Talk:United States/Archive 46

Let's get the name of the country right.
How embarassing. Let's at least get the name of the country right! If this wikipedia article is about the country whose name is "The United States of America", then that should also be the article's title (including capitalized "The", not missing "The", and not lower case "the"). Read Article I of the Articles of Confederation here: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=3&page=transcript# The founders even put the name in quotes, so nobody should get it wrong. This wikipedia article should not be called "United States", because that is not the name of the country. "United States" is only a substitute that is used for convenience because the name is cumbersome. It's basically slang. It's fine for a disambiguation page for "United States" to point here, but here should be "The United States of America". Who agrees? 108.185.45.70 (talk) 23:02, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * As sources go, using ones with zero legal authority (such as the failed Articles of Confederation) isn't the strongest of supports. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 23:37, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Please read the FAQs linked at the top of this talk page for the reason why it's located at "United States" and not "The United States of America". --Golbez (talk) 23:55, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Ignore the trolls. Rreagan007 (talk) 00:18, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Concur. Ban them if they come back.--Coolcaesar (talk) 11:43, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Fallacious appeals to authority are fallacious. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 06:59, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Constitution ratified?
Under Independence and expansion it says that: “After intense debate the United States Constitution was ratified in 1788 by all 13 states. The first Senate, House of Representatives, and president—George Washington—took office in 1789.”

This is not true, Rhode Island did not ratify (and refused to recognize the new federal government - sine the since the Articles of Confederation could only be amended by unanimous vote of all the states) until May 1790.--Lord Don-Jam (talk) 02:51, 4 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm checking the source we're using for that statement. It's apparently a high school history textbook... not ideal. I think the source agrees with you. Page 188 says North Carolina entered the Union in 1789, and Rhode Island in 1790. Page 186 says the Constitution was valid in 1788 when New Hampshire became the ninth to ratify. Someone else want to make this change? &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 14:15, 4 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Agree with Mendaliv. Nine states were to be sufficient to initiate the new government by the Articles Congress, that was to be true. But also, Articles Congress in session had to certify the state ratification convention results, call on states to elect representatives to New York to begin, then dissolve itself.
 * _ _ Misunderstanding may arise because under the new Constitution, Amendments are ratified by states apart from congress, president or supreme court. At passage by 2/3 of both houses, and certification of the 3/4 states' ratification in Congress, a proposed Amendment takes effect without further action on the part of any branch of government.
 * _ _ But before inauguration of Congress under the new Constitution, there was no Constitutional Article V in the Articles of Confederation. [Aside] The new constitution is unanimously adopted in two years, much quicker than the Articles were unanimously ratified. I think it was Maryland that was the last hold out in the first place, and Rhode Island in the second as noted by Lord Don-Jam. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:19, 4 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Passage now reads, "Nationalists calling for a much stronger federal government with powers of taxation led the constitutional convention in 1787. After intense debate in state conventions the United States Constitution was ratified in 1788." TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:34, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I would have ended it with "was ratified in 1788 by 11 of the 13 states." but yours works.--Lord Don-Jam (talk) 15:43, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

ME gusta
That last paragraph in the introduction just before the table of contents makes me feel so accomplished. -Player072, too lazy to sign in --98.109.49.168 (talk) 23:55, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Spurious text in the middle of the Independence and expansion section
Please see the text in bold below:

Americans' eagerness to expand westward prompted a long series of Indian Wars.[46] The Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 almost doubled the nation's size.[47] The War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievancnbsp;million people (mostly in Puerto Rico). ^ e. See Time in the United States for details about laws governing time zones in the United States. ^ f. Does not include Insular areas and United States Minor Outlying Islands, which have their own ISO 3166 codes. The War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to a draw, strengthened U.S. nationalism.[48] A series of U.S. military incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819.[49] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.132.172.82 (talk) 07:21, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Well that's odd. And it's been there for weeks. Removed. Thanks! --Golbez (talk) 14:17, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Two-Party system? The line needs to go.
The United States has 56 political parties, and I had a choice of 7 last year during the presidential election. The myth that we only have two parties is absurd — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.187.116.238 (talk) 08:28, 9 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Political scientists show to capture the national government, continental coalitions must be formed to pick up a majority of the House, Senate and presidential Electoral College, contesting all three even in "losing years". Last few cycles, the "National Party System" of the United States seems to have been a Two-Party system in the way candidates ran for office in the House, Senate and Presidential races.
 * _ _ When 'independents' of your seven parties were elected most recently, they all chose to caucus among one of the two parties in the "Two-Party" system. So we can't say its a "myth" if your own fellas act like it's so. Would you like to expand the article with a couple of sentences on "third parties" or, "local parties in large metro areas"? That would be welcome overall, I think. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:54, 9 March 2013 (UTC)


 * "A two-party system is a system where two major political parties dominate voting in nearly all elections at every level of government and, as a result, all or nearly all elected offices are members of one of the two major parties." That seems to describe the U.S. and even countries such as the UK, where multiple parties regularly win seats.  TFD (talk) 18:11, 10 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Agree with TFD in article and Scientiom at infobox. Scientiom removed from Infobox "government type", [two-party system], noting “this isn’t institutionally entrenched”.
 * _ _ So Scientiom drops the term from the infobox because "two-party" is not prescriptive. For instance, at the 36th U.S. Congress 1859-61 of 238 total seats, WITHOUT a two-party system to find an operating majority on almost any question including electing a Speaker, the House was divided --- Republicans (former whigs, free soil, anti-masons, know-nothings) 48.5%, Democrats 35%, Opposition (southern former whigs and non-secessionist democrats) 8%, Anti-Lecompton democrats 3.5%, Independent Democrats 3%, Americans (know-nothings) 2%.
 * _ _ But agree with TFD -- "two-party system" can be left in political sections as descriptive of the U.S. party system currently in operation in the modern U.S. apart from strict constitutional construction. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 20:30, 10 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Agree completely. The US system is inherently geared to result in a two party dynamic at the national level most of the time, but it's not mandated and doesn't belong in the info box. A description in the body is fine. VictorD7 (talk) 03:55, 11 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Infoboxes should only contain unambiguous noncontroversial facts. The same issue came up in an article about a de facto one party state that allowed several junior parties to operate.  TFD (talk) 18:55, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Can TFD please provide us a link of that past discussion, and others like it? Has it fallen in the realm of "common outcomes", or is it a case of it happened there but consensus here...?
 * That being said, I do see the valid argument of at the national level it is really a two party system, even though multiple smaller parties exist.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 10:13, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Can someone please remove this
In etymology:

In non-English languages, the name is frequently translated as the translation of either the "United States" or "United States of America", and colloquially as "America". In addition, an initialism is sometimes used.[37]

This part is incorrect: ', and colloquially as "America"'. In Spanish or French, people will never refer to the country as 'America' but as 'Estados Unidos / Etats-Unis'.


 * To the comment above: It seems your definition of "non-English Languages" is much too narrow. For example, in Japanese, the word "America" (アメリカ) is used in daily conversation to refer to the U.S. In Mongolia, they use the equivalent of "America", Amerik (Америк). I'm sure there are other examples. Boneyard90 (talk) 20:23, 13 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Should we add, colloquially as "America" or "Norteamerica", since we now have Argentinian Pope Francis?
 * (with apologies to Canada and Mexico - I didn't do it.) TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:27, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Religion section
I have reverted the good faith removal of the tag on the religion section. The issues brought up earlier remains unresolved. The content is still outdated compared to the main article on the subject and the content should be synced to more recent verified data from reliable sources.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:25, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Federal republic
I wanted to mention that the lede refered to the US as a Constitutional republic and/or a Federal constitutional republic. But it is a Federal republic and is supported by the reference that was in place. I have added additional sources.--Amadscientist (talk) 09:06, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Is not the United States both a constitutional republic and a federal republic? --Scientiom (talk) 10:11, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No. I am not even sure there is such a thing as a constitutional republic. This term seems to have been propagated by partisan politcs to remove the term Federal. The US is verifiably a Federal republic. Ancient Rome was considered a constitutional republic. They didn't have a formal federation of states.....and they never even had a written constitution.--Amadscientist (talk) 21:02, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Ancillary comment to Amadscientist. Ancient Roman republic never granted citizenship to those of the empire, citizenship of the soil only to those born on the seven hills tribes which elected Roman senators, in similar manner to Samoan tribe representatives to the territorial legislature in addition to the population-apportioned representatives. Citizens who gave extraordinary service to Rome were granted honorary citizenship, but it did not pass to children as naturalized U.S. citizens in Samoa. Big debate in Articles Congress and Constitutional Convention and first Congresses whether newly admitted states should be provinces or admitted on equal footing with the thirteen original states. Admit as equal citizens in equal states won the votes in convention and in congress. Musings on 'original intent of the founders' notwithstanding, all founders did not have voting majorities to enact.


