Talk:United States/Archive 14

message: The war in iraq is a lot like the war in the philippines while Teddy Roosevelt was president. No one knew that because it died down after the fact. Wait until the event is in school text books to write about it in an ENCYCLOPEDIA. This is for facts, not attitudes. Iraq has no place here. 9/11 does because it is factual. Iraq is still going on, so you cant write about it. The people who did are dumb- this is FACTS ONLY!
:Going by that line, theoretically you would not be able to write about a myriad of things for years upon years, from the Iraq war to increased domestic surveillance as it all falls under the presidential administration's "War on Terror," which has been referred to by Vice President Cheney as the "War that will not end in our lifetimes." The place of an encyclopedia is to give historically accurate fact based on the most accurate information available. The benefit of wikipedia is that it is constantly updating, versus a paper based book that updates every few years. Ecopirate 17:51, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  You can't write about an event untill it is finished

message: Well, yes, and no, he didn't land on the main land of North American, until his fourth, and final voyage.--Dp462090 20:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Columbus NEVER landed on the shores of North America, just small islands.

message: The country is referred to as: The United Sates of America, The United States, America, and U.S.A where did US of A and Columbia come from?
This a rather simple question to answer, U.S. of A is just someone's preference, standing for United States of America, and Columbia is just an old name for America, coming from the last name Christopher Columbus, since he is said to have be the first European to discover North America(Although this is disputed).--Dp462090 20:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is Columbia a name for the United States?

message: It seems that someone have deleted everything on this page to tell about his/her disapproval of the US.
What to do? ~~Not A Member —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.197.181.254 (talk • contribs) 
:It's already been restored. Vandalism happens a lot on pages like this, and usually gets reverted very quickly. If you notice anything like that in future, reverting is as simple as clicking 'history' at the top, clicking on the date and time of the version of the page before it was vandalised, clicking 'edit' and then saving the page. See Wikipedia:Revert for a fuller explanation. --Malthusian (talk) 19:59, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Someone needs to restore this page 

message: I'm kind of crappy at this so relax.  Just pointing something factual out.  The US is not technically a democratic republic, its a constitutional republic employing/having a tradition of democray.  See CIA World Factbook for reference.  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
thanks
:Well "technically" you're wrong.  "Democracy" is not a separate, distinct and codified type of government.  Any system that allows the people to control their own destiny is a democracy, so the US is most definitely a democracy and a democratic republic.  The US also happens to be a constitutional republic.  These terms are not mutually exclusive! The US is both a republic and a democracy.  (This is not Sid Meiers' Civilization!)  You can attach any qualifier you want to those terms by calling the US a federal republic, constitutional democracy or whatever, but ultimately all the terms are valid and descriptive of the US government as described by the constitution.  --WH
It has more than a democratic tradition - it has amendments to the constitution guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of sex or race or previous condition of servitude - and text and amendments specifying how elections should be held --JimWae 00:28, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just a note 

message: I see that this article has been protected from being moved by the lack of a move tag. Any category for such articles?? Georgia guy 22:38, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protection from moving 

message: The phrase "official founding date" sounded a little odd to me, in a picky sort of way.  I'm left with the question, "who made it official"?  I suppose if there's a public law which declares this, than this phrasing makes perfect sense.  But it sounds like there could be some British Office of Rebel Affairs that stamped and approved the Declaration of Independence with an official date.  Saying that we "celebrate" our independence on this day is just as true, but it doesn't try to qualify what kind of founding day it is - the rest of the sentence just tells you what actually happened that day, and all is clear.  Hopefully that makes sense to the rest of you. -- Beland 12:15, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Official founding date 

message: Over time, material has been added to the Economy section of this article that has not made its way into Economy of the United States.  Really, the sections here that link to longer main articles should just summarize the important parts of the main articles.  We don't want people to miss out on any details by going directly to the longer article (perhaps from somewhere else).  I've synced things up a bit better than they were before by adding some missing material to the subarticle, but someone will actually have to read the whole thing in detail and do some back-and-forth to finish the job. Or we can work our way there incrementally, as long as we keep headed in that direction. -- Beland 12:35, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Economic expansion 

