Talk:United States

Human rights

[[1]] {{Quotation|

Edit request on 9 February 2012

The United States is a Representative Democratic Republic. The United States is not a Federal Presidential Constitutional Republic. To be a Constitutional Republic, the people would derive their rights from the Constitution. We do not. The Constitution of the United States was created to protect and codify the unalienable rights of the people. To be a Presidential republic, the power would be required to be mainly in the Executive branch when, in fact, in the U.S. the Legislative branch is the most powerful. To be a Federal Republic, the power would rest solely in a Federal government, while in the U.S. the Federal Government is co-equal to that of the States, some of which are already independent republics. This is poli-sci 101. I would be happy to provide cites for this, but any first year poli-sci text book will bear me out.

Thank you for all that you do and for your great work here on Wikipedia!!! Regards.

Rdmaclean (talk) 08:41, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made.--Ankit Maity ^{Talk|Contribs} 11:34, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Note This Peer Review

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Peer_review/United_States/archive4

I started by adding some references.

Any thoughts?

--Iankap99 (talk) 07:56, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Usa sole superpower, where?

EU has largest Gdp in the world,stronger currency too. EU owns the largest conventional military in the world and a nuclear stockpile able to cancel Earth.So where is this souperpower named usa? Eu compared is an empire.In Wiki enn all Us apeople are in and Cia Propaganda that support wiki doesn't tell reality. Usa today in EU are considered 2nd world...superpower hehehehe You are strongly complexed vs EU. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.40.24.174 (talk) 11:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

The EU isn't a country. Midnite Joker (talk) 14:51, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Text of the Peer Review

United States

Previous peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it is a very high volume article that is close to FA, please be as thorough as possible.

Thanks, Iankap99 (talk) 00:59, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Comments by Kumioko First I want to say thanks for submitting this. I agree its very important both to the project and because its extremely high hit amount. Although it is currently an A class article, IMO it needs quite a bit of work and probably isn't A class quality but its all fixable and this is a good start. Here are some of my observations so far and I will read through in more detail in the next couple days. I hope you don't mind but as I read through I am going to fix some obvious small things.

1. The lede is a bit too long and should be trimmed
2. The lede should not contain any inline citations. Inline citations should be in the article body that the lede summerizes
3. There are a few places that appear to be missing inline citations
4. I think we should update the numbers mentioned for the population statistics to reflect the new 2010 census
5. A few of the references appear to be dead links. See here
6. IMO we have a few too many pictures. I think if we try and limit to 1 or 2 pictures in each section, that represent that section, that would be best. There are currently 5 different maps of the US being used in different ways and I think is too many of the same thing.
7. The template in the demographics section needs to be updated with the new 2010 census results and contains a dead link
8. IMO the Culture section should come after the history section and before the Government and political sections
9. I think we should combine the information found in the government/election subsection regarding politics and elections and move it to the Political divisions section.
10. I ran it through AWB and didn't find anything.
11. I ran it through the peer reviewer and nothing came up
12. There are no Disambiguous links
13. The article size is 169 KB so its extremely big. Eliminating some uneeded images will help but we might need to do some trimming of content as well.
14. The template include size has been exceeded so some templates are not being displayed.
15. I think we should move some of the see also's to the see also section and or incorporate the "Main article" links that appear in many of the sections into links within the sections somehow. There are so many its very distracting from the content of the article IMO.
16. I also think the article is a see of blue links with many things being links 3 or more times, sometimes in the same sections. --Kumioko (talk) 22:51, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I went ahead and made some changes but there are a lot left to be made before this article is FA quality IMO.

6) I took out some of the images and moved some others around to display a little better and not have so many on the right. We may need to drop a couple more still but its a bit batter now.

15)I trimmed out some of the hat notes. There is no need to add hatnotes if the link already appears in the section. Plus eliminating some of the hatnotes will help fix the template error and reduce the page render size.

16) I took out some of the common links for things like apple pie and baseball that nearly anyone in the world would know but they were restored. I know that it is disappointing to not link to everything but there are several reasons why we don't need to link to every conceivable article.

1. The article page size is huge and we need to trim it down. Quite a bit actually.
2. There are so many templates on the article that it is not rendering correctly and exceeds the maximum number of templates allowd on an article.
3. The sea of blue links to articles that have a limited relationship to the topic are distracting and take away from the links that are meaningful.