 * Aside comment. This article suffers from those who confuse federal polity (government) as in dual national and provincial (state) citizenship, versus 'federal government' as conventionally used in the modern U.S. to mean 'national government'. It is of some tangent interest that Switzerland is a "federal republic" with citizenship of blood, it will not allow citizenship of the soil as in U.S. territories, or even citizenship by one parent of the soil, creating a second-class of residents similar to non-citizen descendants of Koreans in Japan? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 14:36, 12 March 2013 (UTC)


 * You have managed to pack a lot of misinformation into a brief posting. Romans elected senators?  People like Pompey born outside the city were not citzens?  The republic "never granted citizenship to those of the empire" shows a confusion between the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire.  If you are ignorant of ancient history, then it is better you not mention it.  When I was a pupil, classical civilization was taught in elementary school.  Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?  TFD (talk) 01:37, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Ancillary point, continued. First point, more editors should read into the classics as TFD has done, even if it is in translation, though multiple languages gives insight an nuance impossible in any other way of training. Pompey pardoned a defeated army survivors and set them to farming. Washington oversaw captured Hessians pardoned and given land grants. Even if one does not master the classics, virtually every leader of U.S. politics in the 19th century learned his Latin before college reading Caesar, written of his exploits to be read aloud to the populace on Roman street corners. We should read the things which those we would study have read, to properly interpret their words and actions. I often disagree with TFD, but he is head-and-shoulders above most wikipedia editors in background reading and logic, makes discussion always really interesting and frustrating when I'm not persuasive.
 * Second, chronological sense is crucial to understanding events; unfortunately it seems the elementary course took in only the last 50 years of the Roman Republic. [aside.aside. I wish editors would admit the last 50 years of the U.S. territories.] In the early Republic, the seven tribes elected Senators, usually from families trained to the duty, father then son, although there were occasionally “first timers” whose sons were then elected, as sourced in ancient Roman histories.
 * Third to review material familiar to TFD, in the last 50 years of the Republic, following battlefield setbacks, Rome rewarded loyal aliens on their side with citizenship among Latins, Etruscans and Umbrians, B.C.E. 90, Lex Julia. After the victories of Strabo and Sulla, Roman citizenship was conceded to all allies south of the Po River in Lex Plautia Papiria, B.C.E. 89. Pompey comes to prominence about B.C.E. 70, married Caesar’s daughter about B.C.E. 60, Caesar ends the Republic about B.C.E. 40, your fifty years survey leading up to the First Roman Empire.
 * Fourth. Sorry for the initial garbling. "In the Roman Empire, there was no Roman citizenship of the soil in the provinces such as Gaul, Carthage or Palestine. Honorary citizenship did not tranfer to children." Better? Since there is only unsourced wp:personal attack on me, your extrapolation of the Roman Republic's last fifty-years to anachronistically cover the history of a 400-year republic means you agree with me to support – what? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:23, 13 March 2013 (UTC)


 * U.S. Federal Republic. back on topic, I agree with Amadscientiest that "constitutional" is NOT required in the lede. The "charter constitution" versus "common law constitution" might be observed under U.S. "constitution" section. ‪Nebraska State Capitol W entrance panels 1.JPG, Roman Republic 449BCE Nebraska Capitol, w. facade, ctr. panel]]‬,
 * Ancillary comment: a) agree. The Roman Republic was indeed not a federated state of provinces, the uncertain thing, scariest about launching the U.S. experiment, it was never successfully been done before in history, and the founders know the history. b) disagree. Early Roman Republic had a written constitution at Twelve Tables, B.C.E. 449., erected in stone at a public square for all to read. An image widely republished in high school texts, is available online from California schools, The Twelve Tables. Also commemorated at Nebraska state capitol west entrance, center panel, found at Wikicommons. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:23, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
 * In any case, I do not see the term "constitutional republic" used very often. It seems to be particularly popular in John Birch Society writing, which is a good reason not to use it.  TFD (talk) 14:17, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree with Amadscientist and TFD, U.S. is a "federal republic", drop the 'constitutional'. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:36, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Aaaaaw. I missed a good discussion about ancient Rome. I could kick myself. LOL! OK...let me catch up just a tad. The Twelve Tables were not the Roman Constitution. These documents (which were displayed on the Rostra were a result of certain conflicts between the plebs and the patrician in regards to equal protection and many other legislative appeal situations. It is not the Roman constitution, but is important to it.--Amadscientist (talk) 06:04, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * [Aside. aside.] But, but, but it was a written thing, and laid out the rules of the game, and elevated the plebs a step during the "struggle of the orders". I get that it was not comprehensive, but can't american teachers tell their kids its okay to have a written constitution because the roman republic had kinda sorta of a one? If not a comprehensive (u.s.) charter constitution, is it a 'partial piece' of constitution, sort of like Magna Carta (poor John!) or English Bill of Rights by William and Mary "in Parliament"?
 * [aside. aside. aside.] And, what is the "take away" for a survey of divided government from the ancient romans? surely we can have a federal government and a state government with concurrent sovereignties if the Romans could have -- 200 years after the Twelve Tables -- 1) Comitia Curiata divided by families, to elect a magistrate, 2) Comitia Centuriata divided by wealth to elect local officers and make law, 3) Comitia Tributa divided by residence to elect local officers and make law, declare war and peace, and 4) the senate of former elected magistrates, and their censors too. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:03, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The difference is that the constitution was the bases of the Roman Republic government as a whole and the twelve tables were a set of laws. We really don't want to compare the United States to a constitutional government like that of the Ancient Roman Republic. it was so weak it lead to its own downfall. The tables were simply the not comprehensive and pertained to definitions and not what we know of the separation of powers, which is the main issue of ho our constitution and theirs differ. In Rome the Senate and Consuls ruled everything. The only other group was the assembly and their power diminished to such a point that they were no longer even meeting in the Comitium but relegated to the field of mars outside of the city. The Comitia curiata was actually replaced by the Comitia Centuriata which gave more power to the military. This is part of how Rome fell...by removing more and more of the direct democracy enjoyed by the people, falling even further back to a monarchy. Heck...the Roman Monarchy developed Republican government and Kings were actually elected.--Amadscientist (talk) 09:36, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Yeah, the king-nobles-people-tyrant-king cycle. I think in the 1780s, Poland had a nobles' elective king-for-life. I try to point folks to the Federalist Papers, like a history of republics. It’s the one-stop foundation for understanding government, as Washington suggested, it never caught on in public schooling, but since Washington appointed co-author Jay the first Chief Justice, the lawyers practicing before the Supreme Court have to read it whether they want to or not. Really fascinating stuff, like the long term interest of a democratic republic requires rulers with both public virtue and private virtue. What a concept! TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:08, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Scientom is right; the USA is a constitutional republic as well as a federal republic. In an Aristotelian sense "constitution" just referred to a society's makeup, so by that understanding every polity has a "constitution", but this isn't the 4th Century BC. In modern usage "constitutional" typically refers either to a nation having a formal, written constitution or to a supreme law that trumps edict and statute and that limits the government's power to act. The USA is clearly constitutional in both of those senses, while the UK, for example, isn't constitutional in the first sense but might be in the second (it's still arguable given Parliament's sweeping powers, though the bar is lower because "constitutional monarchy" seems to refer to any kingdom where the head of state's power is limited). The general argument here appears to be that "constitutional republic" is redundant, but there have certainly been republics that lack a formal constitution over the centuries, and many modern era republics have nominally had written constitutions that were either totally ignored and/or that failed to restrict government power in any meaningful way (i.e. communist states; Baathist Iraq).


 * I've seen the term "constitutional republic" used countless times, from scholars like Jacques Mallet du Pan (1799, The British Mercury), Calvin Colton (1839, A Voice From America to England), and O. A. Brownson (1843, The U.S. Democratic Review, Vol. 13) to more recent ones like Cato's David Boaz (2005, Handbook on Policy), Swiss based political scientist Jan-Erik Lane (1996, Constitutions and Political Theory), American professors Bryan-Paul Frost and Jeffrey Sikkenga (2003, describing James Fenimore Cooper's views in History of American Political Thought), and British political scientist and green activist John Gray (1995, Liberalism).


 * US Attorney General Hugh Legare, writing in an official legal opinion in 1841, said, "It is true, any state may, in its discretion, do this, as a matter of international comity towards the foreign state; but all such discretion is of inconvenient exercise in a constitutional republic, organized as is the Federal Union;". Politicians and Supreme Court opinions have also used the term over the years.  The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge (2007, second edition), drawing on sources like the CIA World Factbook and State Department, lists "constitutional republic" under the "Government Type" category for several nations, though it describes the United States as a "Constitution-based federal republic". I haven't checked to see if John Gray, the New Times staff, or any of the other cited individuals are the Birchers that TFD warned us about.  Of course the term is also already sourced in the article by the collegiate law textbook An Introduction to the American Legal System (2002, page 6): "We are not a simple representative democracy, but a constitutional republic in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law."