message: I am going to modify the cities table to include land area and density (this has been done to Sweden). It makes perfect sense to do so - for example if Salt Lake City were to be extended the same land area as Phoenix it would have 1,000,000 residents. For this reason I believe we should add the two new columns. The current table is misleading, given that cities such as New York are extremely dense while cities in places such as Texas are huge in land area. 144.35.254.12 00:30, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Misleading? I dunno. Still, the more info, the better, right? Right? Matt Yeager 02:28, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

text: But at least there are boundaries. Metro areas have less easily defined boundaries. We could go with the census area definition I suppose. That has a certain outer bound to it - it can't be wider than a certain area, otherwise you can't commute in. So the census-defined metro areas are probably generally the same physical size. --Golbez 02:37, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I concur with the point that metro area is more accurate, but I am still not convinced that we need density info.  While I wouldn't mind it (being a SimCity fan) I suspect most people (as in people who are not fans of SimCity) would consider density to be too much information.  --Coolcaesar 07:37, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cities table 

message: There was an anonymous editor who put an ad hoc "unreferenced" note at the top of this article, which was promptly removed.  I think there are plenty of sources for the information available via the "External links" but it would be helpful to set aside a "References" section to hold a few that are specifically related to the content so as to discourage others from adding related notes. User:Ceyockey 17:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As I understand it, the article is based on its sub-articles (Geography of the United States etc.) rather than on the external links.   Many of our country articles are in the same situation, and AFAIK we don't have a real answer to the referencing problem yet for them.   Possibly harvest references from the sub-articles (but which ones?), or direct the reader to the references section of those articles (but then the references on those articles may change, and may not be the ones from which we got the information which is in this article). Mark1 17:47, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Cite-through" from sub-articles is a good idea and I don't think that the references would need to be pulled through to the main article.  This might be a useful thread to pursue in discussion at WP:CITE with the potential to enhance the citation-related guidelines. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:47, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "unreferenced" 

message: I would like to ask you how is it computed the number of Americans? This number 297,700,000. Is it so that are counted the people with valid US passport, citinzenship? -- Bonaparte  talk 16:48, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That number is just extrapolated from the current assumed rate of growth. The actual 2000 census count was a simple headcount of every household, or in some cases, extrapolated from neighborhood patterns. --Golbez 17:05, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: population

message: I see this is back.  I appreciate the modifications, which seem to be aimed at the criticism that the EU isn't a sovereign state with its own military forces.  However, comparison of the military spending of the US with that of "the Member States of European Union, as the second-largest military force when combined" misses the point that there is neither the political structure nor will to effect that combination - therefore, the comparison is specious.
Also, is "comparisation" a US English form of "comparison"? --Countersubject 15:33, 26 December 2005 (GMT)
: My spell checker says "comparisation" is wrong, and I agree. -Barry- 21:50, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Google finds it in lots of statistical documents.  Specialist term? Mark1 21:54, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  European Union as second-largest military force 

message: The names of boxers and wrestlers were deleted because individuals aren't mentioned for other sports. I think some athletes of the most popular one-on-one sports should be mentioned. It's not as necessary for team sports, but I wouldn't object to some team sport athletes being mentioned too, like Michael Jordan. -Barry- 11:17, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming athletes 

message: The phrase "There is also a subgroup of sociology/anthropology popular in American colleges and universities today called American studies" at the end of the "Education" section does not tie in with the text above it and in fact absolutely does not belong in this section.  It has been removed once, , with a perfectly valid edit summary.  It has then been speedily reversed, without any explanation.  Why??? 131.111.8.101 01:21, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur with your point that "American studies" does not belong in this general article on the United States.  Practically any large country will have a social sciences specialty dedicated to itself; that goes without saying.  If "American studies" ought to be mentioned at all, it should be in the Education in the United States article.  --Coolcaesar 20:22, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Education" edits 

message: Once again all links to democracy, representative democracy, constitutional democracy, and liberal democracy on the page have been removed --JimWae 05:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Democracy 

