traditional civil rights, citing the policy of extraordinary rendition as proof that their fears are not without justification.

At least this is a valid paragraph, mostly. I'm not sure it belongs in the main article. But it could go somewhere. Actually, it should probably just go in History, since there is a Sept 11 mention there. --JW1805 (Talk) 16:29, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

--Ryz05 04:46, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

In conclusion, I must state again that this whole "human rights" section is not necessary. No other country has such a section. It is a dumping ground for various Anti-American charges, and just be deleted. --JW1805 (Talk) 16:29, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with you that the "human rights" section is unnecessary, because it is a very important aspect of the American society and how the world percieves the country. All that is stated are facts, and of course counter arguments can be added to create some balance, like what's being said in the beginning of the introduction to this section about the US constitution. So the section is not about anti-american or anything, and other articles have a human rights section too, like the PRC article, which is featured. Often the US states problems with human rights abuse in other countries, and the human rights section just highlights some of the problems facing this country. Plus, there's a whole separate article on "human rights in the United States," which makes the section all that more valid.

There are two counter-arguments in the section. The first one states about the US constitution having all those freedoms and rights, the second counter-argument is how following 9/11, the US is creating controversial laws like the PATRIOT ACT to safeguard the country against terrorists. If you can think up more counter-points to the one about Vietnam war or support for appressive regimes during the Cold War, then that would be great. On the other hand, how the US supported oppressive regimes could be moved to the foreign relations section, which is probably more suitable. But again, do not remove the human rights section entirely, as it reflects the nature of the country.--Ryz05 20:41, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Traditional Ally

I would dispute the sentence, "Traditionally, the greatest military ally of the United States has been the United Kingdom," even although it does allude too "though the earliest alliance the nation formed was with France". I think if there is to be a reference to historical US-UK military relations it would perhaps be better to outline that "traditionally" they are not allies, with the two countries becoming more so in more recent years. for example the USA had 2 wars against the UK within a generation of each other, during Napoleonic Wars the USA often erred on the side of France, with many factions supporting the UK's enemy. During the American Civil War the UK more supportive and on more than one occasion considered recognising the separatists over the US government. In the two world wars it was the UK and France that each declared war on Germany together, the US joining the wars later on both occasions. Since the end of WWII relations have been moving steadily closer though, but there was no American support during the Aden Emergency, the Suez Crisis, Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation (until later, and the two were hardly related), the Falklands War (where the UK was fighting a US-supported military dictatorship), during the Northern Ireland Troubles, when much IRA funding came from North America via NORAID, similarly the British did not give support Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Vietnam War, the Invasion of Grenada, which is member of the Commonwealth and Realm of Queen Elizabeth II or the Invasion of Panama. It is true that there has been US military bases in the UK since WWII and that especially since the 1990s the two countries have been very close allies, but for the reasons mentioned above I would not describe them as "traditional" allies. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Benson85 (talk • contribs) 21:26, April 12, 2006.

[edit] History introduction

Hi. The first lines of the History section right now are

The History of the United States has occurred at the regional, territorial, state and local level. It has often depended on the geography of the United States, which is primarily situated in central North America, a large and diverse expanse of land and people.

Any opinions on that? It seems to me of little value. To say that a country's history depends on its location and that it has involved both small and large areas of the country, and that it has involved people—why don't we also, in someone's biography, say that the person's life took place over time and involved bodily movement and periods of sleep and waking and interacting with the environment? I don't mean the sarcasm rudely, mind you. ... President Lethe 20:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I concur that the current lead for that section is silly and meaningless. Someone fix it please. --Coolcaesar 20:11, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article way too long

• This is way too long for a country article. Many of the sections need to be cut down in size, like delete some information and move some to the main articles dealing with those section subjects. Each section should only be a summary of that topic, not an article of itself. In the future, any new information should be added to those main articles as opposed to the sections in this article.--Ryz05 01:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

It's inevitable that people will be adding stuff to this article as opposed to the main articles dealing with those specific subjects, since this USA article is so popular. But for this to be a featured article, size must be reduced appropriately.--Ryz05 01:34, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New History of the United States article proposal

• I propose a new article called "History of the United States" that will incorporate all the time periods into one. It will be the main article for the history section, since the section is only suppose to be a summary anyways. This shouldn't be too much of a hassle as it's just a copy-and-paste job of the whole history section; it's just a summary that needs to be written in its place.--Ryz05 01:39, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I support this proposal. The history section is much too long for an overview article. Nicholas F 01:46, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused... Are you suggesting a new article to replace the existing History of the United States article? The history section in the United States article should be just a summary which links to either the History of the United States article or one of the time period articles that it references.

Richard 04:31, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

The old layout of the history section was much better, with just a few subheadings. Having nine subheadings with "History of the United States" in them is completely unnecessary. --JW1805 (Talk) 04:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of a History of the United States article as I didn't see the section provide a link with it being the main article. This is even better as we can just delete much of of what's under the history section and provide a summary in its place.--Ryz05 04:37, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought I had put that in. I'm responsible for the current structure of the "History" section although others may have modified it after I did the major restructure. My intent was to fix the problem that the old "History" section stopped at the end of the 19th century. I did think that it should be summarized (I tried to make the "History" section a summary of the History of the United States article. If you can write an even shorter summary, go for it. I think there are two objectives to keep in mind:

1) The "History" section should run as close to the present as possible

2) Key events in U.S. history should be mentioned.\

Richard 05:30, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

As I can see it, this article can be reduced a lot. There shouldn't be this much information in a country article. Much can be put into sub-articles that are linked in each section. Anyone interested in learning more in a specific topic should click the links as opposed to learning everything from this article.--Ryz05 04:44, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Articles of Confed

The article currently says, "Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a 'Perpetual Union' and created a fully sovereign federal state". Isn't that a fairly controversial interpretation, that the Articles of Confederation produced a sovereign federal state? - Nat Krause^(Talk!)

[edit] SoCal culture, what?

I went to Soouthern California for three months, and the only place where I saw something special, or a little culture was Hollywood and the old broadway. I live in Europe and have seen different cultures, but in SoCal, the only culture seems to be McDonalds, Suburbs, In-N-Out and cars. San Francisco is a totally different story, there is own culture, and the place is really unique and beautiful. It's really weird that cities like LA and SF are so close, yet so different.

Also, Americans should remember that USA is a young country and should stop all that war and apologize. How you fools think UK got forgiven, after all they did? Everybody hated UK back then, but who hates it now?

I really don't want to know what's going on in the other states. Forget about Texas...

If you're interested in reading a hilarious critique of SoCal's car-crazy culture, you should try the book that made Neal Stephenson a star in the literary world, Snow Crash. --Coolcaesar 01:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

-So our age is a good reason for us to do what you want? To the person who posted "Also, Americans should remember that USA is a young coutnry and should stop all that war and apologize," just who the hell do you think you are? What the hell does our age as a nation have to do with anything? We have old people, young people, everwhere in the world, but no one in the world is over 200 years old, so how does the age of the nation have to do with anything, huh? So Persians have lived in Persia for a long time, Europe has thousands of years of documented history, does that make Europe and Iran the elder to America? What does that have to do with the modern world? By and large, America could teach Europe a thing or two about accepting the future (France is a prime example, with its failed Labor law), and Iran about religious tolerance (America is by far more tolerant a nation than Iran, at least in leadership).

Bin Laden and Jihadists everywhere have been waging a war on the West far longer than the US has been in Aphganistan or Iraq. Shouldnt you be giving them crap about war?

How does SoCal having a "car-culture" make it something dreaded? Why is San Francisco so much better because it is not SoCal? So SoCal has lots of fastfood, cars and such, why is that bad? Also, if I wanted to talk about un-unique places, I would say Europe is the prime canidate. Everyone rides facking trains everywhere, and while EVERYONE in Europe is opposed to "neo-liberalism," when they riot they still vandalize stores and steal the latest Nokia and Samsung Cell Phones. Oh, and one of the places with the highest densities of McDonalds in the world, is Paris. And why is this talk page being used for political statements anyway? We are here to contribute to the article on the USA, not be facking morons who somehow think being able to read a history book about a place, and live there present time, is any special.-Scryer_360 (go ahead and start your hatemail, Im used to it from Europeans)

may i remind you that wikipedia is not a message board.--Alhutch 04:02, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Largest cities table

Ryz05, please refer to Talk:United_States/Archive_13#largest_cities to see the most recent time (out of many) that this issue has been beaten into the ground. --Jleon 17:42, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Jleon, please refer to wikipedia:wikiProject countries and find me where it says that a section for a List of Largest Cities must be added. Also, if you can find me one featured article that contains a List of Largest cities, then I will cease my case. So, if you want the United States article to become featured, please consider the removal of that list. I firmly believe the List of Largest cities should be removed from this article per the reasons above. The poll that Jleon directed to has reached no concensus with only two votes and has been since last year. However, I'm willing to stage a second poll for another round of voting.--Ryz05 18:32, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

-I was not referring the poll, but rather the discussion. That poll was informal and conducted well after the main discussion was concluded. Clearly, more of the participants of the discussion favored inclusion of the list. --Jleon 18:45, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

A poll is a clearer consensus of whether something should be removed.--Ryz05 18:56, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't really care all that much one way or the other whether the section stays or goes, but since when does a Project page get to dictate the organization and structure of an article? I thought projects were voluntary efforts to coordinate the efforts of persons working on similar articles and in that vein offered suggestions for structure and organization, but since when did they become cabals with the authority to dictate what should or should not be in an article? older ≠ wiser 23:40, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

The wikiProject on countries do not necessarily dictate the format of country articles, as there are many variations with topics unique to certain countries. However, the format is what country articles should follow in general, and is a plus when an article gets nominated to featured.--Ryz05 21:36, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

---

[edit] POLL

Reasons for removal:

1. Does not conform to wikipedia:wikiProject countries.
2. It's not of international significance as people outside the United States do not care what large cities U.S. has.
3. A Largest cities link has been included in "See also" under the Political Divisions section that has the same table as the one in this article.
4. The List of Largest cities unnecessarily lengthens the article as it is already too long.
5. Other featured country articles do not have a Table of Largest Cities in their country article.