 * I'm not sure "constitutional republic" necessarily has to be in the lede, but I don't want to see all its appearances throughout the article purged (there are currently two others), because the Constitution's prominent place in the American polity deserves special mention. I also don't want readers of this discussion to get the wrong idea about the term's use or be misled into believing it's baseless. And I'm not sure what "partisan" dispute you're talking about (old Talk Page debate?).  As VH hinted at, in this context "federal" refers not to the national government but to a decentralized, multi-layered system of balanced powers, and is almost synonymous with "states rights". The same people who tend to emphasis the Constitution's primacy tend to be most grateful for America's federal arrangement. VictorD7 (talk) 04:24, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Only one of those is a reliable secondary source. The last one, but it is unclear what is being stated with much of the text missing from the snippet. Clearly there is more being said and I am not at all sure this isn't an opinion being qualified by the author themselves.--Amadscientist (talk) 05:37, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I was mostly interested in establishing longtime and widespread usage, I provided links for context, and you failed to explain why any of the sources I cited are unreliable. VictorD7 (talk) 06:27, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * You actually failed to identify them as being secondary, primary or tertiary. You also failed to explain context and relevance. Just using the word doesn't even make it a primary source. The issue is finding a source that claims the US is a constitutional republic in an unambiguous way. The only one that does that in my opinion was the last one but as I said, it appears to be an opinion the author attempts to qualify.--Amadscientist (talk) 19:08, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * So you failed to read my comments or click on the links. I'm not sure why you bothered responding at all if you didn't feel like doing either. I was addressing multiple points by multiple posters, including your firm contention (totally unsourced that I've seen) that the US is not a constitutional republic, your doubt that a "constitutional republic" even exists (though for some reason you then indicated Rome was considered one), your claim about a "partisan" attempt to remove "federal", and TFD's attempt to marginalize those who use the term by associating it with the John Birch Society. I explained how I've seen the word used, asked you what "partisan" attempts you had in mind, and listed a sample of several sources, most of them secondary history/political science books by academics (with at least one widely used tertiary source), from a long historical arc, diverse backgrounds, and multiple nations that use the term in general or specifically to describe the USA. I could have cited many more. In case your mouse is malfunctioning, here are some quotes from the links I provided:


 * Mallet du Pan (about Fance), "The strength of the government resides exclusively in the part of the nation unconnected with the principle factions, and devoted to tranquility or attached to the constitutional Republic."


 * Colton, "While, therefore, the strife in Europe is between Despotism and an absolute Monarchy on the one hand, and a constitutional Monarchy on the other; in America, the strife is between a Constitutional republic, as originally set up, and a radical democracy."


 * Brownson, "The great difference between a Constitutional Republic, in which, as with us, the mass of the people take part in the exercise of power, and a simple, absolute Democracy is in this, that in the Democracy, the people are absolute, subjected to no forms not self-imposed, and in which they are at all times, and on subjects free to make their will prevail-whatever they will in law; but in the Constitutional Republic, the people are free to act only within certain limits, only through prescribed forms, and, however unanimous they may be, only such of their act are laws, as are done through these forms."


 * Boaz (at least speaking historically), '''"Both the Bush and Clinton administrations have moved us away from our heritage as a federal constitutional republic with a government of limited powers and toward a centralized, national plebiscitary democracy with an essentially unrestrained national government."

'''
 * Lane, "The two constitutions that initiate the process of constitutional diffusion are the French 1791 constitution and the American 1787 constitution. One outlines a constitutional monarchy whereas the other comprises a republican constitutional state with democratic elements. Behind the scenes of spectacular constitutional politics there is a third model - the mundane British constitutional model, unwritten and less visible, but more and more influential as it spreads parliamentarianism. Parliamentary institutions may be combined with both a constitutional monarchy and a constitutional republic."


 * Gray, "No system of government in which property rights and basic liberties are open to revision by temporary political majorities can be regarded as satisfying liberal requirements. For this reason, an authoritarian type of government may sometimes do better than a democratic regime, always provided that the governmental authorities are restricted in their activities by the rule of law. This observation yields the important insight about liberal government - an insight grasped by classical liberals as the French guarantist theorists and the German exponents of the Reichtsstaat - that is constitutional government. A liberal political order may take the form of a constitutional monarchy, as in Britain, or a constitutional republic, as in the United States, but it must contain certain constitutional constraints on the arbitrary exercise of governmental authority. Whether these constraints include bicameralism, the separation of powers between legislature, judiciary and executive, federalism and a written constitution, or some other mixture of devices, is less important than the fact that, in the absence of some such constitutional constraints on government, we cannot speak of the existence of a liberal order."


 * Frost, Sikkenga, "Cooper's initial distinction between despotisms and republics will be made good only after he has introduced that subspecies in the refinement of republics afforded by the constitutional republic."


 * CIA World Factbook, "Peru....constitutional republic", "Honduras....democratic constitutional republic", "United States....Constitution-based federal republic", "Iceland....constitutional republic", "Uruguay....constitutional republic", etc..


 * Of course I've already quoted Legare and the 2002 law textbook, but I'll expand somewhat on the latter. If you want to read more you can click on the box that pops up after you go through the link. "The United States relies on representative democracy, but our system of government is much more complex than that.  We are not a simple representative democracy, but a constitutional republic in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law. Moreover, lawmaking power is not only vested in legislators but also in executive officials, regulatory agencies, and courts of law.......As we have suggested, law emanates from several sources. It also takes on different forms. In the American legal system, the major forms of law are as follows: constitution A fundamental law that sets forth the structure and powers of government as well as the rights of citizens vis a vis that government. statute Enacted by a legislature, a law that is generally applicable within the jurisdiction of that legislature....."


 * Clearly it's not a recently made up or defunct term. I'll try to move the process of you clarifying your position along by asking if you also object to the term "constitutional monarchy". VictorD7 (talk) 20:38, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * From your examples, the term appears to be used by the Right to attack at various points in history, Jacobins, democrats, Jacksonians, radicals and liberals. Two of your recent examples, David Boaz and John Gray are both libertarians.  TFD (talk) 22:30, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I have to agree. I have also clarified my position clearly. One sided attempts to redefine the US as anything but a federal republic simply appear to be partisan and has no place on the article or the talk page.--Amadscientist (talk) 22:44, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * What? Neither I nor anyone I cited is arguing that the USA isn't a federal republic. In fact, more than one of my sources explicitly use the term "federal" or "federalism" in addition to "constitutional republic". You've made no attempt to clarify anything here, and just tossed out a straw man argument. VictorD7 (talk) 00:48, 17 March 2013 (UTC)