message: Currently American people redirects here. Does everyone like this, or should it redirect to Demographics of the United States instead? Or perhaps a new main article, in the fashion of articles for other countries? Shawnc 10:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. There should be a separate article about the people of America, as there is for english people, for example. R'son-W 09:45, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

text: *Support The United States' society is at a point where groups such as the Generation Y have the ability to be so soberly unfathomably diverse that they are thus rendered American by default. Salluste 22:36, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "American people" 

message: The section on the Civil War in this article is unacceptable.  It doesn't paint a correct or full picture but rather a narrow one with inaccuracies.
This article makes it appear that the entire reason for the Civil War was abolishing slavery.  While slavery was an issue,it was not the defining issue but rather the economic stranglehold the North held over the South.  Lincoln himself said that he had no wish to abolish slavery, he did want to prevent it's spread.  Even without the issue of slavery, the secession would have been inevitable as the South tried to escape the tariffs the North imposed.
I don't the think the word tariff is even mentioned in the section.
It also says that the Emancipation Proclamation was to free all slaves in rebel states.  It did not.  It only freed slaves of acting rebels.
And be it further enacted, That if any person shall hereafter incite, set on foot, assist, or engage in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States, or the laws thereof, or shall give aid or comfort thereto, or shall engage in, or give aid and comfort to, any such existing rebellion or insurrection, and be convicted thereof, such person shall be punished by imprisonment for a period not exceeding ten years, or by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars, and by the liberation of all his slaves, if any he have; or by both of said punishments, at the discretion of the court. ... 
Either rewrite it to include all the facts and fix the errors or omit it from the article. Obviously it's meant as a summary, afterall it's a general page of the US.  At least summarize correctly.
How about linking to the better written articles on this site concerning it rather than making up your own?
The E.P. freed all slaves in slave states: " all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever, free . . . ." it further penalized any person who rebelled against the Union by, among other things, freeing their slaves, but it clearly' freed all slaves residing in slaves states.Gator (talk) 17:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You missed an important part of that - that if the rebel states returned to the union within 90 days (IIRC), they would be able to keep their slaves. --Golbez 19:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

text: To whom are you responding? Me? --Golbez 19:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

text: The 90 days was an extrapolated figure. Note: "That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever, free." In other words, this only applies to those states which are in rebellion against the USA on Jan 1 1863, and the proclamation was issued on September 22 1862, a distance of about 100 days. If a rebel state had rejoined the union by Jan 1 1863, then the Proclamation would not have applied to them, and they would be allowed to keep their slaves. --Golbez 00:11, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Except, if enough slave states had taken Lincoln up on his offer, then they would have been able to prevent the passage of the 13th Amendment. All told, the EP was an empty promise. --Golbez 17:04, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Reasoning for the Civil Wars seems a bit slim details...or at least partial to certain details. 

message: I'm skeptical of this claim: "Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations, a decline from 90 percent as recently as 1990."
The 1990 number seems unlikely to me, and I (at least as a casual reader) was unable to determine its source and/or a diversity of studies.
71.208.123.139 23:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The numbers in question probably come from the "American Religious Identification Survey" (ARIS) by The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, which states that "the proportion of the [American] population that can be classified as Christian has declined from 86% in 1990 to 77% in 2001." These numbers can be found on a number of websites, including the CUNY one. -Parallel or Together? 10:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Where did the information on Sikh population come from? this pdf document says "It is estimated that about 500,000 Sikhs live in the US but no breakdown of Sikh population at the county or state level is currently available." Number 12 on this page puts the total number in the U.S. at 500,000 too. -Barry- 00:05, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

text: The stats I found in the American Religious Identification Survey are much different than those from the Sikh organizations mentioned above. The Self Described Religious Identification chart in exhibit 1 on this page says there were only 13,000 Sikhs in the U.S. in 1990, and 57,000 in 2001. A footnote is definitely needed in the article, whatever figure we come up with. -Barry- 00:51, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Religion Demographics