[edit] Remove from this article

• Remove per stated reasons above. --Ryz05 18:32, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove As per Ryz05; it isn't a matter of whether or not it's encyclopedic: this overview article is already too long. Appropriate details can and should reside in any number of (comparable encyclopedic) subarticles/lists sufficiently wikified. For example, corporations are also responsible for much of the country's economic output, but we do not see a list of the largest U.S. corporations/companies by revenue (or another gauge) in this article. Take a glance at the Demographics sxn (1st paragraph) of the Canada article (for which a city table was also proposed ... and nixed for similar reasons) for a possible approach. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 07:43, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

  I think what they did with the Canadian article was very much ill-advised, plenty of people go to a country's article to learn what the major cities are. The example of corporations is pretty much absurd, as cities are far more substantial to a society. --Jleon 12:44, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

  Well, overloading an article with atomic details is, arguably, even more ill-advised and absurd. This article has grown to the point of being just short of useless as a concise overview ... particularly for individuals who use dial-up. Larger U.S. corporations, for which the polity is the centre of laissez-faire capitalism, are far larger (economically) than most U.S. cities and many countries. And what 'they' (Canadian editors) did has held rather nicely and already prevails in most country articles in Wp. It's the height of hubris to think that everything is important for inclusion in this article ... well it might be: but that's why subarticles exist for country articles in this wiki. There's no need to regurgitate information that is better treated elsewhere. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 12:54, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Although the United States never shared in economic madness like Canada's old resale price maintenance regime, it is hardly a laissez-faire economy at the moment. Most economists call it a mixed economy. We have extensive federal regulation of many aspects of the economy, like securities, banking, product safety, wages, working hours, unions, and the environment. The federal government plays a huge role in providing healthcare, housing, student loans, and welfare benefits. Of course, some states regulate their economies more than others; California, for example, regulates supermarket club cards. Furthermore, you appear to be making the common mistake of confusing American libertarianism with its extreme cousin, anarcho-capitalism. Although it's true that in an anarcho-capitalistic system, people would identify themselves politically with whatever sovereign corporation they happen to work for, most Americans do not do that (at least not yet). That is, Americans do not say, I'll vote McDonalds or vote Wal-Mart, just because I work for McDonalds or Wal-Mart. There are still separate public and private spheres of life in America. The point of including cities is because Americans identify closely with their cities, regions, and states. Now that I've made that implicit assumption explicit, I'll go dig up some citations to support that when I have the time. --Coolcaesar 20:04, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

There are various notations/intepretations of the current state of capitalism in the U.S. (and I won't belabour this nor debate assumptions above), but this is a digression. My point is that there is little point in singling out this major aspect when others exist and they can be (and are) dealt with elsewhere and linked – that is precisely what a wiki is for. The desire to rehash atomic details in what is (supposed to be) an overview article signals either an inability or unwillingness to effectively edit it for the intended audience. It cannot be everything to everyone, and there are more effective and efficient ways to deal with the topic matter (wikifying > subarticles, hatnotes, templates...). And American self-identification with cities, et al. is no more or less valid – when so many other notions are at play (federalism, U.S. statehood, manifest destiny, war, libertarianism, et al.) – than it is for other countries ... some of which are even more urbanised, like Australia. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 22:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

To call Australia urban is simply hilarious. The entire population of the country is smaller than that of Southern California; indeed, almost all of it would fit into Greater Los Angeles! Also, one sign of Australia's inherently rural nature is its road trains, which are much too dangerous for North America, Europe, or Asia because of the risk that the rear trailers might drift around and take out some buildings, landscaping, street furniture, or people.

Returning to the larger issue, I think your last statement goes to the heart of the debate here, which is that one of the unique things about the United States is its huge population and its large number of large, well-developed, well-run cities. Most American WP editors realize the importance of this point, and do not see it as a mere "atomic detail," which is why most of them support keeping the table in the article. Of course, there are other countries with huge populations and large cities (like Russia, China, and Nigeria), but most of their cities simply cannot match their American counterparts by any objective standard. Our cities have more efficient waste management, better-maintained streets, more reliable utilities, less corrupt law enforcement, more arts programs, more museums, more parks, more universities and colleges, etc. --Coolcaesar 15:51, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

The above comment is unbelievably arrogant and myopic. Cities are not an American concept, FYI. Sure, American cities might not be comparable with Nigerian cities, but it's a huge stretch to say that China's Hong Kong or Shanghai cannot match Chicago by "any objective standard." Ever been to the Ingleside neighborhood of South Side Chicago? I lived there for 3 years. American cities if not including suburbia and the central business districts are Third World cesspools. What's the point of parks in Ingleside, when it's unsafe for children to play in them? 68.252.249.253 18:53, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes: I'm unsure how to address the above ... so I won't, other than ... Australia urban pop.: 85.0%, U.S.: 77.2% (c. 2001).

Cc, you seem to revel in the notion that size matters; well, quantity is not synonymous with quality. If anything, I think your commentary is (to extend your metaphor) justifying a botched transplant more than one that drives at the heart of the matter. Collective support of this option demonstrates, IMO, wayward groupthink, not necessarily apt decision-making and editorialising. Anyhow, seeing as how the original proponent of this issue withdrew their support to remove – I do not, for reasons stated – I will not be discussing this further until there's renewed cause to do so. Thanks. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 19:08, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Keep it in this article

• Keep. The table has already been heavily debated and the overwhelming consensus last year was TO KEEP. I suspect anti-Americanism is really what is at stake here. --Coolcaesar 19:54, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Who are you accusing of anti-Americanism? I'm just trying to help in improving this article. You can post your vote but don't make personal attacks against others. I have stated some pretty good reasons for removing it from this article (it's in the List of United States cities by population article anyways).--Ryz05 20:05, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep The top cites in the U.S. are just that by the country's standards, not the world's. --Moreau36; 1836, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

But what about wikipedia:wikiProject countries and other featured articles that don't have the list, as well as the fact that it's already included in a See also section? As well as the fact that the list is too long? Remember that this article has a world-wide audience, not just for people in the U.S.--Ryz05 18:39, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep- This is among the most important sections of the article, since the nation's largest cities are responsible for much of the economic and cultural output of the country. Plenty of other country articles have similar lists, as do the U.S. state articles. --Jleon 18:45, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Other countries do have similar lists, but not in their country article. It's usually redirected like what I did for the US article until you reverted it. --Ryz05 18:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep-It's encyclopedic. Articles on other countries have such a table (see below). The Wikiproject doesn't say you can't have such a table. However, Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries does say "The rest of the article should consist of a few short paragraphs. "

If the intent is to cut the entire article down to a few short paragraphs, then I would support moving the table elsewhere. Otherwise, I will point out that Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries also says "This structure is advisory only, and should not be enforced against the wishes of those actually working on the article in question."

• Keep - the list was removed from Canada - and now there is not even a link to it in the article, nor even any chain-link that I can find. I would like to know the largest cities in Russia & China - also not anywhere I can find. Lists do not clutter up articles, and often get replaced with paragraphs that are just like lists - but without rows and columns --JimWae 08:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Comment A wky/hatnote to an apt list has since been added to the Demographics sxn in the Canada article ... and there's no reason why this cannot be done for any other country article for economy, either. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 08:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Why did it ever get deleted - a single link like that could go missing for months before editors realize it. Actually, I think the Metro area list is more illuminating about patterns of population AND contains cities more of international interest --JimWae 08:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I guess that's what happens when articles get pruned! :) As you know, the Canada article has undergone that recently, to general advantage (I think). As well, I merely linked (and sufficiently, I believe) to the list of Canadian cities, which uptop links to other lists of varying detail/utility – e.g., metro areas, cities proper, area... E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 09:05, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, China has a list too. Big countries like US, China and Russia need to have lists like this in their country articles, because people in these countries identify or at least anchor themselves with the most proximal major city in the region. Naus 20:20, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

The article on China does have a table of cities, which I fully support. The table of cities in the US article should be fine, but I suggest it be included in the Demographics section, as it deals mostly with population statistics and partly with its economic and cultural significance to the country.--Ryz05 04:10, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

update I recently moved the section to Demographics section. It also seems like most people agree on keeping the table, so I cease my case about removing it. --Ryz05 04:20, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

---

-I'm afraid you're just plain wrong. Just browsing through other country articles I found the following have sections on their largest cities: Russia, Mexico, Iran, U.K., France, Spain, Poland, Colombia, Argentina, and Germany (Germany ranks their cities within divisions). Countless others list the major cities in their demographics section. Furthermore, I'm not sure why you wrote that the U.S. is the "Largest country in the world", it has the largest economy but it is not the richest nor the "largest" country. --Jleon 19:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm saying that there's no featured country article with a table of their largest cities. Also, the largest country thing was an error and has been addressed. Also, what do you mean it is not the richest? It has the highest total GDP in the world.--Ryz05 19:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I see your argument by your edit to largest economy in the world. Let's settle at that. In the future, if you can change minor issues instead of draging on the argument, please do so.--Ryz05 19:27, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

--Personally, I don't think the line belongs anywhere in the intro paragraph, since it is not one of the most important facts about the country. Six other country's would have higher GDPs than us if they had the same population, so is that really such an amazing feat? --Jleon 19:29, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

The fact that the US has the largest economy in the world is worthy of mentioning as it makes the country special. It doesn't matter what if other countries have such and such.--Ryz05 19:32, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Factoid Killer 22:24, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re-summarization of the Politics section

• I think the Politics section needs to be shortened and re-summarized like the History section and Human rights section. Currently, it is too long with too much detail. The details should really belong in the main article Politics of the United States. Please help out if you can. Thank you.--Ryz05 21:16, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] U.S. as sole superpower

OK, there seems to be an edit war brewing over the following sentence...

"The influence of the United States is nonetheless limited by international agreements and the realities of political, military and economic constraints."

Since I wrote the sentence, let me tell you what I meant by it and why I put it there. Let's discuss it here and then build a consensus over whether it belongs in the article or not.

I read in this Talk page a heated debate about whether or not we should talk about the U.S. being the sole superpower or not. Actually, the debate was also about the sentence "In the decades after the Second World War, the United States became a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, cultural, scientific and technological affairs."

The original text before I modified it characterized the U.S. as "the" dominant global influence, etc. I weakened "the" to be "a" which I think is more accurate and less arrogant to boot.

I also added the sentence "The influence of the United States is nonetheless limited by international agreements and the realities of political, military and economic constraints."

The intent was to qualify the previous statement that "Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it stands today as the world's sole superpower." What I was really trying to say was that even the world's sole superpower can't do whatever it wants to and why it can't.

Of course, the sentence is true of every other country but only the U.S. is the world's sole hyperpower and therefore the sentence I wrote has more meaning when written about the U.S. than if it was written about another country.

What I'm really trying to say is that the U.S. tries to "live by the rules". Yeah, yeah, I know we might argue that the doctrine of pre-emption breaks new ground by shedding the old rules and creating a new one. But leave that go for the moment and consider that the U.S. at least makes a semblance of living by the rules.

Richard 23:48, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm the one who removed the most recent instance of the "qualifier" sentence. (I've not really been much involved in this superpower argument since last year, when I made a point about it once on the talk page. I pasted the point into a later version of this talk page earlier this year. I'm just trying to clarify that I didn't view my recent edit to the article's opening as a strike in a war; so no personal offense intended, Richard.) Anyway, this is just my own idea here: but it seems that Richard's post above reveals a somewhat POV motivation behind including the sentence. It almost seems (I say almost and seems, mind you) to say he wants the paragraph to have a flavor of "The U.S. is the superpower in the world—but don't worry, for it tries to be a benevolent one."

I also advocate replacement of Richard's "a" with "the". Why?

1. It is "the". Facts are facts, regardless of the opinions that one may have about the facts. The mere idea that someone might have an opinion about a fact doesn't make the fact itself POV. Plus, even Richard has just written "the world's sole hyperpower".

2. If "a" is retained, then "In the decades after the Second World War, the United States became a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, cultural, scientific and technological affairs" becomes rather faulty—because the U.S. was already dominating over many other countries in those areas even before World War II. The point here is when it moved from dominating some or many countries to dominating all but the very top few. And, of course, when you add up all the things, you find that it dominates all other countries. It may be losing ground these days, and obviously has many failings; but superlative is superlative, not merely comparitive. If Sam has $1, Pat has $2, and Jo has $3, "Jo has the most money" is a more precise and more useful statement than "Jo has more money".