 * First, so what? The American founders were generally libertarian. Second, most of the quotes don't come close to an "attack". Third, the term "right" doesn't even have a coherent, constant meaning over the long historical period cited.  Fourth, my examples included the CIA World Factbook and multiple textbooks with dry explanations; Lagare was a Whig simply commenting on the practical difficulties of extradition; I have no idea what Jan Erik Lane's personal politics are;  Gray's position was in flux by the time he released the second edition I linked to, having already written works like "Beyond the New Right" and discussing "post-liberalism".  Fifth, neither you nor Amadscientist have provided a single source saying the USA isn't a constitutional republic, or that the term doesn't exist, while I've provided several saying it is and does. VictorD7 (talk) 00:48, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Just because some writers, especially on the right, sometimes call the U.S. a "constitutional republic" is no reason to include it in the lead unless that is a common practice for brief descriptions of the U.S. in neutral sources. The term "right" by the way refers to the most conservative members of particular societies from Mallet du Pan, who supported absolute monarchy, to the Cato Institute that wants to return the U.S. to earlier economic policies.  TFD (talk) 01:22, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I reject your characterization that these sources are all on the "right" ("conservative" doesn't have a constant meaning over that time or those places either), or that it would be a problem if they were. Are only left wing sources allowed?  By "absolute monarchy", you mean du Pan opposed a constitutional republic? While other quoted sources seem to approve of one? Where's the alleged one-sidedness there? As you describe them, at least, they sound like opposite views. Of course yet others (especially the textbooks) offered matter of fact descriptions that were neutral in tone. And I said in my first post that it doesn't necessarily have to be in the lede. VictorD7 (talk) 03:13, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Du Pan said that he preferred the constitutional republicans, aka Girondins, to the Jacobins and "anarchists." We should not use either left or right wing terminology, but neutral terminology which is why we do not call the U.S. an "empire" even though that is what the source that supports saying the U.S. includes the territories says.  Why anyway are we using writings of a reactionary over 200 years ago as evidence for the political status of the U.S.?  TFD (talk) 03:45, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * So Du Pan supported "absolute monarchy" and a constitutional republic. Not exactly a rabid dogmatist. Disapproving of the French Revolution's extremes shouldn't disqualify someone from being a source, particularly if he's not being quoted for his descriptions of the "anarchists" and "Jacobins",  and if he's just one of many scholars cited to establish long time usage. I didn't propose using him as an article source. The modern, neutral-toned textbooks stating that the US is a "constitutional republic" are fine for that. VictorD7 (talk) 04:33, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Again, just because one can find a source for something does not mean it belongs in the lead. One needs to show that it is typical in a brief neutral description of the U.S.  It is a fact for example that Delaware is a state, but it would be POV to say that the "U.S. consists of Delaware, 49 other states, a federal district...."  TFD (talk) 04:58, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Again, I'm not talking about the lead. The various claims here prompting my response went further than the lead. "Empire" has negative connotations, is widely opposed regarding the USA, and is often used as an epithet regarding the USA. Not so with constitutional republic. It's not like there's a major faction that objects to the term. Are there any sources who argue against it? I think you two are the only ones I've seen take offense to it, and Amadscientist at least is operating under a misunderstanding (federal or constitutional? - false dichotomy). It's a mundane description of reality. The US does have a Constitution, and it explicitly mandates "republican" government. No rhetorical leap required. I appreciate your new, alternative POV example, but the supreme governing law of the land is hardly analogous to elevating a set member like Delaware over other members of that set. Do you also object to "constitutional monarchy"? VictorD7 (talk) 21:45, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I also note that in you last reply Victor you have begun to make claims assuming bad faith. I read everything but all of your last post which was simply too long to read.--Amadscientist (talk) 22:47, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * You mischaracterized my post, failed to address any questions or actual points I made, and just admitted that you didn't read at least parts of my last reply. At this point I'm not sure any such assumption is required. VictorD7 (talk) 00:48, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I was actually stating that very thing about your post. Just tossing it back doesn't improve your standing. You have failed on several levels, but the most important of those is that no one has agreed with you and that shows at least one point. You are not making a convincing argument. Just trying to make this about me is no improvement on that.--Amadscientist (talk) 01:47, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No, in your last post you started whining about my earlier post correctly indicating that you weren't addressing any of my points. You still haven't. I've only engaged two people on this topic, and your only real substantive comment was a straw man argument, so any intellectually honest person would have to conclude that you've failed across the board. I'm still waiting for you to post a single source or answer some of my reasonable questions. VictorD7 (talk) 03:13, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * If this is your way of attempting to convince anyone of your good faith and engage in a discussion of the content I will simply say you have not convinced me. There is no consensus to include the wording in the lead and I am more convinced then ever to look at the other mentions as well. Happy editing.--Amadscientist (talk) 03:35, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Let me know if you ever find any sources supporting any of your positions that I've challenged here, or develop any cogent replies to my questions and points. I said from the beginning that I wasn't necessarily interested in the lede, but if you don't even try to make a case I'll revert any attempt you make to purge the later, properly sourced mention from the article. Have a nice day. VictorD7 (talk)
 * Considering that I have met the burden of evidence the ball is in your court Victor. So far, no one is supporting your assertions.--Amadscientist (talk) 03:01, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No, mad, you've provided no evidence, and I'm fine with the current status quo. I don't see anyone but you hinting at action beyond the lede, so if you don't do anything on that front we shouldn't have a problem. VictorD7 (talk) 20:35, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * The issue is not whether or not we can find a single (or even a few) sources which state something. The issue is whether or not the preponderance or bulk of such sources use such terms.  You can probably find a source to say anything you wish, and even make a case that such sources are reliable, but Wikipedia articles sometimes need to be selective in their text, and in this case, the issue is not on finding individual reliable sources one way or the other, but looking at what most sources say, especially those that have the broadest usage and recognizability outside of Wikipedia.  I would suggest that other sources with broad readership (other encyclopedias and almanacs with wide English-language readership) should be given preference over specialized sources like low-readership or obscure journals (reliable though they may be) for what the specific phrasing is at an article like this.  I have no idea one way or the other what the specific phrasing here should or should not be, but we should first agree on the principles by which we will decide, and from my point of view that should be based on what most readers would recognize, and that would depend on looking at what other sources intended for broad readership agree on themselves.  -- Jayron  32  05:07, 17 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Those are reasonable points, but keep in mind that, contrary to the op's characterization, this isn't an either/or situation. Most country articles describe the government in multiple ways. It's also important to consider other factors, like placement (different bar for lede versus later in the article), a bias in favor of the status quo, and whether the existing text contributes something useful to the article that would enhance a reader's understanding. The context of the current mention, later in the article, has the term "constitutional republic" preceding and setting the stage for a segment that goes on to describe constitutional supremacy and the basic nature of US law, including in this description a direct quote from the legal textbook used as a source.   Replacing that use of "constitutional republic" with "federal republic" would be nonsensical, and I see no good cause to simply remove it. Both terms are accurate, have broad cultural usage, and describe different, vital features of the American system. The op was concerned with the lede and I'm fine with either version of the lede, but I eventually decided to throw my own two cents in because I didn't want the brief discussion that had taken place to be used later as a basis for purging all mentions throughout the article.  It seemed like the term was being railroaded without the presentation of a single source or rational argument. VictorD7 (talk) 23:36, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Funny...cause I was thinking that "constitutional republic" was being railroaded into the encyclopedia and...funny thing...others agreed when we deleted the entire article. Now cleanup is required in my opinion to adjust this, but...with consensus.--Amadscientist (talk) 03:06, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Since I wasn't privy to that debate, it's a shame that whatever happened there is so secret that you're reluctant to make any kind of rational case disputing anything I've said here. VictorD7 (talk) 21:21, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Side note since you mentioned the old page (which I didn't see) - the unincorporated community of "Valley Spring, Texas" (pop. 50) has its own Wikipedia page. It gets 142,000 google hits.  "Constitutional Republic" gets 4.85 million. Granted, different category but worth noting.  "Representative democracy" only gets 2.4 million hits, and "constitutional monarchy" gets 3.59 million. Both those terms have their own wiki articles.   Any distinct concept with enough popular usage that it has several million precise wording search hits is notable and should be allowed to have its own article if people want to make one. You seem to be on some type of misguided larger crusade. VictorD7 (talk) 20:35, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Your constant need to make this about me as an editor is disturbing and uncivil. That just demonstrates your lack of good faith clearly. But the fact that your don't even know what "burden of evidence" is shows you lack understanding of Wikipedia policy and guidelines. All the google hits in the world can be compared until the cows come home. I have met the burden and you just "don't like it".--Amadscientist (talk) 21:07, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * So you've just got more ad hominem BS and still no evidence? Since I support the status quo, and you're the one who would hypothetically be making changes beyond the lede (or why else are you trying to argue with me?) you're the one who clearly doesn't understand "burden of evidence", among many other things. VictorD7 (talk) 21:35, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * guys guys guys, you can stop fighting. I fixed the article. It's okay now. :) --Golbez (talk) 21:37, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually this was a tangential debate, not really about the lede. Nice work, btw.VictorD7 (talk) 21:39, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Cold War and protest politics
An editor has now twice reverted an addition of an image, removal of an external media file, and re-size of images.

The first reversion had no explanation for the removal.

The editor's second reversion summary states: "Undid revision 543554569 by RightCowLeftCoast (talk) Right Cow, the section is on Protest politics, you removed MLK's protest speech against the Vietnam War. Please leave it."

I will be tagging the section with a POV tag, to only include content about the protest politics gives undue weight to one portion of the content. The other portion of the section is about the U.S. involvement in the Cold War. I thought including the image of Reagan asking for the Berlin Wall to come down is appropriate for the end of that era.

An Administrator, John, has called my edit controversial, why I do not know, nor do I agree. I responded by explaining my reasoning and providing alternative images.

It is my opinion only focusing on MLK Jr. in the external media file and sole image for the section creates an undue weight towards one aspect of that era.

Moreover, a more appropriate image for protest politics would be something like these:

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Pestcamel44   (talk • contribs)  14:04, 15 March 2013
 * Keeping with past editorial discretion, that each section have two images, and past editorial discretion of only having two image as "supporting content" in each hisory section, we should attempt to best find the images that best represent the main events in the section. In this case, as indicated in the boldly reworded section title, those are the civil rights movement and the cold war. As I have stated before, I am of the opinion that the images which the events depict should be as separated by time as possible. Additionally, the adding of the image of Reagan speaking at the Berlin Wall was called controversial. Why is the image of Reagan considered controversial, and MLK Jr. not? Is it because he was a Republican? As I said before, although I highly admire MLK Jr. I believe that the images used should not focus on single real individuals. As I have said, the only image which does that in the history section is the drawing of the fictional Columbia. This is why in my proposal I choose the image of the National Mall when MLK Jr. said that "I Have A Dream speech". If individuals want to hear his anti-war speech they can find it through his article page. Giving that one speech additional supporting content gives it undue weight to one individual and one the anti-war movement given the many events that occurred between 1946 to 1989.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:44, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I will wait until 23March2013 to see if there are any additional objects; if not I will seek to insert the following double image:

--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:41, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I like these two. the captions need blue-pencil, which I hope to get to shortly, I think individual names might be captured in a link to the actual demonstration, the choice sidesteps any potential personality objection, but readers going to the march article will have links to prominent individuals.