Also here are some additional things that I think need to be addressed.

1. Some of the sentences are choppy and need to be cleaned up
2. We need to do a thourough copyedit and fix all the prose, grammer and punctuation issues.
3. IMO some of the information is a bit out of sequence and should be restructured to be a little more clear to the reader. For example IMO Culture should come after History and before the government section.
4. I recommend we add the Measurement sysems to the Science and technology section
5. I recommend combining the Parties, ideology, and politics subsection of Govnerment and elections with Political divisions section and then rename the Govnerment and elections section to just Govnerment.
6. I recommend adding the Language, Education and religion sections under Culture.
7. IMO the History section is too long and too comprehensive for a general article about the US. I recommend we trim out some of the content of the us History section from this article and add it to the History of the United States article.
8. I recommend separating the Foreign relations and military into 2 different sections. These really don't belong together IMO.--Kumioko (talk) 20:57, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

---

Missed this peer review, but if I could add some quick comments, Kumioko above noted the article was too long, and the article needed restructuring. It needs restructuring definitely, but I think it'd be much better to look to combining sections rather than splitting, as with the current Foreign relations and military section. It's easy to present them together, as there is overlap, which comes naturally with the United State's superpower status. Obviously not all foreign relations of the US are military, but if it's split than things will need to be repeated in two sections, not the most efficient use of space. CMD (talk) 15:15, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Territories - part of the U.S.?

Aren't territories part of the U.S.? The people who live in U.S. territories are U.S. citizens by birth, so how are they not part of the U.S.? Rklawton (talk) 17:04, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

The CIA's World Fact Book includes possessions as part of its description of the United States.[2] Is there some other source that says possessions aren't part of the U.S.? Keep in mind that "Republic of the United States of America" redirects to this article, so it's not appropriate to narrowly define the U.S. for the purposes of this article as "states only". Rklawton (talk) 17:09, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

"Republic of the United States of America" does not redirect to this article. In fact, nothing exists there and never has, according to the deletion log. Not that I see the relevance anyways. The CIA World Factbook entry also does not include the posessions as part of its description. For example, in geography under area, it specifically limits its description to the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The only area where I see the possessions listed is under "Dependent Areas," which the CIA defines as "nonindependent entities associated in some way with a particular independent state." That doesn't make them part of the associated country, but, well, associated with that country. Bermuda is listed for the UK, but is a British Overseas Territory, meaning it is not part of the United Kingdom but does fall under its jurisdiction. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 17:33, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

The first lines at the top of the CIA article read: "Britain's American colonies broke with the mother country in 1776 and were recognized as the new nation of the United States of America following the Treaty of Paris in 1783. During the 19th and 20th centuries, 37 new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the North American continent and acquired a number of overseas possessions. " So not only is mention of America's possessions in the article, it's in the second sentence. Rklawton (talk) 17:55, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Apparently I forgot how I navigated to this article. Regardless, the article says it's about a country, and the territories are unquestionably part of the country as they fall under its laws. The fact that Wikipedia *doesn't* have a separate article for some over-arching entity that includes both the U.S. and its territories should also serve as a strong indication that these territories (or possessions) are part of the U.S. - as clearly they aren't some other separate legal entity with their own seats at the table of world governments. Rklawton (talk) 17:55, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Next, the demonym is "American" - a label that applies to anyone born in American Samoa, American Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and more. Their citizenship is automatic - they are part of this country, and this article is about a country rather than just a segment of a country. As such, we should include mention of the *whole* country and not exclude significant minorities. Rklawton (talk) 17:55, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Now, I've presented a source that shows possessions to be part of the U.S. Unless you have a source that indicates my source isn't reliable or you have a source that contradicts my source, then you should concede the point. Rklawton (talk) 17:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Wow, what a deeply specious argument you're making from the Factbook. Who cares if the Factbook mentions territories? The point is that it never says they are part of the United States. Only incorporated territories are part of the United States, and the only incorporated territory is Palmyra Atoll. The whole point of an unincorporated territory is that it is not part of the United States. People from U.S. territories are United States citizens because of congressional statute, not constitutional right. See Balzac v. Porto Rico. If Puerto Rico were part of the United States, people born there would have the constitutional right to citizenship. The Court ruled that they did not have such a right, and, so far as I'm aware, that decision has never been overturned. Puerto Rico is not part of the United States. It is a possession of the United States whose inhabitants have been granted U.S. citizenship by Congress. ETA: territories are, of course, under the jurisdiction of congress, but they do not "fall under US laws" in the sense that all constitutional rights automatically apply there. Some do, and some don't, and for the ones that don't, it's up to Congress to decide whether to extend them to the territories. The situation of Puerto Rico today is a completely different situation from the situation that, say, Alaska had in 1958, where it was an incorporated territory and fully considered part of the United States. john k (talk) 18:04, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Additional source: 18 USC § 2340 - DEFINITIONS:
"(3) “United States” means the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States."[3] Rklawton (talk) 18:10, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