message: :Yes, and while I'm sure you think you've got a vastly original and socially unacceptable idea, please read what you're typing...carefully. "USA was founded by indians...." Eh, no. The USA was founded (depending on your definition of founded) in 1776 or about 1787-1789. The Indians colonized North and South America thousands of years before the Europeans, but this article is titled "United States." Furthermore, everyone knows this stuff, except for the knowledgable bit about the "USI." JHMM13 (T | C)   03:28, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: History

message: i mean, who doesnt hate this country?
:It would be a POV fork, and I don't. --Golbez 08:37, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Plus we already have such an article!  See Anti-Americanism. --Coolcaesar 00:57, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Write an artical about hate against america 

message: Why does the article say "... total gross foreign liabilities of over $12,000,000 million as of 2004"? Why not say $12 trillion? Why do other debt "clocks" on the Internet report something above only $8 trillion?
Oh, maybe because we can't just put anything we want, we have cite sources, and use a NPOV.--Dp462090 01:01, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  National debt 

message: I've just read the "Foreign relations and military" part of the article, and found absolutely no mention of Canada, apart for a mention of the Iraq war. Seeing that Canada is the US' most important diplomatic and economic partner, not to forget a very important military partner too, an edit is required. Since it's the middle of the night and my head hurts, I won't be doing it right now, but if it's not been done when I return, I'll take care of it. 
Dali 04:23, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relations with Canada 

message: It would be a good idea if on the article refrenced how americans evolved the language. Examples being color being spelled without a u "colour" or the use of Z instead of S. If someone could clarify and section this i would find it usefull.
:That would rightly fall under American English. --Golbez 21:50, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I can imagine you'd find it "usefull" [sic], seeing as you can't even spell that word, which isn't even spelled that way by the english. Sorry for being so snide, but i can't help it. Bobburito 02:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Not necessarily... one thing can evolve differently in two different places (English in both the US and UK), but that does not necessarily mean one is better than the other... in fact, biologically, it would most likely mean that each thing has adapted as best as possible relative to where it is (and of course limited by time restrictions) //MrD9 07:26, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  American spelling 

message: I changed the use of the template back to Template:Infobox Country.  As an American, I understand the comfort seeing things in local units brings, but it belongs in the footnotes; the whole point of the template is so that we don't have tons of seperate templates that all must be updated.  That's the beauty of the MediaWiki software. Word the footnotes anyway you like, but please use this template.--naryathegreat | (talk) 05:05, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Template

message: The US did not clearly BEGIN as a "Democratic Republic" - many editors of this article deny it is one today (repeatedly removing any assertion that democracy is now entrenched). A suggestion has been made that "voting was commonly restricted to white men who owned land" belongs in another section. If such does not belong in a section on suffrage (& its history) then where? The clause changes the meaning of the old sentence - but is entirely consistent with the meaning of the paragraph & section. The clauses it replaces were drawing parallels and relationships to "Roman Republic" and "parliament" without explanation or even context. While the federal constitution did not restrict voting (except that Senators were not directly voted for, nor judges), state constitutions did - perhaps that could be added too --JimWae 21:51, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you are fighting with semantics here. Democratic Republic is a redundant term anyway, presumably meant to emphasize that some aspects of the legislation in fact handled by direct votes. I also assume the reference to the Roman Republic refers to the American "electorate", exactly the same point you were making regarding white male voters, only in not such an inflammatory way. In any event, applying modern sensibilities to history is unencyclopedic. keith 07:24, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Republic and suffrage 

message: This article is often vandalised, ie: 138.88.36.84 claimg that the US has killed more people than Hitlers 30 million & Stalins 50 million, if we have absurd claims like this from people who failed maths in the 4th grade & cant spell, I think this one needs to be made so editing can only take place on request, does anyone else agree? (Khan 03:03, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: I am quite sure that English is the official language of the US at a federal level, everything I have read indicates this to be true, does anyone have any issues if i change this?(Khan 10:16, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately, you're being quite sure doesn't make you correct. The U.S. has no official language. - Nunh-huh 10:20, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

text: The US does not have an official language.  It has been debated over the years and politicians have threatened to raise bills to make it that way but that has never happened.  Some states have enacted legislation declaring an official language but the federal gov't has not.--Looper5920 10:34, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language 