Richard's post (especially the "world's sole" sentence) also reïterates the point I made last year (about being the only one at present), which appears in item 11 (POV) of the current version of this talk page.

As always, no ill will towards anyone.

President Lethe 00:15, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

One of the "joys" of Wikipedia is that your text gets edited mercilessly to the point that you may or may not remember what you actually wrote initially.

I think my original text tried to draw a distinction between two periods (1) the period between the end of WWII and the fall of the Soviet Union and (2) the period after the fall of the Soviet Union. That distinction has since been edited away.

Regardless of what my original text said, here is what I believe...

After WWII, the U.S. became one of two dominant military superpowers, THE dominant economic, scientific and technological power and A dominant cultural power (alongside Europe which was perhaps not quite as dominant).

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. became THE dominant military hyperpower, A dominant econmic, scientific and technological (alongside Europe and Asia) power and A dominant cultural power (alongside Europe, Asia) and Islam).

I will be comfortable with any wording that gets that idea across. I think a lot of our problems is that we are trying to load too much into one sentence and therefore there is no choice of "THE" or "A" which will work as long as there is only one sentence or even one paragraph. 60 years is a long time and a lot has happened in the last 60 years including the formation of the EU as an economic power, the rise of Japan and China as economic powers and the rise of Japan as a cultural influence.

If we can agree on the basic truth of the above assertions, maybe we can work on composing text that communicates that idea.

Richard 01:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I wrote the above comment quickly and didn't read President Lethe's comment fully when I wrote it.

I want to clarify that my intent in writing the sentence "The influence of the United States is nonetheless limited by international agreements and the realities of political, military and economic constraints." wasn't intended to say "The U.S. is the superpower in the world—but don't worry, for it tries to be a benevolent one."

What I really meant was (1) Being the only hyperpower doesn't give you the ability to do anything you want because there are limits to your power (cf. Iraq) and (2) the U.S. recognizes that acting arbitrarily can be damaging to international relations and international trade and therefore inimical to its own self-interest and (3) the U.S. actually believes that democracy and the rule of law are good things.

The sentence in question was written to try and address some of the complaints characterizing the arrogance of characterizing the U.S. as the "SOLE" hyperpower (which it is) and "THE dominant global influence in economic, political, military, cultural, scientific and technological affairs." which I thought was an overreach considering the more accurate assessment in my comment immediately above.

I'm not stuck on my particular wording. You guys now know what I believe to be the truth about the U.S. If you disagree, let's talk about where you disagree. If you agree, let's talk about what the best wording is to get these ideas across in the intro paragraph and elsewhere in the article.

--Richard 09:11, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Richard.

The first post that you made in response to mine struck me as pretty sensible.

(An additional response that I wanted to make to your original post (the one you wrote before I'd posted anything in this section) was just about the seeming desire to have it both ways. It seemed that, on the one hand, you wanted to say the U.S. was only a superpower—and, on the other hand, you wanted to say that it was unique as a superpower and so deserved a special sentence (a sentence that other countries don't get) about its being limited. My response to that idea would have been "O.K. To what other superpowers' introductory paragraphs shall we add a statement to the effect of 'Although this country's powers are super, they are not omnipotent and absolute'?" To continue with that viewpoint: shall we then add a statement to the article about China that its growing economic powers are limited in some ways? Shall we say the same about Japan? Shall we say "Islam is a growing force in the world—but its influence is limited by international laws, the laws of nature, &c."? (And clearly law is not an absolute check on any entity's power.) If we're not going to say it about all these other supposed superpowers, then saying it about the U.S. superpower looks biased. And, if we're going to say it about only the U.S., then it lends support to the idea that the U.S. is the only one. ... I'm making this point here more just to go ahead and express what was in my head before I had read your two replies; it's not a response to anything specific that you've written in your two replies. Mostly, it's some thoughts for other readers of this page to consider too.)

Actually, the China article does qualify statements on China's growing economic powers, such as potential obstacles in sustaining its growth rates and problems generated from its growing economic power. Even in the introduction. It's part of being NPOV. What Richard says is very sensible and benign. But you are also right, the qualification doesn't belong in the introduction, maybe further down the article. 128.135.36.154 02:55, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, your general idea that there are different measures of power (economic, military, cultural, &c., &c.) is a good point; but I'm not sure it fits in the introduction to the article. I don't see why the article doesn't have an entire section, farther down, about the U.S. as a/the superpower—or why there can't be a whole other Wikipedia article about that topic.

You wrote that your sentence isn't meant to say "The U.S. is the superpower in the world—but don't worry, for it tries to be a benevolent one." Then you wrote that "(1) Being the only hyperpower doesn't give you the ability to do anything you want because there are limits to your power (cf. Iraq) and (2) the U.S. recognizes that acting arbitrarily can be damaging to international relations and international trade and therefore inimical to its own self-interest and (3) the U.S. actually believes that democracy and the rule of law are good things." I think this explicit explanation of what you meant to say again reveals a POV motivation for including your sentence. First of all, any sensible reader knows that hyperpower or superpower status doesn't give a country unlimited control of the universe or even the planet; and any reader who isn't sure can click on the link to read the "Superpower" article. (I'm not entirely sure what distinction you might be trying to draw between hyperpower and superpower; the two prefixes are just the Greek and Latin versions of the same thing.) And, second, your statement about what "the U.S." "recognizes" and "believes" not only might have POV motivation, but is certainly POV in itself. You might be able to take an average of the sentiments of nearly 300,000,000 persons, or an average of the sentiments of all those in government positions (arguably all adults eligible to vote); but knowing an average of viewpoints doesn't justify a sweeping statement with no qualification. When you say that you intend your sentence to have a meaning about legal and natural limits to U.S. power, and about what the U.S. "recognizes" and "believes" (about which things are "inimical", what "its own self-interest" is, which things are done "arbitrarily", what "anything you want" would be, and what "good things" are), you basically say that you hope the reader will take, from your sentence, a certain POV impression. To say what an entire sovereign state (all its people and all its government) "recognizes" and "believes" is simply the kind of sweeping POV that shouldn't be included in Wikipedia, no matter how much it is (partly) supported by polls or anything else.

So it's revealed not only that your motivation is POV but also that you want the sentence to be read as conveying a POV idea. I might agree with some or all of those points of view, or I might not; but I can't condone their inclusion like this in Wikipedia.

I also find it interesting that, although you quite clearly reveal, on this Talk page, what you want the sentence to mean ("(1) Being the only hyperpower doesn't give you the ability to do anything you want because there are limits to your power (cf. Iraq) and (2) the U.S. recognizes that acting arbitrarily can be damaging to international relations and international trade and therefore inimical to its own self-interest and (3) the U.S. actually believes that democracy and the rule of law are good things"), you don't just write, for the article, a sentence that states it as clearly, but you instead seem to try to mask the POV by stating the obvious (that a country's powers are limited) and hoping that the reader will 'read between the lines' and say "Ohhh, what it's really saying is that Americans don't think they really can do just anything that they want, and that they actually like democracy, and that they think it's good to comply with international treaties that their government has signed."

I think your idea that people rework the opening paragraphs outside of the actual article has some merit; I might participate in that. Before then, though, I'm again going to remove your sentence (including the newer version of it), for the reasons I've expressed here.

The influence of the United States is, like [that of] any other nation, nonetheless limited by international agreements and the realities of political, military and economic constraints.

I've put your newest addition to your sentence in bold. The addition further highlights that the sentence is a statement of the obvious and applies to any country and so is superfluous. We may as well point out that the U.S. is a sovereign state, and that a sovereign state is the unification of a people (a nation) on a land (a country) under a government. But we don't point that out, because it's obvious—and the same goes for the sentence about limits to powers.

Anyway, my personal opinion is, and has been since last November, (1) that the opening should simply say that the U.S. is the sole superpower in the present world, (2) that the opening shouldn't go into detail about what a superpower is and how the U.S. is or isn't a or the superpower (really, it should JUST say it's the sole superpower in the present world and leave it at that), and (3) a section later in the article can go into great detail about how the U.S. became a superpower on some or all fronts, and how it then became the superpower on some or all fronts, and what kind of competition it faces for its status as superpower from various other peoples, states, conglomerations, &c., around the world.

Again, Richard, I don't have any animosity towards you. I'm just trying to take a firm stand for my take on what's going on with this intro (and, obviously, the only take I can have is my own), and to explain clearly my thoughts about it so that others can consider them, reject them, accept them.

I'm glad that we are both for discussing this here and being civilized about it. Would anyone else like to join in?

President Lethe 16:52, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I see that I failed to respond to part of Richard's most recent post in this section. Richard wrote

The sentence in question was written to try and address some of the complaints characterizing the arrogance of characterizing the U.S. as the "SOLE" hyperpower (which it is) and "THE dominant global influence in economic, political, military, cultural, scientific and technological affairs." which I thought was an overreach considering the more accurate assessment in my comment immediately above.

My view is that, if the sentence in the introduction just says it's the sole superpower, and then saves the description of how it is a or the hyperpower or superpower, and how it got that way, and with what other entities it has shared that status at various points in history—if the point made in the intro is very brief and then it's expanded at a later spot in the article—, then we don't have to worry about the introduction’s accuracy or inaccuracy about in what ways the U.S. is a or the superpower.

My view is also that we shouldn't bother about inferred (not implied) arrogance in pointing out the fact that the U.S. is the sole superpower. As I said earlier, the mere idea that someone might have an opinion about a fact doesn't make the fact itself an opinion. Whether it is arrogant to mention the superpower's status is entirely subjective, not objective. Let's get the topic off the U.S. for a moment, to make an example: I can point out that my brother earns more money per month than I earn; this is a fact, not an opinion. The person hearing it might think that it indicates my resentment of my brother's higher earnings; the person hearing it might think that it indicates my pride in my brother's accomplishments. But the actual written sentence doesn't say anything by implication; all it does is state, by explication, a fact. Everything else the reader gets out of it is in the reader's head; it's subjective, not objective. The same is true for readers who are bothered about the United States' status as a or the superpower or Wikipedia's mention of that status. Their being bothered isn't reason enough for the article to change its statement of fact. When they're bothered about opinions expressed as facts in Wikipedia, they have good reason to want something to be rewritten; when they're bothered about facts in Wikipedia, their problem is with the facts and not with Wikipedia.

President Lethe 19:01, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree pretty much 100% with President Lethe's last post. My concern with the "arrogance" was less my own concern as an attempt to address the concerns of other people who were edit warring over the intro paragraph. I'm happy to just state that the U.S. was one of two superpowers before the fall of the Soviet Union and the sole hyperpower after the fall.

I wrote a bunch of stuff while was writing the above message but ran into an edit conflict because he saved his comments before I saved mine. Here is what I wrote...

I, too, am glad to discuss here on the Talk page rather than edit warring on the article page. I also want to say that I only got involved because it appeared that other people were edit warring over a sentence that I wrote so I wanted to explain what I was thinking when I wrote it. I am not personally attached to the specific wording of the sentence although I do have opinions about what should be said.

[edit] Controversial issues in the intro paragraph

I think there are many separate controversial issues in the intro paragraph. I'll try to list the ones I have identified. Other editors may identify others or take issue with the way I have framed the issues. I'm happy to have them edit this list as long as it's done nicely and with discussion.

