Talk:Human rights in the United States/Archive 2

message: It looks as if the POV dispute has settled down. Is there any ongoing dispute that would justify keeping the NPOV tag on the article? -Willmcw 07:06, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)
:given no activity on TALK for a month, I'll go ahead and complete Willmcw's question by rming the NPOV tag. Feco 21:20, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV tag 

message: Is refusing entry to Cat Stevens such a terrible human rights violation that it warrants mention in the intro? If that's the worst hr violation, things must be pretty darn good. --Lee Hunter 17:54, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I think it's irrelevant, he's not even a US citizen. Almost deleted this in my edit this morning, but figured I was stirring up enough sand already... BrandonYusufToropov 18:06, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, that's quibbles. Erratic or partisan behaviour of the authorities is a sign of undermined rule of law and usually bad news for human rights, but this doesn't belong in the intro. dab (ᛏ) 18:26, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Yusuf Islam

message: indeed, rule of law means that suspects are treated as suspects, not as convicted criminals, anything else will turn into a witchhunt. the concerns with human rights deterioration since 2001 are precisely that "terrorism" has become a fetish term used by the autorities when they wish to ignore constitutional rights. used in this way, the term of course loses its exact defninition, and ultimately anybody who is undesireable will be labelled "terrorist". The Russians show where this approach leads, over in Chechnia (of course I'll agree that the situation in Russia is much worse than in the US). This is just the same process that happened with the terms "communist" during the Cold War, "degenerate" in 1930s Germany and "savage" or "witch" in Early Modern times, i.e. a sign of societal hysteria. If it is enough to label a person a "terrorist suspect" to take away his human rights, well, that is a sign of a poor human rights record, it's as simple as that. dab (ᛏ) 09:19, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Bertly's edits

message: The source in the article points to the United states having the second highest percentage of its citizens in prison as of 2004, next to Rwanda. However, the linked source reports that figure as being accurate only in 1999, which is further discredited by  pointing the finger at Russia rather than Rwanda GeeJo 03:59, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Rwanda is a special case because of the genocide trials, and its numbers are bound to fluctuate. Ignoring Rwanda, the US is second after Russia, both with roughly 0.7% inmates. This is 4-6 times more than in either Canada or Mexico. dab (ᛏ) 19:16, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prison populations? 

message: detailing the evolution of the Constitution is all very well, but shouldn't the article focus more on the actual record. After all, the Constitution is just a piece of paper, as long as its ideals are not carried out in reality. Hell, the Soviet Union promised its citizens they would all be equal in one big brotherhood of nations, and at the same time was a dictatorship of the ruling party. So, of course there should be a section about the constitution, but this is not the main focus of this article. Anyway, the intro needs to be shorter, most of the stuff in it at present could go to the "History" section. dab (ᛏ) 10:01, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: constitution vs. record

message: Some of the criticism of the US human rights record is not really about rights violations, as it is about the disconnect between theory and reality.  Human rights are reasonably well protected in the US, but abuses do happen - overall the US does better than most.  The most serious impediment to improving the rights situation is the unwillingness of US society to acknowledge that they don't take their ideals seriously in practice. Peter Grey 20:47, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two Kinds of Criticism 

message: This article has been kept following this VFD debate. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:50, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  VFD debate 

message: If you are going to constantly push these ridiculous edits, you WILL be reverted. Please discuss them on the Talk Page first so that we can have a reasonable article.Existentializer 16:13, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism by anti-US crusaders

message: I'm going to unprotect this page. Maybe we can get a little editing in without namecalling and high-speed reverting, okay? CDC (talk) 23:52, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Unprotected