 * I think they bracket the two major themes of the section narrative. Cold War end is clear without being triumphant, demonstrates the international context with flags represented...no bad guy characterization which some might find offensive, but restoration of free travel, the first sign of practical, sustainable peace. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 01:10, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * How about these captions then:


 * As an aside, I have had the pleasure of meeting individuals who once lived in East Berlin, John Lewis, and Martin Luther King, III.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:32, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

DRN case wrap-up
As Noleander recommended at DRN, we may proceed by rephrasing our lede to reflect the !vote taken in the straw polls conducted there. This phrasing was:
 * The United States of America is a nation state governed by a federal constitutional republic, consisting of fifty states and a federal district as well as several territories. It is commonly called the United States (US, USA,  U.S. or U.S.A.) and colloquially as America,  The territories have differing degrees of autonomy.

This construction received the endorsement of 6 of 9 participants (and had been endorsed by 7 of 9 participants in an earlier straw poll); the next closest option was endorsed by 4 of 9 participants. While I'm not saying that polling created a consensus (it doesn't), I think we've discussed things at substantial length over the past few weeks (months for some of us), and upon the evaluation of the DRN volunteers we may conclude that a consensus exists for some kind of change.

What I'd like to know at this point is whether we can bring the other participants on board with respect to this proposed change, either through compromise or further discussion limited in scope to the lede. I would ask that we all refrain from digging into the deeper include-vs-exclude territories argument as it is frankly not relevant to this proposed wording, and would only serve to massively derail the conversation and bring us back to where we were last month. Thoughts? &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 04:20, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It appears we have consensus to exclude the word "constitutional" from Federal republic. See the above discussion.--Amadscientist (talk) 06:06, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the first order is to add a comma after "nation state" as being reasonable (though I do not like too many commas, myself). We could use the current link for "constitutional republic" and use a "|" to make only "repbulic" appear in blue - but would there be any substantive change in meaning to readers? Collect (talk) 11:31, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree with dropping "Federal". As to the comma, I support it because it makes it clearer that it's the nation state "consisting of" things, rather than the republic, which was a point of contention brought up by TFD. Without expressing an opinion on the merits of TFD's arguments in that vein, I think it's an appropriate spot to compromise in the name of achieving consensus. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 12:41, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I think in the context of the lead, "federal" is a far more important term than "constitutional". I may be misreading Collect's comment, but I think the suggestion was to use this form: older ≠ wiser


 * Whoops, I got it backwards; yes we should drop the "constitutional" in favor of "federal". But I do prefer the comma after nation state per my above comments. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 14:16, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Right, I meant to add the comma there. The only other suggestion (which I also made at DNR) is to avoid separating the "degrees of autonomy" statement from the several territories. Here's updated suggestion:
 * I also added a comma after federal district -- though I'm not sure what that does to the parallelism. older ≠ wiser 14:35, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * It doesn't seem correct to say the US is governed by a federal (constitutional) republic. The federal republic is a system, not a governing body. How is this an improvement on the current "The United States...blablabla...is a federal republic consisting of..."? CMD (talk) 15:40, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * It could make sense if the nation is defined as including the territories while the republic is not. Hence we could say "the British Empire was a nation state governed by the United Kingdom."  TFD (talk) 15:55, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay, but we'd be taking different words/phrases with very flexible meanings, and contrasting them. This isn't going to be at all clear for anyone, or useful. CMD (talk) 17:54, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to take this moment to register my intense displeasure at the DRN morphing from being about whether or not the territories are included, to this strange version of "governed by a federal republic". Please show me one other, any, country article that has such awkward wording. I don't even know where this hulking frankenstein of a sentence came from; how did we get from "are the territories part of the country" to "the u.s. is a country governed by a republic"? Whose idea was this, and whose idea was it to vote for it? I feel like the one sane person in an asylum. --Golbez (talk) 16:18, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:DRN produced a WP:CONSENSUS. I suggest that fighting over that now-established consensus is contrary to Wikipedia policy at this point. Or WP:POINT as may be applicable.
 * proposing to change a recent consensus can be disruptive. Collect (talk) 16:44, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I said I would guard the article harshly against poor sourcing and inconsistency; so far as I know that is not disruptive, that is what should be happening, with or without me doing it. As long as your consensus is well sourced and consistent, by all means, keep it. I haven't proposed a change, for one thing at this moment that would be futile, but also because y'all should lie in the "the country is governed by a republic" bed you made. I can speak out of how bad it is. That is not disruptive. --Golbez (talk) 16:51, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Responding to the DRN decision
I will not fight this; it won fair and square. I will, however, fiercely guard it against poor sourcing, and this requires at least an edit of the area lower in the article where we discuss territories. I will not making this edit; those who want the above edit are required to follow through on it. And, if we even whiff that a particular territory is part of the nation, I will revert that unless that territory's article is edited to reflect the same. We will not become internally consistent on this matter, not on my watch. Maybe that will encourage someone, anyone, to ask the talk pages of those articles how they feel about being annexed. I find it very sad that not one single person who wanted this change went to any of the other talk pages to gather input. Not one. For people who claim to care about the underrepresented peoples, it's mindboggling that you didn't elicit their opinion.

This phrasing does not necessarily require a rewrite of the article as it is sufficiently wishy-washy on the subject, which of course we should have been trying to avoid. Sadly, too many people thought this was a game of sourcing, and could not see the forest for the trees. Fair enough. --Golbez (talk) 14:44, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * But we were asked NOT to do this. I have a reply prepared of fewer words when a DRN, Mendaliv, Noleander, or Amadscientist invite me to do so. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:30, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * After reading his request, it has no bearing on what I said, because I'm not getting into the "which territories do we include/exclude argument". Y'all can have that one. All I care is, when you make that decision, you make it everywhere. I will be watching. --Golbez (talk) 16:15, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