1) Superpower vs. Hyperpower - Both of these terms are defined in Wikipedia as being different from each other although the articles are marked as possibly violating WP:NOR. The definitions there match what I was trying to say about "before the fall of the Soviet Union" and "after the fall of the Soviet Union".

2) Whether the U.S. has become "THE dominant global influence in economic, political, military, cultural, scientific and technological affairs" since the end of WWII. I still believe that the truth is too complex to put into a single sentence or even a single paragraph. I agree with President Lethe that it's too much to put in the intro section. I'd just as soon leave it out altogether. It's too hard to make it work as part of a concise intro.

3) Whether the sentence "The influence of the United States is nonetheless limited by international agreements and the realities of political, military and economic constraints." belongs in the intro and specifically whether it is POV. I'm not convinced that what I wrote is evident to anybody who understands what a hyperpower is. See the definition of hyperpower and you will see that what I wrote is not there. The point I'm trying to get at is that with two superpowers (U.S. and U.S.S.R.) there is an inherent balance of power. With only one hyperpower, one might conclude that there is no balance of power. I'm arguing that there is an inherent limitation to the power of the U.S. as a hyperpower at this point in time. Even the British and Roman empires were not omnipotent. Moreover, the U.S. does voluntarily enter into agreements that limit its power. Those are facts. Is there a POV motivation in focusing on those facts in the intro? I suppose but maybe there's a POV motivation in not wanting to mention those facts in the intro. That's why I would like to have the objectives of the intro laid out explicitly so that we have a standard to measure them against.

4) I don't like the sentence "However, the path to development did not come without a price as American history is tainted with cruelties such as slavery, and the forced migration of millions of Native Americans out of their homelands and onto reservations." I think the issue is that similar sentences could be written about all the colonial powers (Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Holland, Russia, China, Japan). Perhaps I'd be happier if we inserted a phrase like "like any other colonial power of the 19th and 20th centuries... etc."

--Richard 19:13, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I've just now discovered your new section here, Richard. I have a (relatively) brief (me? brief? amazing!) response:

1. Thanks for your point about the possible hyperpower–superpower difference. I agree with your caution about their being marked as possibly violating WP:NOR. I'm not sure how many everyday users of English would say the U.S. is a hyperpower instead of a superpower; and perhaps the widespread dominance of one term over the other is something to consider.

2. I'm glad that we agree that this should be saved for a place other than the introduction. But I still believe that the introduction should include the brief point about the United States' superpower status. Why? That reasoning is what I expressed in my post from last year (repeated earlier this year).

3. I'm still mulling over your third point. At least for the moment, I do think the word superpower, not hyperpower, should be what we see in the introduction; it's my impression that we would find a much bigger percentage of the world's population saying "the United States" in answer to "What country is the world's superpower today?" than we would in answer to "What country is the world's hyperpower today?" You've written "Even the British and Roman empires were not omnipotent. Moreover, the U.S. does voluntarily enter into agreements that limit its power. Those are facts"; yes, but they are obvious facts, known by just about anyone who has a clue about how the world works. Does the article on the British empire say "But keep in mind, reader, that Britain's power wasn't absolute"? Does the article on the Roman empire say something similar? If the answers to similar questions about other powers in the history of the world are "No", why should the answer for the U.S. be "Yes"? I would also argue that every country on Earth voluntarily obeys its own and international laws to some degree or another. So why do we want to say about the U.S. something that is true of every country? We may as well say that the U.S. occupies some land and includes some people and has an economy and a culture. These obviously true generalizations add very little to the content of the article. And, sometimes, they seem to reek of "This statement exists for no other reason than to keep irrational editors from ranting about nearby statements and removing them." I do indeed have a POV reason for wanting your sentence removed: I think it tries to say, in a calm way, "The U.S. ain't so bad" (and you yourself seem to have confirmed this multiple times on this Talk page); and I think Wikipedia policy rightly proscribes POV and veiled POV. So my POV against your sentence is that your sentence is POV (you yourself have stated explicitly the POV ideas that you want the reader to glean from your sentence). My POV is that POV should be stricken from Wikipedia articles; that's the POV motivating me to press for the removal of your sentence.

4. I agree with your disliking the sentence. I think the information should be added somewhere in the article; but I think it requires too much detail to be in the intro. (One should also remember that balance isn't merely saying (again, let's used a detached example) "Some persons voted for x, while others voted for y", but instead is achieved better with wording like "Seventy-one percent of voters voted for x, while 22% voted for y, and 7% voted for z." This isn't a point about anything specific from you, Richard; it's just that it seems some Wikipedians forget about different things' different weights when they're trying to achieve balance, and I felt like making a point.) Keep in mind that it could also be said to be "excuse making" (POV) if, in mentioning bad things done by the U.S. in its history, one says "But, hey! other countries did it too! We weren't the only ones!"

Finally, a point about Wikipedia in general and country articles in specific. While other, more traditional encyclopedias have their shortcomings, I think that those produced for decades by large groups in the business (e.g., World Book, Encyclopædia Britannica) do have some lessons for us Wikipedians. World Book, for example, seems to have quite a nice general outline used for each article about a country of the world or a U.S. state or a Canadian province, for example; and I think there is something to be said for how World Book handles the ugly parts of history. Look up Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Cuba, the U.S., Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Australia, Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Belize, Russia, whatever—and, no matter what, you won't find the article starting off with some statement to the effect of "Life in this country sucks" or "This country is mean to other countries": instead, all that stuff is saved for later, in the history section of that country's article, and is expressed in a way that strikes me as quite NPOV.

President Lethe 20:26, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

That's one of the longest "brief" messages that I've ever read. You want brief? Here's brief.

1) Can we say "after WWII, U.S. was one of two superpowers", "after fall of U.S.S.R. the U.S. was left as the sole remaining superpower"

2) Can we agree that only the comment about "sole remaining superpower" stays and all the rest about "dominant influence" is left out of the intro? Could be put somewhere else but it's too complex to deal with effectively in the intro.

3) I don't really care about my last sentence (i.e. the one about "limitations on power") anymore as long as we don't get other people trying to edit the "superpower" stuff out because of charges of arrogance.

4) Can we then move the sentence about slavery and massacre of Native Americans to elsewhere in the article?

It's not sufficient for President Lethe and I to agree on this. We need to build a consensus of the current editors of the article. Then we can document this consensus somehwere like Talk:United States/Introduction. If people want to object, they can object there but I would like to have a version of the intro that is more or less agreed upon by the people currently watching this article. The reasons behind the consensus can be documented via an inline comment (i.e. .

Your comments are solicited

--Richard 20:42, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

It was briefer than my previous posts to you. :-)

I shouldn't spend much more time on this today; but I want to answer your latest post and to mention something that I thought of after my last post.

I was thinking of World Book’s articles on big cities in the U.S. Basically all the articles include, somewhere, a statement like this one (which may or may not be verbatim what the 2001 Standard Edition CD-ROM of World Book says about Atlanta): "Atlanta faces many social problems experienced by other large urban areas. Major problems include crime and homelessness. Much of the crime is associated with the problems of drug abuse and gang activity. Rising housing costs have contributed to homelessness. In 1991, Georgia native and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter launched the Atlanta Project. The project is an effort to attack social problems in the poorest parts of the Atlanta area. Its volunteers work with community groups, churches, and local, state, and federal government programs to help the poor." Because the statement is made in so many WB articles about cities, I don't take it as "excuse making"; so maybe we actually could put in something like that for the histories of many big colonial powers and then it wouldn't seem so "excuse"-y.

1. Fine with me.

2. Fine with me.

3. And, if they do make those edits, our response should be what I said earlier (to point out that their annoyance is subjective stuff about facts, not something about POV in the Wikipedia), rather than to try to come up with some appeasing disclaimer.

4. Makes sense to me.

And, yes, others should speak up. It seems, though, that many persons tend to shut up when I'm around.

President Lethe 21:16, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Opening section

I agree with some edits, but a list of what the US did after independence is not needed in the opening (which is explained later in history and other sections). Also, calling them 13 states doesn't sound as right as just calling them "former colonies".--Ryz05 07:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

THey were states when they formed the United States under the constitution. The earlier sentence talks about the colonies - how they got beyond the 13 colonies is needed as a link to the present day expansion of power & influence --JimWae 07:38, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

In the opening, especially between the second and third paragraphs, there does seem to be a giant leap in time, but since American history has continued for more than 200 years, there's just so much to add in between but the opening is not the place to do that. If the reader wants to know the details, he/she should continue reading down the article. To explain how they got beyond the 13 colonies needs to include a lot more details or it'll just lead to confusion. But again, the opening should be kept short with only a few summary paragraphs. I understand your concern, but I think the article opening is best left the way it is.--Ryz05 07:44, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

These are not being presented as full expositions, just introductions to be continued later - and in same vein as other problems expressed in that paragraph. People will "continue down" if the intro has interesting topics that are "promised" for later. Innovations and sources of anti-Americanism are interesting to many --JimWae 07:50, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Do you "disagree with become more democratic" because you think it is less now or the same as then? Expansion of the franchise to non-landed, blacks & women is not a topic to get readers to want to "read down"? --JimWae 07:54, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Let's just leave the opening the way it is without too much excessive detail. As to the democratics issue, the expansion of rights to blacks and women is considered a civil rights issue, not democracy.--Ryz05 08:26, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Eh? How's that? Democracy = rule by the majority of the people. So, how does allowing more of the people the option to, for example, vote (and thus make themselves part of the majority that elects a certain candidate or passes a certain law) not act as an expansion of democracy? President Lethe 16:02, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

You've removed <expansion> "through purchases and wars" five times tonight. You neglected to give much reason for doing so - other than "too much detail" and "too many ands". Using a comma is not "an excuse" for keeping it - commas are valid punctuation & that was a syntactically correct punctuation of a fairly short sentence. You missed probably the only valid reason to exclude it - the Louisiana Purchase & the Mexican WarS seem not to even be mentioned in the article. I wonder how much longer the bare mentions of democracy will last. --JimWae 08:40, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I reverted so many times, but I was just trying to improve the article and keep it looking good and reading nicely. If you really feel like it should belong in that sentence, then you are welcome to put it in and I won't revert it anymore. However, someone else might see it and change it.--Ryz05 08:52, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Please remember WP:3RR everyone =) --mboverload 08:43, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Better yet, join the Harmonious Editing Club and never revert more than once. JimWae, can you explain why "through purchases and wars" is so important to you? How else does a country expand? I suppose it could be through mergers. But why is it important to mention it? What is the point you are making? --Richard 08:59, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I've been re-reading the edit history and JimWae seems to think that mentioning "through purchases and wars" may get the reader to "read down" for an explanation of how the U.S. expanded "through purchases and wars". That argument would be more appropriate in the History of the United States article but less so in this article. --Richard 10:02, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• I improved a pretty crummy paragraph & Rcyx85 was editing out things like [[republic]]s to [[republic|republics]] and 13 states to 13 former colonies. "Read down" was a term introduced by him, and so I turned it back towards his "arguments". Though of course articles cannot be 300 MB long, I think his "arguments" were mostly specious. "Getting" Puerto Rico is the only war of expansion mentioned - twice - while Mexican Wars do not appear at all.
• There are 3 kinds of tyrannies on wikipedia
  1. The article's too long.
  2. Let's make the article a featured article
  3. This article is part of a series on ...
• Anyway, I stopped reverting & did not violate 3RR - though I believe Rcyx85 did
• --JimWae 15:50, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, JimWae, I think we're making progress by talking about this rather than edit warring. I still don't completely understand your objectives. I feel like you have a valid point although I can't quite nail down what it is yet. My current understanding is that you are trying to make points that are more related to the History of the United States article or, at least, the "History" section of this article.

