Talk:History of the United States (1945–1964)/Archive 1

message: i wanted to add my agreement to the POV issue mentioned above, but for some reason i cannot seem to edit that secion.  i find it very hard to believe that the U.S. should be blamed for every wrong occurance, and that the soviet union is completely innocent of anything.  this article does a tremendously good job of condemming U.S. policy with its voice though not necessarily its words.  the soviet union is pictured as being entirely passive, acting only as a measure of security, and the united states/britain as being totally aggressive, defending corruption, etc.  certainly, this may be the way the author views history, and i'm certain it is, however, it is not becoming in an encyclopedia, in which we are supposed to be neutral.
granted, my critique is based upon my own worldview, however i am not asking for this article to be made pro-U.S. just to be made less pro-Soviet Union, and not pro-anything.  it is only when both sides believe that the article favors the other that we have reached real neutrality. --Cedric Dwarf 21:26, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV:  pro-communist soviet union, anti-capitalist america. 

message: I attempted to remove much of the editorializing mentioned above, though there is still more work to be done.  I removed the POV tag, though. --Goodoldpolonius2 18:19, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV Edits

message: CJK, are we done here and ready to archive this talk page. I'd like to get it out of the way. This conversation was as tedious as any of our previous ones. 172 | Talk 19:39, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: After the rest of my points are addressed. CJK 20:10, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Those points have no merit. I'm starting to wonder if your strategy is just to wear me down while we keep going in circles so that I give up on this article and take it off my watchlist. 172 | Talk 21:37, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Done?

message: The Origins of the Cold War section ends:
The Soviets, too saw their vital interests and national security at stake in the post-war world, which motivated their determination to shape postwar Europe. Stalin set up pro-Moscow regimes in Poland, Romania, East Germany, and Bulgaria, which Cold Warriors in the U.S. and Britain considered a violation of the Yalta accords. Winston Churchill, long a staunch anticommunist, condemned Stalin for cordoning off a new Russian empire with an "iron curtain."
Within the previous three decades, Russia had already twice been invaded by Germany.  Russia did not want to be invaded by Germany a third time, and this was one of their main points during Yalta.  Thus the agreement said Germany would be disarmed, just like Japan was for the decades following WWII, and to some extent still is.  But of course, the US and UK did not hold to that and almost immediately began re-arming Germany after they had re-installed "former" Nazis to power in West Germany.
:Sorry, re-armament began YEARS AFTER the Soviets consolidated themselves in Eastern Europe, which broke Yalta. The Nazi thing is not worth a response. CJK 16:56, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Stalin enabled certain segments of the communist population to take power, so it was effectively single-handedly done. CJK 16:56, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: POV indeed. CJK 16:56, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: They were democratic, not Stalinist. CJK 16:56, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: CJK, look up the definition of "regime." The term is one of the most basic concepts in the study of concepts to refer to patters of that define the typical behavior and interaction of government and society. It refers to political systems of all kinds. In popular discourse in the West, the term "regime" is associated with nondemocratic political systems. But this association is rooted in a somewhat common misunderstanding. In the West we tend to assume that liberal democratic systems are legitimate, so we borrow the language used in their own legal and constitutional and lexicon to describe themselves when we are describing them, thus calling them "parliaments," "administrations," or "governments." In contrast, the term "regime" refers to observable set of patterns of power without presupposing the political and cultural legitimacy of these arrangements. In the West, those who consider all nondemocratic political systems illegitimate avoid terms that presuppose their legitimacy and instead opt for something neutral like "regime."  However, as a term that does not presuppose any value-laden presuppositions, "regime" is always a value-neutral term that can be used accurately to define all systems of rule. Thus, it is absolutely no violation of NPOV to refer to pro-Moscow regimes, or pro-U.S. regimes for that matter. 172 | Talk 19:41, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I sense a double standard going on here. CJK 20:30, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Then what you sense has nothing to do with the meaning of the written text in front of you. What I said above is that regime is a neutral term no matter where it is applied. No double standards apply at all. 172 | Talk 21:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: All I'm getting here is that you deal with certain users differently then certain others, regardless on how much sense they make. CJK 21:19, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I was disagreeing with you both. The anon said it was POV to say that the USSR set up pro-Moscow regimes in Poland, Romania, East Germany...," just as it would be to mention the U.S. setting up "pro-U.S. regimes in Italy, West Germany, etc." You said the difference was that the pro-U.S. regimes were democratic, not Stalinist. I replied with an explantion that the term regime is neutral no matter what the context, liberal democratic or Stalinist. 172 | Talk 04:46, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, you have done so while conveniently ignooring the rest of his outrageous remarks. CJK 14:11, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

text: CJK, mind the Wikipedia etiquette in subsequent replies to 70.23.236.53, and for that matter Ruy Lopez. You may disagree with their statements; but no one has given you more authority to edit Wikipedia than other of these two individuals. 172 | Talk 19:41, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't say I did. CJK 20:30, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Your tone was obviously sarcastic and dismissive. 172 | Talk 21:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Tone????...... Um, I was seriously asking if the anon was just Ruy Lopez who forgot to log in. CJK 21:19, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I'll take your word for it and take back my comments. 172 | Talk 04:46, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  sentences 

message: It is a fact that Stalin went to Yalta, promised free elections, and held none. Whether or not some historians dispute if he was "forced to" do that is beyond the point. CJK 14:11, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: CJK, we just had this dicussion. You are repeating yourself. Accept the compromise language that does not contradict your POV so that we can just move on from this article and archive the talk page. By now this is getting pretty tiresome. By the way, this will be my only comment under this heading. If we are still going to discuss this topic, we will pick up from where the last conversation left off. There is no need to start the same discussion over again. 172 | Talk 15:09, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Stalin and Yalta