You cite the Factbook, but what about the fact that it does not include the territories' population and area in the country's? The territories are also listed there as "dependent areas". They are dependent on the U.S., not part of it. There is a difference between incorporated territories like Arizona Territory and Palmyra Atoll, and unincorporated territories like the Virgin Islands and the Philippines. Man and Jersey and Gibraltar are not part of the UK, and Puerto Rico and Guam are not part of the U.S. That the U.S. code supplies a definition for the United States is presumably because most of the laws made in Washington apply to the territories, but obviously not all, nor do all constitutional provisions automatically apply like they would for an incorporated territory. It's easier to specify the laws that do not apply to the territories than the ones that do.

Finally, quoting from Political status of Puerto Rico: "... according to the U.S. Supreme Court's Insular Cases [Puerto Rico] is "a territory appurtenant and belonging to the United States, but not a part of the United States."" --Golbez (talk) 21:43, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Your link to the US legal code only defines what the term "United States" means within the context of Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C. It does not apply to any other chapters, let alone serve as a legal definition of the term or the status of possessions. Essentially, the writers of that law decided to use shorthand and say "United States" when they meant "anywhere within US jurisdiction," and so defined it as such for their purposes. To state this another way, there is a difference between owning something (or possessing it, as in a possession) and it being a actual part of you. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 22:06, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed changes to "Transportation"

Wikih101 recently made some provisional changes to the Transportation section. While a couple were useful, several made improper use of the presented sources and introduced poor grammar. Here's a summary of the ones that have been reverted or substantially altered:

• The editor wished to alter the statement "Personal transportation is dominated by automobiles" to "Personal transportation is dominated by automobiles but during the [sic] recent years, this has significantly shifted to public transportation." The source brought in establishes nothing of the kind, only that "Public transportation ridership in the third quarter of 2011 increased 2 percent over 2010." It says not a word about any supposed shift away from automobiles to mass transit. The change has been reverted.

• The properly styled phrase "drivers and nondrivers" was changed to the poorly styled "drivers and non drivers." The change has been reverted.

• The well-sourced passage "Mass transit accounts for 9% of total U.S. work trips, ranking last in a survey of 17 countries" was cut without discussion. The change has been reverted.

• The editor wished to alter the statement "While transport of goods by rail is extensive, relatively few people use rail to travel" to "While Rail transportation in the United States is extensive, the railway system is mostly used for transporting cargo, with increasing ridership on passenger trains like Amtrak." This introduced the unnecessary and ungainly repetition of "transportation"/"transporting", made the last clause a grammatical non sequitur, and brought in an unsupported (and ungrammatical) claim about trains "like" Amtrak. The passage has been revised and corrected to focus on the verifiable growth in Amtrak ridership.

• The editor wished to alter the statement "Light rail development has increased in recent years but, like high speed rail, is below European levels" to "Light rail development has increased in recent years but like high speed rail, it is below some European nations." The change was unwarranted (the source refers to "Europe", not some portion of it) and, again, introduced bad grammar. The change has been reverted.—DCGeist (talk) 15:50, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

left wing dribble

Does the blatant anti-American left leaning tone to this article (lifted from Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States) need be mentioned? I often wonder, why is there no mention of Canadians or Mexicans displacing natives under their articles? Were those countries not settled by the same europeans? Wiki has enervated itself with such nonsensical political posturing. It's a joke now.--MarioSmario (talk) 17:14, 3 March 2012 (UTC)