There is an inherent problem in trying to write an intro paragraph to a topic as big as "the United States". It's not just that the article is too long (which it is starting to be) but also that we don't want the intro to be too long either. So we must pick very carefully what points we want to make in the intro.

I'm not saying that the current intro is perfect (far from it!) or that Ryz05 has a monopoly on knowing what is right for the intro. I'm not too happy with the intro paragraph either but I don't think we can get much improvement by making an edit here, an edit there followed by edit warring over the edits. That process is too slow, too painful and likely to piss off one or more editors. (Like me! Last night's back and forth edit warring is far from the Wikipedia ideals and standards of conduct.) More talk, less edit warring, please.

I would like to propose that we try to identify what the various concerns are about the current intro and then try to address them in the Talk pages first without actually editing the current article at all. With a bit of patience and amicable discussion (please observe WP:NPA), we can hopefully make some progress.

Once we get some consensus on a "good" intro, we can move it into the actual article.

--Richard 17:25, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• Please stop lecturing me --JimWae 18:05, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An experiment

There's been way too much editwarring going on here over the intro paragraph so I propose another approach. I've copied the text of the current intro article here. Can we edit this version until there's a consensus that we have reached a mutually acceptable version? Then and only then, we can copy the consensus version into the article. If you feel that you need to fork off a separate version of this intro paragraph, fine but do it here and not in the article. Hopefully, that will end the edit warring which tends to piss people off.--Richard 10:02, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Changed my mind, I'm putting the intro paragraph in Talk:United States/Introduction. Please make your edit changes and supporting comments there. --Richard 10:04, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Few remarks regarding sections in this article

I notice that there's a lot of changes and many of them additions to the sections of this article as people see what things are missing or could be given in greater detail. Although I don't see it as wrong in any way regarding the improvements made to this article, the excessive addition of information in many sections has caused them to become bloated and sometimes difficult to read. It is good to remember that this article is solely a summary of the many articles that are specifically related to the section subjects, as such, it is strongly advised that extra additions for the sections in this article be added to those respective subject articles instead.--Ryz05 03:57, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Can you put this as a comment at the top of the article? At the risk of being pedantic, the comment syntax is

--Richard 04:32, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean?--Ryz05 06:32, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I added it to the top of the article as a comment. Thank you for your suggestion.--Ryz05 06:42, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] top 10 metro areas AND top 10 within city limits AND 11 global cities

City	City-proper population				Metro-area Population		Region	Global city
	Rank	2004 estimate	per sq mi	per km²	Millions	Rank		points	group
New York City, New York	1	8,104,079	26,403	10,194	18.7	1	Northeast	12	alpha	seaport; center of finance, media
Los Angeles, California	2	3,845,541	7,877	3,041	12.9	2	West	10	alpha	seaport, media center
Chicago, Illinois	3	2,862,244	12,750	4,923	9.4	3	Midwest	10	alpha	lakeport, transportation hub
Houston, Texas	4	2,012,626	3,372	1,302	5.2	7	South	6	gamma	seaport, oil industry
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	5	1,470,151	11,234	4,337	5.8	4	Northeast	3		seaport, historic center
Dallas, Texas	9	1,210,393	3,470	1,340	5.7	5	South	6	gamma	telecom & oil industries,
Miami, Florida	47	382,894	10,734	4,144	5.4	6	Southeast	4	gamma	seaport, resort area
Washington, D.C.	27	553,523	9,017	3,481	5.1	8	East	6	gamma	national capital
Atlanta, Georgia	43	419,122	3,161	1,220	4.7	9	Southeast	4	gamma	world's busiest airport
Detroit, Michigan	11	900,198	6,856	2,647	4.5	10	Midwest	2		auto industry, music
Boston, Massachusetts	24	569,165	12,166	4,697	4.4	11	Northeast	6	gamma	seaport, historic center
San Francisco, California	14	744,230	16,090	6,212	4.2	12	West	9	beta	seaport, tourism
Phoenix, Arizona	6	1,418,041	2,782	1,074	3.7	14	West
Minneapolis, Minnesota	49	373,943	6,970	2,691	3.0	16	Upper Midwest	4	gamma
San Diego, California	7	1,263,756	3,772	1,456	2.9	17	West			seaport
San Antonio, Texas	8	1,236,249	2,809	1,085	1.8	29	South
San Jose, California	10	904,522	5,118	1,976	1.7	30	West			Silicon Valley

Which 4 are less likely to be known internationally - [Phoenix, San Diego, San Antonio, San Jose] or [ Miami, DC, Atlanta, Detroit]? --JimWae 18:40, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

My guess is that it's a split, with the four better known of the eight being (in no special order) San Diego, San Antonio, Miami, and D.C. Or maybe Atlanta more than San Antonio. Just a guess. How would the answer affect your edits? I think it's fine for the article to list the 10 most populous cities proper, the 10 most populous metropolitan areas, or both. President Lethe

My guess - SD is most well-known in 1st group, Atlanta least well known in 2nd --JimWae 19:15, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

• The second group of four are much more well known internationally. DC is the most well known because its the capital. Detroit is well known worldwide because of the auto industry. Read any international car or business publication and it is regularly mentioned--both Ford and GM are large sellers in Europe, South America, Austrialia and parts of Asia. Also, the Motown sound is well known. Miami is a world known resort/party town, plus a center for South/Latin American business and culture in the US. Altanta is the big city of the South and well known in the US, but not necessarily well known worldwide.

• Among the first group, San Diego is probably the best known of this group, but its identity as a navy town and beach resort, which is overshadowed by nearby LA, is not necessarily well known internationally. Phoenix is growing rapidly, but its identity is somewhat limited outside of the US and South/Latin America as it is relatively new for a big city and has little industry. San Antonio is another rapid growth city, but well overshadowed as a Texas city by Houston, DFW, and not known for industry/tourism other than the Alamo. Finally, as part of Silicon Valley, San Jose is known. However, the city itself is not particularly known without the Silicon Valley monkier and is overshadowed by its smaller but more established neighbors SF and Oakland.

[edit] Photo sizes

The pictures of the three Alpha cities. There's been some back and forth on the sizes of the pictures displayed in the "Largest cities" subsection. Most recently, Ryz05 has shrunk the thumbnails' width from 200 to 100 pixels, saying that "smaller pics look neater". Neatness is largely subjective; it depends also on individuals' computer settings, browser settings, and Wikipedia settings. (When I view the page on my computer, with the settings that I prefer, the smaller thumbnails result in a larger block of useless white space and a wider block of text: see illustration.) Because readers can already set their preferred size for all thumbnails on all pages that don't have other sizes specified, I suggest that the specifications for these specific thumbnails' sizes be removed, and that it be left up to each reader's own set preference, rather than a few battling editors' personal opinions. President Lethe 18:09, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Good idea - I had not seen that setting before - what is default for readers not signed in? --JimWae 19:01, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

It seems that the default for someone not logged in is 180 pixels' width. President Lethe 20:45, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't care that much for the sizes of the pictures as long as it's organized. Maybe the table can be lengthened a little to help cover some of the white space? The photos there can be left to the preference of the reader, but what's wrong with the sizes of other photos in other sections?--Ryz05 00:44, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

The point is to stop messing with picture dimensions and table dimensions for the sake of white space, what 'looks neater', what results in 'colored rectangles', &c. The range of appearances is very wide, and depends on browser window size, browser, Wikipedia skin, browser text-size settings, and many other variables. Tailoring to achieve an 'ideal' appearance for one combination of variables may result in something unwieldy or ugly for even just a slightly different set of variables. Shrinking text size (as in the state names in the table of cities), using thumbnails of sizes other than the default (or that set in the user's preferences), &c., all end up creating oddities that are sometimes pointless or even counterproductive because of the broad range of possible appearances that depends on the variables just mentioned. We're not designing a printed page, or even a personal website with one person in control who is encoding things so that appearance will vary almost not at all. Wikipedia is much more about content. Add and edit information; a successful arrangement that avoids white space may become obsolete hours later when someone adds an extra paragraph of useful information or tightens up and shortens an already existing paragraph—and may not even be 'successful' in the first place for a different reader with different settings. President Lethe 01:14, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

PS. To answer the question about photos in other sections: Today, I went through and got rid of the size specifications for almost all illustrations in this article. That way, the thumbnails' size is uniform and is governed only be each reader's set preference. We had a big range today: 100, 200, 250, &c. Now it's just one size: that chosen by the reader (or the default). President Lethe 01:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

It's alright to me that the Largest cities section do not have thumb sizes as there would be a whitespace between the table and the pictures, but I highly recommend putting in thumb nail sizes to other pictures, like in the Geography section, so as to make them uniform and more in line with the section length.--Ryz05 22:08, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

• I think not - there are just too many images in that section & reducing them to 50 on a 1600x2000 screen is useless. As I said below, putting them in rows of 2 might work for me - but not likely for everyone. Get rid of some photos from that section - just put the Grand Canyon back - it is one of the 7 modern wonders of the world after all --JimWae 22:19, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I can replace the Rocky Mountains picture with that of the Grand Canyon, since they are both in the west. I can also reduce the pictures to sizes 100px (not 50).--Ryz05 22:28, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

• or you can leave them alone & accept input from others --JimWae 22:43, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean? I included the Grand Canyon and reduced the picture sizes to 100 (not 50 like you said). And the pictures are important in describing the diversity of the landscape, so it would be wise to not delete them.--Ryz05 22:47, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

This could hardly look any crappier. Neither Wikipedia nor this article is a one-man show --JimWae 22:50, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Is that what happened on your screen? I didn't expect that to look so different on different screens. I will remove the size specifications then. Thanks for pointing that out.--Ryz05 22:52, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed the sizes, but the pictures now appear on my screen to be jutting into the Economy section a little. Maybe it looks better on other people's screens.--Ryz05 22:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

• • Aren't you the same person who complained about the article being too long? Yet you have added six 800kB photo to delay downloading -even on high speed connections. I am not going to revert you anymore on this today - I'll leave that to others. Do you listen to anyone at all? --JimWae 22:59, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

The pictures might make downloading a little slow, but I think overall, they improve the article significantly. The only way to solve the problems about the pictures in the Geography section is to enlarge the picture on the left. Once you enlarge that picture, the pictures on the right (when not sized down) appear to be bigger than they should be in that section. Although I did make the picture on the left bigger so as to make the images in line with the section, I'm not going to size the ones on the right again until I hear more opinions.--Ryz05 23:05, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Why 4 for that section - why not 10 - or why not 2 - (maybe 3) - rather than overwhelm the section. When small - even at 250 on my 1600x2000 screen - they do not show up well enough to entice anyone to click on them to see them better anyway. Not even the subarticle feels compelled to represent EVERY area --JimWae 23:10, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

The one picture on the left is used to show the US geography in general. The three pictures on the right show the diversity of the landscape in more detail. Although they might show up in as much detail as you want them to be, they nonetheless bring to your attention how diverse the terrains are. If you are interested in seeing at a closer look, then click the images to enlarge them.--Ryz05 23:13, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

The point about an 800KB picture's slowing the download of the article page is flawed: thumbnails don't have file sizes anywhere near that big—and thumbnails are what load with article pages.