It's great that a consensus was finally achieved, as with many consensuses this one is a compromise, and as with any compromise not everyone will be happy. That being said let us not become entrenched in a battlefield mindset and let us implement what consensus has developed as the lead sentence. After this we can go ahead and add reliable source(s) so the lead meets with the pilar WP:VER. After this is done, we can discuss what modifications have the consensus of active editors to be enacted.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:06, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't propose that consensus was achieved. One side got marginally more votes than the other; that is not consensus. At this point consensus comes from the losing side not throwing a fit when the winning side implements their bad idea. I'm willing to work towards that, but at this point consensus is a thing to be gained from a vote, rather than a thing codified from that vote. My compromise is not in the interest of consensus, it's to follow the letter of the law. I'm not in a battlefield mindset (and also, jesus christ, can we go one posting here without resorting to full-caps poilcy acronyms? We're not children, we know what is being talked about), I'm of a don't-fuck-up-the-article mindset. I am not going to revert your change - unless it is poorly sourced or creates an inconsistency. Which really, we should all be caring about, right? That doesn't mean I can't point out how horrid it is, or how terrible the DR process was that we somehow got to "the country is governed by a republic" from the question of "are the territories part of the country". I'm shocked I'm the only one that apparently sees this. --Golbez (talk) 18:25, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The "compromise" was that the phrasing was changed because of objection to saying the territories were part of the republic. I do not see that calling them part of the "country" or the "nation state" is much of an improvement.  I suppose that they are vague enough terms that they could refer to the republic and its possessions.  I would however like to see a secondary sources that supports any statements we add to the article.  Also, we need to go through and correct the article.  For example, the language field in the infobox should include Spanish, Chamorro, Samoan and Carolinian.  TFD (talk) 18:52, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Not it shouldn't. That was established a long time ago; this isn't to list every language that has official status in some small part of the country, it's to list the languages declared official at the federal level. And anyway, this doesn't change anything, as Hawaii was already officially bilingual and we didn't list Hawaiian then (and there's questions as to whether or not New Mexico and Louisiana are also officially bilingual), there's no reason to include the others. --Golbez (talk) 19:05, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The difference is that federal legislation recognizes official languages for the territories, while it does not for the states. TFD (talk) 19:55, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No. Also, we haven't determined which territories are considered part of the country, since apparently the consensus process hasn't touched on that yet. --Golbez (talk) 20:08, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Um -- French is a "legal" language for many purposes in Louisiana, for one example.   While English is the sole language for the laws of the US, that does not mean no other languages are recognized in the various states - and federal ballots are provided in languages other than English as well.  In short, the "difference" - ain't.  I think you ought to read the encyclopedia articles on "languages of the United States".  I would also note that native (Sioux etc.) languages are "legal" in Indian tribal areas - again, contrary to any thought that this is a distinction only held by some "territories."  Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:15, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Federal law does not mandate the use of French in Louisiana courts. TFD (talk) 20:29, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * As I MADE NO SUCH CLAIM what precisely is your point? Collect (talk) 20:55, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Then your examples have no relevance to the discussion. TFD (talk) 20:46, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I have not the foggiest idea what you mean by your cryptic and useless posts on this, and furthermore I suspect no one else understands your goals in posting them. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:03, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * We are discussing the official languages of the United States, i.e., languages mandated by the laws of the United States, not languages mandated by individual states or territories. Your examples are therefore irrelevant.  TFD (talk) 21:13, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * DR/N is a non binding process. No one is obligated to agree with, follow through with, or be required to adhere to a consensus that does not take into account reliable sources and stitches together a wording or phrase that is not reliable. The very link to Constitutional republic is so week I wouldn't bother linking it. If you use such a link by describing the US as a constitutional republic you give Wikipedia the voice of authority over sourcing. Consensus at a dispute discussion cannot override the larger consensus of the general community to only make claims that can be reliably sourced. I, myself, have no objection to other wording determined by a large consensus but only within the guidelines the Encyclopedia has established. It is not appropriate to redefine what the US is, as established by sources and is indeed verifiable.--Amadscientist (talk) 01:53, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree the final draft should read, U.S. is a federal republic, drop 'constitutional', to be treated as "charter constitution" versus "common law" in appropriate subsection as editors elect. Just not 'constitution' in lead sentence of introduction. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:12, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * We could add languages besides English by the WP:IMPORTANCE criteria. What are the top three? A quick check of the census might determine which languages are spoken in the U.S. among over 20% of the population -- limit it to five for space considerations? At one time in early 20th C. it was English, German, Spanish, French, it changes. There were over thirty languages at home in a DC metro school system last year, with over ten "officially recognized" at the level of preprinted translated forms for school and federal use. I don't think comprehensive languages listing at the infobox makes much sense in a nation of immigrants. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:31, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Reliable SOURCES answer each objection raised against the introduction proposal. Objections are variously, I ) there is no source to include territories, II ) U.S.G. is not legitimate/competent, III ) U.S. territorial history stopped in 1910, IV ) territories are second-class citizens, THEREFORE territories cannot be "a part of the United States" for a country-article. To answer in summary,
 * ET I: There is no source to include territories as a part of the U.S. Editors see U.S. Dept. of State, U.S. citizenship and nationality. 7 FAM 1112, a. and b. p.3-4,  “the term ‘United States’, when used in a geographical sense, means (a) the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands of the United States.” and (b) since 1986, “Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands [is] in Political Union with the United States of America”.
 * ET II: U.S.G. is not legitimate/competent to define itself, unsourced “international opinion” is to be consulted where local populations have accepted U.S. sovereignty by 96%, constitution, congress and federal courts, citizenship, self-government by elected governors, legislatures, territorial Member of Congress. These privileges exceeding ‘incorporated’ U.S. territories later admitted states, Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska and Hawaii. Editors see various proposals December, February and March: [note] - Three U.S. territories are monitored on the United Nations list of “Non-self governing territories” in 2012, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa.
 * ET III: The U.S. has no territorial history since “Insular Cases”, no source since 1962 can be admitted. Tertiary sources must reference Insular Cases. No direct quotes need be found, not in the AFFIRMATIVE, “The only official U.S. is ‘incorporated’ 50 states, federal district and Palmyra Atoll.”, nor in the NEGATIVE, “U.S. territories are not a part of the U.S.” Editors see, secondary government source, Welcome, A guide p.7, “The United States now consists of 50 states, the District …, the territories of Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the commonwealths of the Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico.”
 * ET IV: Territories are second-class populations without U.N. requirements of self-determination: basic human rights, autonomous self-government and included in national councils. Editors see in Lawson and Sloane, Juan R. Torruella, Levinson and Sparrow, in scholarly law and academic publication by constitutional historians and political scientists that the five organized U.S. territories of today have a constitutional status “equivalent” to incorporated states. They have fundamental constitutional protections, self-governing republican government, and a territorial Member of Congress -- as a part of the United States. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:38, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I have no clue what you're doing, it's as if you are resuming the argument that led to the DRN. Why are you doing this. Do you not want to move on to the next challenge, which is implementing your bad ideas and me making sure they don't break the encyclopedia? That's the next step. Move on to the next step. Stop wallowing in the past. Please. --Golbez (talk) 18:08, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I just started paying attention to this debate, but I have to agree with Golbez on the awful wording of that sentence. Surely "consisting of" states, territories, etc. is better than "governed by a federal republic". It's apparently designed to attract a couple of votes to the "include" camp, but I don't get the argument from the two or three editors who accept the premises that the territories are part of the United States, and that the United States is a republic, but that somehow the territories aren't part of the republic. All the inhabited territories have elected governments, established through locally drafted constitutions or US Congressional acts, and their people are US citizens except in one case where they're US nationals with privileges. They participate in the national government through representatives with Congressional committee votes, and share power by having a degree of local control. Even if none of that was true they would still be part of the republic simply because the US is a republic. There's room within a republic for nuance regarding territorial status. After all, they aren't independent, and it's not like they're part of a monarchy. I'd like to think that even some in the "exclude" camp, given that the "include" side will get its way one way or another in that debate, would prefer the cleaner "consisting of" version over the threatened alternative. VictorD7 (talk) 19:06, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Sparrow says the U.S. is an "empire" consisting of a "federal republic" and dependant territories. In order to remove POV, we change empire to "country" or "nation state."  TFD (talk) 19:18, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Nonsense. You have no source for your misrepresentation. Sparrow says territories are incorporated before statehood. The federal republic began with territory to the Mississippi River by the 1783 Treaty of Paris. “Territory outside the republic” was incorporated by “democratic empire” in three stages: 1. possession, 2. appointed governor,


 * 3. Territories are incorporated into the republic in preparation for statehood, the “legacy of the Northwest Territory”: on popular referendum accepting constitution, congress and federal courts, then republican self-government, path to citizenship, territorial Member of Congress. The modern territories are a part of the federal republic as cited, directly quoted, and linked to Sparrow. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:20, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * The source is Sparrow's article, "Empires External and Internal: Territories, Government Lands, and Federalism in the United States." Also, while some territories were "incorporated into the republic in preparation for statehood", other territories were not incorporated, including the Philippines and Cuba.  TFD (talk) 21:02, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

DRN case ii
From older≠wiser,


 * "The United States of America is a nation state, governed by a federal republic, consisting of fifty states and a federal district, as well as several territories with differing degrees of autonomy. It is commonly called the United States (US, USA, U.S. or U.S.A.) and colloquially as America."

additional proposal. [note-1], [note-2].

[note-1] U.S. Dept. of State, U.S. citizenship and nationality. 7 FAM 1112, a. and b. p.3-4, “the term ‘United States’, when used in a geographical sense, means (a) the continental [U.S.], Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the [U.S.] Virgin Islands.” and (b) since 1986, “Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands [is] in Political Union with the United States of America”. Secondary government source, Welcome, A guide for immigrants p.7, “The [U.S.] now consists of 50 states, the District …, the territories of Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the commonwealths of the Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico.”