message: I made some edits to the Government section, particularily Republic and Sufferage, because I felt it assumed prior knowledge of the American government (what is the House of Representatives, for example? The article dosen't cover it until the "Legislative branch", below). Fact wise, I only added that the US Senate votes two-third majority to impeach the President, and I think the President actually can introduce his own legislation to Congress - US Constitution, Article 2, Section 3: "He shall from time to time give to Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient..." I'm not entirely sure if this means he can introduce legislation, per se, but how else does he deliver the annual budget? 155.143.212.168 03:47, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Governement edits 

message: The article says: "It should be noted that the United States is one of the few industrialized countries to not provide a free university education to its citizenry."
is that actually true?  I know it's not true for Canada and Britain, and I always thought free university was the exception rather than the norm in the first world in general.  Does anyone know more?  TastyCakes 21:56, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Education

message: This article refers to Indigenous Americans as "Native American". As quoted directly from Wikipedias own definition of "Native": "When used as a noun to refer to a member of an indigenous ethnic group, it sometimes carries pejorative connotations." We all know that the United States of America was founded on land stolen from Indigenous people and prosperity garnered through repression of non-Anglo humans, but are we still living by these flawed ideologies of old? I certainly hope not. I am changing the ten or so words that still utilize this terminology to better reflect fact and increase the words descriptiveness. -- VinnyCee 03:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This term is by no means new. In fact, Indigenous Americans has it's own Wikipedia article. In addition, the terms you are proposing as "the only choices" are out-dated and pejorative. Again, the term "Native" used to describe an Indigenous person, or people, is slanderous and libelous. Do you people seriously consider leaving such a term in the Wikipedia definition of The United States of America as more productive or more concise? -- VinnyCee 04:27, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't say use "Native". I said you had a choice that did not include "Indigenous". --Golbez 05:04, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: VinnyCee created Indigenous Americans less than two hours ago.  Dcandeto 07:57, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Terminology: "Native American"/"American Indian" versus "Indigenous American"

message: The box on the right has a link to Flag of United States. I can't find how to fix it. Georgia guy 01:42, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This can't be easily fixed as long as the page uses this infobox template, which just uses Flag of Countryname, which is correct for most countries. Since the link goes to the right page through the redirect, I don't see this as such a big problem, though. Kusma (討論) 01:46, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Agreed, K. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 02:22, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone fixed it, by changing "commonname" to "the United States". --Golbez 02:23, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please fix this! 

message: I thought that the evidence for Norse settlement before Columbus was pretty strong. Did I imagine it  or does anyone have some solid facts to support this idea ?     Springald 19:59, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  European Settlement 

message: Why are there two sections about language?  One is a sub-section under Demographics and the other is its own section.  It seems odd.  Can't they be merged? MJCdetroit 17:21, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed this, but why isn't it fixed yet? ;) --JohnDBuell 17:21, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language (take two) 

message: *If this is an encyclopedia I feel empirical linguistic accuracy, rather than modern shorthand should be employed. The United States of America reflects and coincides with U.S.A. national and historical documents. This article is posted on the internet, a global medium and should heed all diplomatic and international formalities, be you a citizen of the U.S.A., Brasil, China or Nigeria rather than relying solely on a nation's contemporary reputation. The world is approaching globalization and the internet should reflect that.
138.243.201.4 13:17, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And some people call it that. Wikipedia does not dictate what other people say. It presents that information. bob rulz 06:24, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur with Bob rulz.  Although I personally consider U.S. of A. to be a very informal usage (and rarely use it myself), it is regularly used in American English slang and therefore should be mentioned.  --Coolcaesar 01:04, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The United States of America / US of A 

message: Any Issues with my putting the foot note back in ?
Bo 20:34, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would kindly ask that you don't.  First, it does not look right in the footnote section. The superscript in the figures really makes it look odd.   Secondly, nobody in the U.S.  can really relate to metric measurements.  It is best this way— a good compromise for everyone.  MJCdetroit 03:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Info Box with Customary Measurement