• • Ok, I forgot. The thumbnails range from under 10 to as high as 47 kB for me anyway. Still a factor, especially when the server is slow (and they are the last to slooowwwly load). 4 images for 1 short section is overkill, especially from someone who keeps complaining that 77 kB of text is too much. --JimWae 00:13, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

To the rest of it: I repeat myself. The point is to stop messing with picture dimensions and table dimensions for the sake of white space, what 'looks neater', what results in 'colored rectangles', &c. The range of appearances is very wide, and depends on browser window size, browser, Wikipedia skin, browser text-size settings, and many other variables. Tailoring to achieve an 'ideal' appearance for one combination of variables may result in something unwieldy or ugly for even just a slightly different set of variables. Shrinking text size (as in the state names in the table of cities), using thumbnails of sizes other than the default (or that set in the user's preferences), &c., all end up creating oddities that are sometimes pointless or even counterproductive because of the broad range of possible appearances that depends on the variables just mentioned. We're not designing a printed page, or even a personal website with one person in control who is encoding things so that appearance will vary almost not at all. Wikipedia is much more about content. Add and edit information; a successful arrangement that avoids white space may become obsolete hours later when someone adds an extra paragraph of useful information or tightens up and shortens an already existing paragraph—and may not even be 'successful' in the first place for a different reader with different settings.

President Lethe 23:46, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Politics section and Political divisions

• The things mentioned about the relationship of the States to the federal government should best be included in the Politics section, and some of the original material explaining Guam, Puerto Rico, etc, could be moved back under Political divisions with some edits to shorten the information. However, the Politics section could really use some resummarization and reduction in size first.--Ryz05 22:51, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

An alternative is

	Political divisions of the United States
Capital	District of Columbia
States	Alabama | Alaska | Arizona | Arkansas | California | Colorado | Connecticut | Delaware | Florida | Georgia | Hawaii | Idaho | Illinois | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Kentucky | Louisiana | Maine | Maryland | Massachusetts | Michigan | Minnesota | Mississippi | Missouri | Montana | Nebraska | Nevada | New Hampshire | New Jersey | New Mexico | New York | North Carolina | North Dakota | Ohio | Oklahoma | Oregon | Pennsylvania | Rhode Island | South Carolina | South Dakota | Tennessee | Texas | Utah | Vermont | Virginia | Washington | West Virginia | Wisconsin | Wyoming
Insular areas	American Samoa | Guam | Northern Mariana Islands | Puerto Rico | Virgin Islands
Minor outlying islands	Baker Island | Howland Island | Jarvis Island | Johnston Atoll | Kingman Reef | Midway Atoll | Navassa Island | Palmyra Atoll | Wake Island

--JimWae 20:18, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with adding that table into the section, since people can just click the main article to find out more information. The table also unnecessarily lengthens the article. It's a good table, but it's not needed in the US article.--Ryz05 03:22, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to not do listings

• I propose that, in the future, whenever something is written in this article that people try not to list things, as that can cause others to add or change whatever is missing or whatever they feel strongly about. This can create problems as lists get unnecessarily longer or people disagree over what should or should not be included.--Ryz05 01:00, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] why no bomb here, but a big bomb there?

Why is the article on the Soviet Union illustrated with the picture of an ATOMIC BOMB exploding? While at the same time the article on the United States has no pictures of atomic bombs exploding! I am in no way siding the Soviet regime here, but I want to point out that the POV is obvious. If any of these articles should be illustrated with the A-bomb it should be the US. The USA was the first country to develop the atomic bomb, and in history, the USA is the only country that has used atomic bombs in war! Bronks 25 April 2006.

A picture of the A-bomb explosion could be included in a new sub-section called "Science and technology" under Economy. But that part is for later.--Ryz05 10:56, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be more appropriate to have under a section called "Wars" or something. Skalle 11:09, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes, the question of what's included in one article is of little relevance to the question of what to include in another.

The POV is obvious? Or the POV is inferred? What are the chances that a single entity said "Aha! I know how to make Russia look bad and the U.S. look awesome! I'll put a picture of a nuclear weapon's explosion in the Russia article and magically keep a similar picture from appearing in the U.S. article!"?

(There's also POV in this section name, "why no bomb here, but a big bomb there?" It says the bomb in the Russian article is big, but that the bomb missing from the American article isn't even big.)

If we're going to start littering country articles with pictures of nuclear weapons, perhaps we should do it to several—about 8% of the world's sovereign states:

• Belarus—had arms when part of the U.S.S.R. (a country that a lot of the world had a big problem with), which it has since given up

• Brazil—when it had a military government, its "generals came very close indeed to exploding the country's own nuclear device", according to the BBC

• China—has arms, the world's largest military, and highly questioned motives and means; continued testing into the mid '90s

• Cuba—dictatorship; not the greatest human-rights record; Cuban Missile Crisis

• France—has arms, was annoying the world into the mid '90s with bomb tests in the ocean (see this), and carried out some of its tests in Algeria (easier to test where the people are of a different race, religion, and culture, and where the land is on another continent)

• Germany—tried to develop atom bomb during WWII; used WMDs in gas chambers; carried out Holocaust; and has a connection because Einstein fled Germany and recommended the A-bomb to the U.S. because of what Germany was doing

• India—has arms, of which several were tested in 1998; has been in conflict with Pakistan for years

• Iran—big deal in the world right now about this risk

• Iraq—alleged to have, or to have been developing, arms; history of using WMDs internally and externally; had nasty dictator with awful human-rights record

• Israel—has arms but doesn't say so; has trouble with many nearby governments and peoples)

• Japan—the victim of the world's first two and only bombs used in war

• Kazakhstan—had arms when part of the U.S.S.R. (a country that a lot of the world had a big problem with), which it has since given up

• Pakistan—has arms, of which some were tested in 1998; has been in conflict with India for years; big deal about sharing secrets in recent years; connections with terrorism

• North Korea—ongoing troubles about whether it has arms and what it would do with them; claims to have many; not well liked around the world; nasty dictatorship; got into a war with the U.N. in the '50s

• Russia—has arms, which were a huge deal in the Cold War

• South Africa—was developing arms but was persuaded to stop; kept up apartheid into the '90s

• the Ukraine—had arms when part of the U.S.S.R., which it has since given up

• the U.K.—has arms; in mid 20th century, performed some rather despicable tests to see how people's bodies reacted to radiation

• the U.S.—got the bomb first, used it, has arms; we could also mention Canada, which ostensibly gets some kind of protection merely by being friend and neighbor to the nuclear U.S.

Anyway, I don't object to such an illustration in the U.S. article. But the reasoning ought to be better than "The Russian article has such a picture."

President Lethe 16:05, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page spacing

The article has some spacing issues from a 1280 × 1024 screen resolution. For example, there is a small section of white space between the third and fourth paragraphs of the History section. The biggest (and the only other spacing problem I saw) was between the Political divisions and Geography sections. The image on the right depicts the large gap. True, most viewers use a 800 × 600 screen resolution, but more and more people are using a larger resolution. Black and White^USER_TALK^CONTRIBS 14:51, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I think most spacing issues would be done away with if we kept all the on-page images as thumbnails. See section 48 of this Talk page. President Lethe 16:07, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures in "Geography" section

Recently, in the "Geography" section, Ryz05 "added a fourth picture as the section is long enough to accomodate one and since it illustrates the diverse terrains to be found in the country"—and then went back to three pictures, but by removing the one of the Grand Canyon. So, now, the pictures are of

• "A temperate forest on the Mullica River, in the northeast."
• "The Rocky Mountains, in the west."
• "A Florida marshland, in the south."

The greatly varied landscape of the U.S. is now illustrated by

• Green forest beside body of water under blue sky in temperate area
• Green forest under blue sky in temperate area
• Green plants in body of water under blue sky in temperate area

What about deserts, glaciers, prairies, old mountains topped with trees, new mountains topped with snow, tropical beaches, rocky coasts, volcanic islands, Pacific northwest rain forest, &c.? I'm not saying that there is no variety in the present pictures, or that the pictures should show all the features I just mentioned; but we can do better. President Lethe 20:02, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you that the Grand Canyon picture should have been kept. It's kind of misleading to imply that the entire U.S. is all green when it also has vast deserts, prairies, beaches, etc. --Coolcaesar 20:16, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

- making 4 images in the geography section - and creating a vast whitespace - and the next section also has 3 photos. It might be better if they were 2 wide, but I doubt it would be so for everyone--JimWae 20:11, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Content re. location

Relatedly, I've restored some pretty summative details (some of which are found in the subarticle) to this section. It is important that the location of the U.S., though obvious to many, be succinctly described in this overview article. (Notions regarding area and rank are now in another paragraph.) The prior version, which consolidated talk of location and area into one paragraph, did not do this effectively and was rather lacking. Merci! E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 19:41, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] largest city?

L.A.? Where does that come from?? LA is not the largest city, MSA or CSA. Cornell Rockey 20:27, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

It comes from vandals. President Lethe 21:04, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Ah, the vandals. They are silly. Cornell Rockey 03:46, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Geography" wording difference between President Lethe and E Pluribus Anthony

When I'm writing this post, my (President Lethe's) version, the one that E Pluribus Anthony has removed, is

• This is a rather atomic and solitary analysis; I will comment as needed below (and have placed my most recent version) but I will edit the article accordingly. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Several sources rank the United States as the world's third-largest country in total area, after Russia and Canada; however, other sources, including the Encyclopædia Britannica, list China as larger than the U.S.: the disputed ranking seems to hinge on the political status of Taiwan, without which China takes fourth place. The contiguous states share land borders, to the north, with Canada, which also borders Alaska, and, to the south, with Mexico.

The continguous states lie between two oceans: in the east, the Atlantic, whose Gulf of Mexico touches five Southern states; and, in the west, the Pacific, which also forms Alaska's coast and surrounds the island state of Hawaii.

E Pluribus Anthony's version is

The contiguous United States shares land borders with Canada to the north and Mexico to the south; Alaska lies northwest and is bordered by Canada to the east. The North Atlantic Ocean lies to the east of the contiguous U.S., with the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and the North Pacific Ocean bounds the contiguous U.S. to the west, Alaska to the south (which is also bounded by the Arctic Ocean to the north), and surrounds the Hawaiian islands.

According to various sources, the U.S. is ranked the world's third largest country in total area, after Russia and Canada. However, other sources, including Encyclopædia Britannica, list China as larger than the U.S. This dispute seems to hinge on Taiwan, without which China takes fourth place.

E.P.A. asks me to discuss this.

1. The first difference is which paragraph comes first. It's often good to work from general to specific. The size of the country is more general than the details of what lands and waters border it on what sides, and which states aren't part of the Lower 48.

• Yes: area means nothing if someone cannot place a locale, hence the ordering. This isn't a clincher, though. "The United States is one of the world's largest countries" seems rather extraneous given details that follow: this can certainly be dealt with through efficient wording of the next sentence or alternatively; see below. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

2. The next difference is where the paragraph break occurs. My last version apparently has an error in it, for I would rather that the size question have its own paragraph and that the bordering lands and waters be combined in their own, separate paragraph.

• The current 'melange' is poor in structure and thematic, flying in the face of basic composition: location/border details should be dealt with in one paragraph, area specifics in another. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

3. "According to various sources, the U.S. is ranked the world's third largest country in total area" (E.P.A.) vs. "Several sources rank the United States as the world's third-largest country in total area" (P.L.).

• "various" just strikes me as weak writing here.

• Discussions on this Talk page (including its archives) reveal that the number of sources ranking the U.S. larger than China is several, and more varied: most (not all) of the sources mentioned as listing China as larger are either Chinese-government sources or smaller, 'less professional' websites. "Several" is appropriate. Several may be appropriate for both; but it seems that the majority says one thing—and it's often better to reserve several for the majority.

• The sources show/give/bestow the ranking; this is something determined, in large part, by human beings—especially when the land we're measuring (China) has a disputed component (Taiwan). To say that "sources rank" is not only active, compared to the passive "the U.S. is ranked", but also tells us who (the sources) is doing the ranking.

• The choice between "U.S." and "United States" is based simply on which paragraph comes first in this section.

• "third-largest" should be hyphenated.

• Finally, my syntax is simple—subject, predicate—, while E.P.A.'s starts off with a phrase that's part of the predicate, then goes to the subject, and then continues the predicate.

• I'm unsure what the point of this riposte is, since I have little dispute with it and did not edit said notions. However, this seems a rather excessive debate – which is already covered off through details in the the infobox – that arguably should be moved/detailed in the subarticle. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

4. The next difference is the punctuation used to join/separate the three sentences about size: I use "U.S. larger; China larger: origin of dispute", while E.P.A. uses "U.S. larger. China larger. Origin of dispute." This isn't a huge deal to me. The sentences are closely related; the first two shows two opposing facts, while the third presents the reason behind the opposition: this kind of stuff is often punctuated with semicolons and colons. On the other hand, especially if the paragraph is about nothing but the size ranking, it seems alright to me to use periods instead.

• As above. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

5. Then there's the question of whether to put "the" before Encyclopædia Britannica. In English, the definite article is indeed used before most newspaper titles, most journal titles, most dictionary titles, and most encyclopedia titles. Check out Wikipedia's article on the Encyclopædia Britannica, as well as Britannica's own website, for example.

• As above. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

6. "This dispute seems to hinge on Taiwan, without which China takes fourth place" vs. "the disputed ranking seems to hinge on the political status of Taiwan, without which China takes fourth place".

• It's more accurate to say that the dispute revolves around Taiwan's status than that it's about Taiwan itself.

• It strikes me as better to say that the ranking hinges on Taiwan's status than that the dispute hinges on Taiwan's status.

I'm also curious to know whether anyone can say whether the dispute hinges on something else instead. If it doesn't, might we do away with "seems"?

• As above. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Now to the wording about the surrounding land and water. My preferred wording (revised in this Talk page) is

The contiguous states share land borders, to the north, with Canada, which also borders Alaska, and, to the south, with Mexico. These states lie between two oceans: in the east, the Atlantic, whose Gulf of Mexico touches five Southern states; and, in the west, the Pacific, which also surrounds the island state of Hawaii and forms part of Alaska's coast. Alaska also borders the Arctic Ocean.

E.P.A.'s is

The United States shares land borders with Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The North Atlantic Ocean lies to the east of the contiguous U.S., with the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and the North Pacific Ocean bounds the contiguous U.S. to the west, Alaska to the south (which is also bounded by the Arctic Ocean to the north), and surrounds the Hawaiian islands.

E.P.A.'s 68 words are 17% more numerous than the 58 of my original (my revision has 66); but they impart less information, lack some necessary punctuation, and are poorly ordered.

• Given the current version with its excessive comma splicing, poor syntax, and lack of detail, this is rather hypocritical; pot, meet kettle. I will edit accordingly. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

7. The opening paragraph of the article already states that the U.S. is in North America. It should be understood that North America doesn't touch the South Pacific or the South Atlantic, which makes "North Pacific" and "North Atlantic" superfluous.

• Reiteration of germane details is necessary in this already long overview. See South America for a demonstration of why this rationale regarding direction is flawed ... particularly given the breadth of American territory on the North American continent. As well, arguably, Hawaii is of Oceania (Polynesia). E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

8. E.P.A.'s version is missing the necessary parenthetic commas around "to the north" and "to the south" in the Canada & Mexico sentence.

• Per above: it does not require parenthethical commas, and makes the sentence rather tortuous in punctuation. You seem to have a predilection for commas which is neither necessary nor desired. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

9. E.P.A.'s sentence beginning "The North Atlantic Ocean" includes two separate sentence-like clauses (beginning "The North Atlantic", "and the North Pacific"), each of which has sub-parts separated by commas, so that a semicolon would be better than a comma between "Gulf of Mexico to the south" and "and the North Pacific Ocean".

• Noted; colons would work. Otherwise, as above. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

10. My version uses the word ocean ahead of time, so that "Atlantic Ocean" and "Pacific Ocean" can be shortened to "Atlantic" and "Pacific'.

• Noted, but see below. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

11. My version makes clear that the Gulf of Mexico is part of the Atlantic; it also tells how many states touch the Gulf, and shows that the Gulf must be bordering a southern side of the country. E.P.A.'s version is ambiguous about the Gulf's location (is it south of the U.S. or south of the Atlantic?), doesn't explicate that the Gulf is part of the Atlantic, and doesn't mention that the Gulf touches five states (this last bit of information isn't absolutely necessary; but, when you can work it in so easily, why not?).

• I disagree, since the clause about the GoM directly follows that of the Atlantic. And this is an overview that needn't explicate that the GoM is a part of the Atlantic (which is dleat with through relevant piped links). I'm remiss to anthropomorphise a body of water through the use of "whose". Anyhow, the current version is inefficient. As for it touching five states, TMI: subarticle. This isn't counting coup – we do not detail how many states touch the Atlantic or other bodies of water. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

12. My version points out that it's the contiguous states, not all 50, that, as a group, share borders with Canada and Mexico. E.P.A.'s version lacks this precision.

• Actually, my version is more precise since it describes Alaska and Hawaii in context. And the sxn immediately above already details this (rather clunkily, I might add). E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

13. My version reveals that Alaska also touches Canada; this is another fact missing from E.P.A.'s version.

• Wrong: "Canada to the east [of Alaska]" is rather explicit. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

14. My version reveals that Hawaii is a state and that all of Hawaii is Pacific islands. E.P.A.'s doesn't say that Hawaii is a state, and doesn't show that all of Hawaii is islands in the Pacific.

• This is a physiographic description: the Hawaiian islands are comprised of Hawaii, et al. I'm all for wordsmithing. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

15. E.P.A.'s "to the west" wording about the Pacific is ambiguous about which thing (U.S. or Pacific) lies west of which: it could mean that "the contiguous U.S." is "to the west" of the Pacific.

• Huh? Given the prior sentence (parallelism), this is pretty clear and more likely a challenge that the commenting editor needs to overcome. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

16. E.P.A.'s placement of the parenthesis about Alaska makes it seem to say that the south, rather than Alaska, touches the Arctic Ocean. I save the point about the Arctic for the end. It still ends up being right next to the Pacific information about Alaska, but doesn't jumble an already long sentence and doesn't require a parenthesis. This seems O.K. particularly in light of its being about a third ocean (an ocean sometimes considered part of the Atlantic, mind you) and about a state not part of the Lower 48.

• As above; a considerable portion of U.S. territory is held in Alaska; the prior version did not touch on this, and the current version does so little better, which doesn't even note the directional relationship between of Alaska in relation to the contiguous U.S. or the Arctic. My version efficiently did this while also placing Alaska in context with Canada. Yes: the Arctic is sometimes considered part of the Atlantic, but that's no reason to diminish this and the current version is inefficient. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

These are the main reasons for which I favor my wording.

• It's hubris to think that the current edition is ideal; as demonstrated above, it isn't. I will edit accordingly and will nix other low-quality details in this sxn (e.g., re scenery) shortly. And if you are going to perform an excessive compositional analysis, please make sure to do so with the most recent version next time. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

President Lethe 20:57, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

For the moment, just one point, about the edit that E Pluribus Anthony made to this Talk page at 0416 UTC on 27 April 2006: do not edit my post. My quotation of your material was verbatim, copied and pasted directly from what was, at the time at which I copied it and pasted it into the post that I was in the middle of composing, your latest version, that of 1922 UTC on 26 April 2006. At best, your edit appears to be a failed attempt to 'correct' my 'error'; at worst, it looks like a disingenuous attempt to make my post factually wrong where it wasn't. Example of the latter: your version of the article text that I quoted made no mention of Canada's bordering Alaska. (I began my post by pointing out the 'age' of your version that I was quoting.) My post said "My version reveals that Alaska also touches Canada; this is another fact missing from E.P.A.'s version." Your response was to call this assertion "Wrong" (adding "'Canada to the east [of Alaska]' is rather explicit"), and then to edit your own quoted wording in my post in order to support your "Wrong" response. I try to give you the benefit of the doubt in considering your possible motives. ...

Update: while I was composing the above paragraph, you made further edits to my post. You now seem to acknowledge your inserted alterations, by saying you "have placed [your] most recent version" (?). But, really, stop this. It's like digitally adding to a photograph objects that weren't in the original scene. President Lethe 04:38, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

You chose to analyse a prior version, not my most recent one. This is a dynamic wiki: deal with it. I do not require your consent to edit and self-correct. I'm all for constructive discourse, but if you wish to challenge my motives given the overanalysis above and insinuations, it more brings to question your motives. In any event, said commentary will be accorded the appropriate attention hereafter. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:51, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Manifest Destiny- Occupying the continent?

• I don't want to start edit wars, but the phrase in the History section mentioning how the settlers want to occupy the continent while directing to the article on Manifest Destiny is wrong. First of all, the settlers did not want to occupy the entire continent as they really just wanted to expand to the western coast, and second, the Manifest Destiny is about spreading Democracy acorss the world, and not about occupying the entire continent.--Ryz05 18:15, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Read up. There are plenty of sources to show an aim of the War of 1812 was to take Canada & remove the UK from North America. There were also numerous plans to take Cuba & even Nicaragua. It was not just a West-Coast thing. Lincoln refused to compromise on slavery in the territories, saying it would mean wars all the way to Tierra del Fuego. Exceptionalism was perhaps solely about spreading idea(l)s, but Manifest Destiny included territory --JimWae 18:21, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Why do you keep calling your edits "clarification"? They are mostly insertions of your POV and omissions of other facts that do not fit your POV. Now you have removed the word "territories" - slavery there was THE issue over which the Civil War was begun. And you have inserted the "benificent" "spread of democracy" and ignored any territorial desires --JimWae 19:06, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

• Copied from earlier comment to user's talk page: USA -- History section

  A History of the USA that mentions nothing of the Louisiana Purchase, the War of 1812 & the war with Mexico? All are mentioned quite succinctly in that paragraph - which is not long. Removing @45 characters to reduce the length, while removing such important details, does not improve the article. If you are concerned to reduce the size, an easy solution is to take out just one of the 40 kB photos that fill the article --JimWae 18:14, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Controversial Economy Section

I was reading the economy section for this article and was amazed by its bias:

"Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, this was accomplished by slashing the tax-rates for the wealthiest Americans.[citation needed] This signaled a departure from the past, backing away from the more interventionist Keynesian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. The United States, today, is considered to have a mixed economy.

America is differentiated from most industrialized economies, particularly those in western Europe, by its low tax rates for the wealthiest of its citizenry.[citation needed] As a result the United States has by far the greatest number of the richest individuals in the world—many of them who were foreign nationals but became citizens—lured by this incentive. Policy-makers often justify such policies by claiming these wealthy individuals better America because many of them have made their fortune through innovation and will make the economy more dynamic. Companies in most American states can also fire individuals for no reason due to right-to-work laws, which are attributed to making the economy more flexible.

To compensate for this, the welfare system and social safety net is relatively meager compared to others. U.S. nationals earning the federally-mandated minimum-wage of $5.15 per-hour and working full-time 40-hour work weeks have less income than western Europeans who do not work at all and live on their countries respective welfare-system.[citation needed]", reads the article...

This is what it is said.

I mean, I personally am not a fan of some of the economic decisions the US takes internally, but that cannot interfere with how the US economy is depicted in the article. In my undersanding, the US is not "increasingly" neo-liberal (at least, I don't know how to measure a trend of this, and there is no source).

Reduce the size of the welfare state?

Slashing the tax-rates for the wealthiest Americans? Does the US have a tax index in which the wealthiest pay a different percentage of taxes than the poorer? In any case, it is to be noted that he poorest paid worker in America earns at least five times what is earned by the poorest paid worker in Mexico (a US neighbor), and dozens of times what is earned by the poorest paid workers of other countries. The use of terms of "poor" and "rich" in a country with this characteristics is extremely biased! Certainly, the poor in Indonesia would consider a "poor" American as a wealthy citizen...

The US has a mixed economy? How? I think the US economy is clearly a free market economy.

"America is differentiated from most industrialized economies, particularly those in western Europe, by its low tax rates for the wealthiest of its citizenry." says the authors of this paragraph, and they get away with this citing "citation needed"? Again, is there any proof of this? Do wealthier americans pay a lesser tax percentage in America? Is it true that rich people become American to avoid taxes, or do middle class foreigners produce a fortune in America because of the adequate economic environment? Are there any citations for any of this?

"Companies in most American states can also fire individuals for no reason due to right-to-work laws, which are attributed to making the economy more flexible." says the article without even expressing the need for sources. I work for an American company, and I know that this entirely true.

The article goes on and on with, at the very least, incredibly controversial language and sentences without any proof for it.

Again, I am no fan of the US economy, but that doesn't mean users of wikipedia can demeaner it by writing unreferenced criticism.

I don't know enough on the subject to venture a correction, but may be some one can?

Hari Seldon 19:24, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect first statement

"The U.S. originated from 13 colonies in British North America that declared their independence in 1776 and fought a revolution to achieve it." The U.S. got their independence from England/Britian so should be changed to: "The U.S. originated from 13 colonies in British North America that declared their independence in 1776 from English Britian and fought a revolution to achieve it."

[edit] Links to Censorship and Propaganda in the US

The Censorship falls under Human rights section of course. As the intro in that article says about how the first amendment guarantees freedom of speech and expression, then turns to "however" the US did not live up to these ideals or something. The Propaganda does not all do with human rights, but it did talk about campaigns (political), so I'm moving it to the Politics section right after Political parties of the US link. Please think twice about deleting something again, and if it's not broken-don't fix it.--Ryz05 20:55, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Content to include and organization

One common result of the 'anyone can edit' nature of Wikipedia is poor organization of the information within an article. I think the U.S. article actually has decent organization. Still, I feel like sharing this in case it gives some editors some ideas of what to include in the U.S. article or how to organize the information. I'm not at all saying the following outline is the best way to do it; but I thought it might give some creative minds some ideas. The outline shows how the "United States" article in the 2001 Standard Edition CD-ROM of the World Book Encyclopedia is organized. Obviously, because World Book is mainly a hardcopy encyclopedia, some information is lumped together in one article, or separated among different ones, in ways that might better be done differently in Wikipedia. Still, as I say, I thought it just might give some editors some ideas. Also, because article and section length appear to be of large concern to some editors, I include an estimate of the number of words in each section in World Book’s article. I thought of using outlines from other encyclopedias, too, but found the WB project easiest to carry out.

United States

I. [Introduction; includes links to entirely separate articles on U.S. Government and on U.S. History] [600 words]

A. United States [map]

B. United States symbols [flag picture, Great seal picture, national-anthem recording]

C. United States in brief [a separate text]

1. General information

i. Capital

ii. Language

iii. Official name

iv. Motto [motto and adoption date]

v. National anthem [title and adoption date]

vi. Flag [adoption date]

vii. Bird [bald eagle and adoption date]

viii. Flower [rose and adoption date]

ix. Cities [7 most populous cities proper and populations]

x. Symbols of the United States [flag, Seal; very brief description of one side of seal]

2. Land and climate

i. Land [continent, noncontiguous states, land borders, Atl. & Pac. ocean borders]

ii. Area [total, including x inland water, but excluding Great Lakes and Lake St. Clair and y of coastal water]

a. Greatest distances, excl. Alaska & Hawaii [east–west; north–south]

b. Greatest distances in Alaska [north–south; east–west]

c. Greatest distance in Hawaii [northwest–southeast]

d. Extreme points, incl. Alaska & Hawaii [northernmost; southernmost; easternmost; westernmost]

e. Coastline [excl. Alaska & Hawaii; incl. Alaska & Hawaii]

iii. Elevation [highest; lowest]

iv. Physical features [longest river; largest lake; largest island]

3. Government

i. Form of government [republic]

ii. Head of state and head of government [president]

iii. Legislature [2 houses, number of members in each]

iv. Executive [pres., assisted by appointed Cabinet]

v. Judiciary [highest is Supreme Court]

vi. Political subdivisions [50 states, not named]

vii. For details, see article on U.S. gov't

4. People

i. Population [total number in most recent census and latest estimate]

ii. Population density

iii. Distribution [percentages urban & rural]

iv. Major ethnic/national groups [percentages for white, black, Hispanic (of any race), Asian descent, American Indian]

v. Major religions [percentages for Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Eastern Orthodox]

5. Economy

i. Chief products

a. Agriculture

b. Fishing

c. Manufacturing

d. Mining

ii. Money [dollar and cents]

iii. Foreign trade

a. Major exported goods

b. Major imported goods

c. Main trading partners [top 2]

II. The nation

A. Political divisions [110 words]

1. Facts in brief about the states [separate table; shows each state's capital, popular name, area, rank in area, population, rank in population, population density, postal abbreviation, year of admission to union, position in order of admission, congressional representation, and symbols (bird, flower, tree, song)]

B. Regions

1. [Introduction] [90 words]

2. Regions of the United States [separate table; lists states in New England, Middle Atlantic States, Southern States, Midwestern States, Rocky Mountain States, Southwestern States, Pacific Coast States]

3. New England [150 words]

4. The Middle Atlantic States Region [160 words]

5. The Southern States Region [includes recording of Cajun fiddle music] [200 words]

6. The Midwestern States Region [180 words]

7. The Rocky Mountain States Region [190 words]

8. The Southwestern States Region [170 words]

9. The Pacific Coast States Region [170 words]

C. Outlying areas [100 words]

1. Main outlying areas of the U.S. [separate table; shows name, acquisition date, current status]

III. People

A. Population [310 words]

1. Population density in the United States [map]

2. U.S. population [separate table; shows population for each decennial census, from 1790]

B. Ancestry [includes recording of American Indian pow-wow] [480 words]

C. Language [300 words]

IV. Way of life

A. [Introduction] [260 words]

B. Urban life [includes photo of suburban street] [620 words]

C. Rural life [includes photo of farmers exhibiting livestock] [530 words]

D. Education

1. [Introduction] [70 words]

2. Schools [470 words]

3. Libraries [180 words]

4. Museums [130 words]

E. Religion [430 words]

F. Recreation [includes photo of baseball game] [320 words]

G. Food [300 words]

V. The arts [includes photo of Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water; still from 1939 movie of Gone with the Wind; photo of Chicago skyscrapers] [180 words]

VI. The land

A. [Introduction] [90 words]

B. The Appalachian Highlands [includes photo] [400 words]

C. The Coastal Lowlands [includes photo] [50 words]

1. [Introduction] [50 words]

2. The Piedmont [140 words]

3. The Atlantic Coastal Plain [210 words]

4. The Gulf Coastal Plain [120 words]

D. The Interior Plains [includes photo] [260 words]

E. The Ozark-Ouachita Highlands [100 words]

F. The Rocky Mountains [260 words]

G. The Western Plateaus, Basins, and Ranges [includes two photos] [270 words]

H. The Pacific Ranges and Lowlands [includes photo] [260 words]

VII. Climate [includes introduction; map of average January temperatures; map of average July temperatures; two photos; map of average annual precipitation] [260 words]

VIII. Economy

A. [Introduction] [290 words]

B. Map of natural resources

C. Economic production in the United States [separate table; shows % of GDP produced, number of workers, and % of all workers, for 'Community, business, & personal services', 'Finance, insurance, & real estate', 'Manufacturing', 'Wholesale & retail trade', 'Government', 'Transportation, communication, & utilities', 'Construction', 'Agriculture, forestry, & fishing', 'Mining', and 'Total']

D. Natural resources

1. [Introduction] [50 words]

2. Minerals [60 words]

3. Soils [60 words]

4. Water [60 words]

5. Forests [90 words]

6. Fish [70 words]

E. Service industries

1. [Introduction] [40 words]

2. Community, business, and personal services [40 words]

3. Finance, insurance, and real estate [240 words]

4. Wholesale and retail trade [320 words]

5. Government services [210 words]

6. Transportation, communication, and utilities [30 words]

F. Manufacturing [includes photo] [370 words]

G. Construction [30 words]

H. Agriculture [includes photo] [420 words]

I. Mining [includes photo] [230 words]

J. Energy sources [170 words]

K. Transportation [includes photo] [300 words]

L. Communication [270 words]

IX. [Article author's credit]

X. Questions [a review to see how much you remember from reading the article; typical of World Book’s longer articles]

XI. Additional resources

That's all. President Lethe 17:09, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Please do not change anything until we have seen your suggestion carried out in a separate discussion page that you can create. You can just copy and paste the whole article into that discussion page and edit it to your liking. When you are done, show it to us. Also, you might need to discuss this with wikipedia:wikiProject countries to see how they agree, since other country articles might need to change their formate as well. In my opinion, the format that you are showing is too long with too much detail, but if you feel it will be better, please edit and add any information to any missing sections in a separate discussion page and we can see how that goes.--Ryz05 22:32, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

These days, it's only occasionally that I come to this article and its Talk page. I have no plan to change the organization of the article. As my intro at the top of this long post says, I just offered it as a possible seed for ideas in others' minds. Happy editing. :-) President Lethe 15:30, 2 May 2006 (UTC)