[note-2] - Three U.S. territories are monitored on the United Nations list of “Non-self governing territories” in 2012, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 14:16, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The arrived at above lede statement and the notes of clarification here looks as well as they will ever be as concerns the opinions of all involved in 'the great debate'. Let's get this into the lede and, if need be, we can fine tune the notes in due order. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:01, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * wait are you saying note 1 should contain contradictory sources? Or is this just you brainstorming on which of several sources to use --Golbez (talk) 18:11, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * We should be using secondary sources rather than tertiary sources because there is no way of resolving conflicting information in tertiary sources. Unlike secondary sources, they do not have footnotes explaining where they obtained their information and errors are not identified in subsequent sources.  Notice that Encyclopedia Britannica Online says the U.S. "a federal republic of 50 states."  Also it is unclear what relevance note 2 has.  And what about the other territories?  Their status should be mentioned as well.  TFD (talk) 18:42, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * We reached a WP:CONSENSUS after a great deal of discussion and compromise.. Trying to reverse that is fatuous and tendentious.  Sorry TFD - you can not stand athwart the consensus shouting "No way!".  Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:01, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * There was no consensus achieved, unless you're claiming that, for example, the re-election of Barack Obama represents a consensus decision by the people of the U.S. There was no compromise made, on either side. --Golbez (talk) 03:18, 17 March 2013 (UTC)


 * There was a proposed compromise that had a bare majority of support. It is only consensus in an Orwellian sense. older ≠ wiser 22:09, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem is that consensus is nonbinding as it is a local discussion on the DR/N noticeboard. It cannot override a wider general consensus on the articles talk page. If editors here still don't support that consensus for whatever reason you need to continue the discussion.--Amadscientist (talk) 22:17, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * We all agreed to let the notice board volunteers handle matters, we answered questions, voted on proposals several times and then we boiled things down and voted on two final options. Was this all for nothing? Is the plan now to let the minority, however marginal, have their way, and to hell with the agreements and procedures we ALL followed? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 00:33, 17 March 2013 (UTC)


 * @ Golbez asks, can WP allow two secondary sources that are not perfectly aligned? yes, since it aspires to be more than be list articles mirroring dictionaries and digests. The ambiguity in territorial treatment allows for both sourced "political union" of N. Marianas territory, and the locally autonomous self-governance of U.S. citizens and nationals in Samoa, constitutionally "equivalent" to incorporated states, as sourced. Some writer-editors would additionally like to incorporate a broad analytical framework which spans both federated territories of republics and outer territories of unitary monarchies.


 * Careful language is chosen to be consistent with and admit nuances from all reliable sources, it is not to be "sufficiently wishy-washy". The reader is invited to pursue reading the sourced notes. I recommended Wikipedia to my students for overview and to lead them to further reading, especially the links to secondary sources available online. That power of enabling a "one-world classroom" is one of the exciting things about being a writer-editor at wikipedia. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 14:15, 17 March 2013 (UTC)


 * @ TFD wonders about the relevance of note 2. The first note provides sources for the U.S.G. - view. The second note provides a source for counter - U.S.G. The purpose is to provide sourced information in both notes of interest to a general international readership. I have invited additional sources in Dec, Feb and Mar to no response. Counter - U.S.G. sources may relate to a) benign bi-lateral negotiations over possessions, b) disinterested investigations to determine how U.S.G. meets its obligations to peoples of Guam, Am. Samoa and U.S. Virgin Islands, and c) challenges by nation-states in international tribunals over the legitimacy of U.S. occupation.


 * But I have only found b) on investigations with assistance here, and a) for negotiations, only a non-specific online State-Dept reference, but I know there to be other territorial disputes. I'm only looking for nation-states in international forums, because history of indigenous tribal claims and ancient hegemony is too complicated for a modern country-article. By Chinese lights, see scholar-geopoltician Robert D. Kaplan in his Revenge of Geography, the modern occupants voting for U.S. territorial Members of Congress in N. Marianas, Guam and Am. Samoa, are merely temporary squatters on the "Second Island Chain" of Chinese Pacific defense; time will tell. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 14:15, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * TVH's proposal appears to be agreeable, for me at the very least. It closely resembles the compromised wording that was created, and received majority support at DRN, and meets WP:VER using reliable sources. It doesn't appear to have any words to watch, and appears to be neutral.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 14:56, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Please show me any circumstance, either on Wikipedia or elsewhere, where a country is described as "a country governed by a republic". [citation needed]. Y'all might have debated that while I wasn't looking, as I was only concerned with the actual argument that led us to DRN. --Golbez (talk) 15:56, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Insert : The current lede already reads "the United States ... is a federal republic", w/ citations. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:39, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * "The US is a federal republic" is an entirely different sentence from "The US is a country governed by a federal republic." For starters, the first one is logical, makes sense, and has existed before in all of human scholarship. --Golbez (talk) 21:50, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Hence the comma -- the "republic" is the "form of government" and is not the definition of the nation -- If we had "The UK is a monarchy, governed by a constitutional Parliament", that would not assign a identity between the constitutional Parliament and the nation. The goal here is to furnish a readable precis for users of the encyclopedia, and, as a general rule, if a statement in the lede is rationally a summary of the body of the article, it does not require extra notes or cites. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:29, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * "The goal here is to furnish a readable precis" You're failing. The comma isn't really changing anything. --Golbez (talk) 16:38, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

"France, officially the French Republic, is a unitary semi-presidential republic located mostly in Western Europe,[note] with several overseas regions and territories." [note ^] "French Guiana is located in South America; Guadeloupe and Martinique are in the Caribbean; and Réunion and Mayotte are in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Africa. All five are considered integral parts of the republic." -- [ tvh: the 'France' lede note is unsourced.]

My previous readable "United States, officially the United States of America, consists of a federal republic of 50 states, a federal district and five organized territories. [sourced note] ", was tabled for participation in a wider community in arriving at a wiki-consensus < 100%, rather than abruptly asserting the primacy of secondary government and scholarly sources over tertiary editor synthesis, which five months ago might have resulted in article-disruption.

At that time, the "count" was 1-4, with the 80% majority of the opinion expressed here holding that sourced scholarly co-editors of constitutional history and political science were, "the opinion of an expert arguing against [wikipedia editor unsourced] consensus and therefore cannot be presented as a fact." --- At this time, did Golbez wish to suggest alternative language or additional sources for the lede sentence in 'United States' as writer-editor? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:50, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * "The French republic ... is a republic." This is fine. It does not say "France is a country governed by the French Republic." That would be nonsensical. And yes, I did suggest alternative language - the status quo. Since I was still debating the territory question, while y'all had apparently moved on to the question of how best to insult the English language. --Golbez (talk) 21:53, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I support the wording, do not support the notes. TVH, that 7 FAM source is a mere reference to, which itself is specifically limited to the context of , on immigration and nationality. It is at least unpublished synthesis if not outright original research to make the leap from a limited definition like that to the general contention that United States includes territories. Even if we want to say "in some contexts", I think these sorts of sources are undesirable because in using them we presume without justification that Wikipedia should bind itself by federal publications and laws. We want scholarly sources... ideally things written by scholars. We have Sparrow, and we have the legal encyclopedias. If we have to source the lede, I think we should go with those sources.

As to the wording itself, yes it may be a bit contrived, but it helps nobody to go and unravel the extensive discussion we had at DRN. I see absolutely nothing wrong with saying "a nation state governed by a republic", especially if such wording can end this dispute until someone comes up with a better wording... and that's just it: nobody has anything better. The status quo is inadequate: the extensive discussion at DRN demonstrated this. Even those who could support the status quo, when their actual opinions are gleaned from the discussion, it becomes clear that they would prefer some other wording as well. So maybe we don't have a consensus for the direction we want to take, but I say there is a clear consensus that the status quo is inadequate. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 22:27, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Except, in all modern circumstances except those in an ongoing civil war, the country and its government are synonymous. "X" is a country and that country is a Y. Example of the long form: Italy is a country and that country is a republic. Removing the redundancies: Spain is a monarchy. France is a republic. The United States is a republic. It is not governed by a republic, it IS the republic. --Golbez (talk) 23:41, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Citation needed. I consider this an oversimplification, as the instant case patently demonstrates. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 01:43, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * See British Empire. It "comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom."  We merely substitute the POV term in Sparrow with "country".  TFD (talk) 22:29, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

edit break
Seems these rather opinionated items should have been discussed (long) before everyone submitted their final vote. Just in case anyone needs to refer back to the DRN discussion it has been archived and is |now located and can be read here. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 02:09, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree. We've had months to hash out every iteration of this argument, and we spent nearly three weeks at DRN trying to hash this out. Nobody's really bringing anything new to the table... except perhaps some new sources which, respectfully, do not contribute any new clarity to the overall picture. Do we have a consensus? Maybe not. If not, let's get one. Golbez, TFD, et al., you know you aren't going to drive away the includers nor change their minds; TVH, you know the same about the excluders; and to myself, I should know that I'm not changing anybody's mind either. Let's all take a moment to reflect on this. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 02:52, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * We argued for months over whether or not the territories were part of the country. Then in a couple of weeks (the whole time wasn't spent on it, it was a latecomer) somehow DRN comes up with this wording that the U.S. is a country governed by a republic. You say citation needed? OK: The entirety of everything written ever. Google "United States is governed by a republic", with the quotes since you say my version needs a citation and yours doesn't, and let me know how many results you get. Let me know what variations you try to get the number of hits over one, I'm curious if anyone has ever thought to describe a country in such a linguistically dysfunctional fashion. I'm confused why you think this is still about the "includer/excluder" argument, as that is irrelevant to this second task that the DRN seems to have taken up of finding the most obtuse and obfuscated way of describing a country. --Golbez (talk) 04:25, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I would point you to the phrasing "federal government of the United States" as a fairly good indicator that the government and the nation are not the same in all contexts, just as the phrase "United States and Puerto Rico" indicates that the phrase does not include Puerto Rico in all contexts. At any rate, I'm honestly not sure what "linguistically dysfunctional" means in this context, nor how the phrasing is obtuse. It's concise; necessarily so because we're dealing with a lede. It is something that must therefore be expanded upon in a subsequent section, and which can be easily achieved. Perhaps it glosses over some fine distinctions, but frankly, that's the nature of a lede. At the very least, I haven't seen anybody argue that this phrasing makes a statement that is untrue or unsupported by sources; the same cannot be said of the current lede. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 09:17, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * My apologies, I spoke in too concise terms. The *form* of government is synonymous with the country, not the actual government itself. France is not its current federal government, but it is a republic. It is governed by its present government, yes, but no one would ever say that "France is a country governed by a republic." They would say "France is a republic." If you're not seeing the difference here then I suppose I'll move on to more fruitful pastures. --Golbez (talk) 13:51, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The phrase "federal government of the United States" distinguishes that government from the federal governments of other states, the US not being the only federal state. As for conciseness, "The United States is a federal republic" is far more concise (and less obtuse) than "The United States is a nation-state governed by a federal republic." CMD (talk) 10:08, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * The problem is...the "consensus" to include items NOT in the original dispute is not appropriate. The issue of "Federal republic" was not a part of the original dispute. Here is the original dispute overview:


 * Clearly in this case the DR/N has exceeded the dispute in an inappropriate manner and thus the entire consensus is in question. How we went from this to including other disputes outside the original filing is a mystery, but is simply not accepted by a number of editors for whatever reason. As was stated, the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard is a non-binding process and volunteers have no special powers and any implementation of a smaller consensus still requires the agreement of all editors on the main article page. Simply put, it isn't something everyone can live with.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:56, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Exactly. I can live with the broad strokes of what DRN came up with wrt the territories argument, despite their obsession with playing a sourcing numbers game, but I can't live with this horrendous wording they came up with and that they irrationally defend by claiming it has a "consensus." --Golbez (talk) 04:25, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Excuse us, but you were all for getting consensus and participated in the votes like everyone else, so we really don't need to hear any more of your opinionated objections, endless whining and hypocritical bullshit nonsense. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 09:05, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was for getting consensus. I still am. A 6-4 vote, or whatever it was, is only consensus in your mind. I have said, repeatedly, that I would abide by the decision, and would only defend it against poor sourcing and inconsistency, which I point out is far more than you have promised to do, sirrah, but that in no way means it has gained a consensus. As I said above, consensus was not gained from discussion, so now consensus must be gained through acceptance and time.
 * I participated in the votes which included the bad options created by people who thought this was about who could get the most sources and ignored logic and reason, that's fine, but my participation in the process does not mean I cannot criticize the process or the horrible solution you came up with. I am abiding by the original letter of the DRN: That this is about the territories. The DRN has apparently decided the territories are neither part nor not-part of the country, but rather have "differing levels of autonomy". Fine, weasel your way out of making an actual decision, that's fine, I don't mind, put that in there as long as you can source the ever living hell out of it and don't create an inconsistency with the rest of the article or the pedia. But I did not participate in a DRN that came up with phrasing, except to criticize it. --Golbez (talk) 14:00, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Insert : Yes, you didn't participate, all you did was criticize, everything, even the process of consensus we all voted in, several times, and you're still at it. No one is 100% delighted with the lede and notes, and we all have our points of criticism -- not just you, sir. I have striken my less than civil 'term' and for whatever it's worth, your user page doesn't exactly inspire good faith. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:06, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I wasn't aware that arguing the merits of a proposal, and voting in every vote, didn't count as participation. Please tell me more. --Golbez (talk) 16:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you think it might be time for a RSN discussion? Because I am pretty sure the differing levels of autonomy is supported by the legal encyclopedias I've been kicking around for awhile now. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 14:20, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, the way I see it, their "level of autonomy" is a separate question from "are they part of the country," which is also why it annoyed me. I don't know if it's RSN-time yet, if only because no final proposal has really been made for the notes and sourcing. And really, I must give credit to those who ran the DRN: They did their best, but they fell into the trap of trying to determine a specific wording rather than finding the specific spirit. It doesn't matter as much how it's worded, as long as we agree on what it's trying to say. But, by design or by accident, we appear to have fallen into that trap. I'm now trying to pull people back from that. They've apparently found the spirit, but the wording needs work. --Golbez (talk) 14:35, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah. That makes sense. I can sign on to that concern, though as I've contended I disagree that the wording is so bad as to necessitate substantial further revision. Nevertheless, I feel like DRN was making the best of what they could; we each have our own opinions and arguments on the merits, and are not making headway towards persuading each other no matter how long the debate goes on. Truth be told, we all have valid arguments. There is no binding mediation on WP for content issues, thus I believe DRN was doing the next best thing; pushing us to the next step. While we can reject the specific implementation, I suggest that the strategy of focusing on the implementation rather than the merits would be more productive for us at this juncture? &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 14:55, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

edit break 2
I saw another reductio ad absurdum above, signaling a retreat from previous PROGRESS ( * ) in consensus building here by the end of January. Supreme Court says extent of the U.S. is a political question decided by Congress, and Congress extends republican self-government, and citizenship in organic acts as it has incorporated territories over the last 200 years, as sourced, quoted and linked above. In the modern era since 1962, Congress summarily makes a formal definition of the extent in the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) as amended, as cited, directly quoted and linked by Buzity in January? discussion. We had the following summary of movement to "include territories" among participants. We do now ALL agree, as of 7 February,

* “Exlude territories” (ET) side allows primary and secondary source discussion beyond unnamed "all the sources" of unnamed editor consensus. * Congressional statute is the law of states and territories, territorial referendum accepting U.S. citizenship and congressional supremacy does not "exclude" them from the U.S. federal republic. * Congress is bound by the Constitution and cannot suspend territorial legislatures or U.S. citizenship anywhere. * British territory without Member of Parliament is not equivalent to U.S. territory with Member of Congress. * Territorial Members of Congress do exist at .gov websites. * No objection to the official “include territories” found in U.S. Code applicable wherever the word "state" apprears for all federal courts. * U.S.G. in the modern era routinely includes territories "as a part of the U.S." in Census of population, economy and agriculture, Post Office, Immigration and Naturalization Acts and State Department Manual. * "including" need not await ocean treaty surveys resolution to compute square areas of territory. * Data reported in France (98% by OECD), and U.S. (98% by Census), does not change international rankings. * The "Insular Case extent" of the official U.S. as “incorporated” 50 states, DC, and Palmyra Atoll is inappropriate for article. * [In March, 1911 tertiary source for "U.S. republic includes 50 states" without territories and DC is inappropriate.] *- ET's court cases are mostly prior to 1935, as referenced in tertiary sources. * Productive economies of self-governing U.S. citizens on islands are not equivalent to uninhabited islands of palms, guano pits and seagulls.

Still no secondary sources from a reliable academic source since 1962 to say either (a) in the Negative, "U.S. territories are not a part of the U.S. federal republic." or (b) in the Affirmative, "The official United States of America is fifty states, the federal district and Palmyra Atoll.", the court-made 1901-1904 “incorporation” of territories without Congress. --- Golbez a month and a half ago, ''"And by "exclude territories" side, you mean the three or four people arguing for it, and by "include territories" side, you mean [tvh] and Buzity? Because the problem is that you can't say you won unless you gain consensus from others that you won. And it still looks like the numbers aren't in your favor." --Golbez (talk) 10:03 am, 6 February 2013. '' With only tertiary sources on one side, the secondary sources for the other are to determine the course of the narrative at WP. Still no secondary sources to say, "exclude territories" in the modern era, October 2012-March 2013. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:25, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Well that was three paragraphs of ... something. I have no clue what you are trying to say here. It's as if you're trying to fight the DRN again, that fight's over, move on to implementation. --Golbez (talk) 13:54, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I have to agree with Golbez on this point. I'm trying to understand what's written above as anything other than a rehashing of prior arguments... but I cannot. Let's move on, folks. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 14:18, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I would love to move on, but there always seems to be someone introducing new objections, and after many weeks of debate -- and then when a complete lack of respect for the process we all participated in hits the fan one can only wonder if this debate will ever end. We voted on a lede. I am not 100% happy with the lede, and I believe no one else is -- this is why we answered questions and voted several times to come up with a lede that acknowledges territories, yet doesn't say outright that they are part of the United States. But no, this is still not good enough -- and the fuzzy objections continue. Not my idea of "perfection". Are we going to implement it or not? If there are issues about  'being a republic'  and  'governed by a federal republic' , then why don't we simply say this?:


 * The United States of America is a federal republic, governed by a federal government, consisting of fifty states and a federal district, as well as several territories with differing degrees of autonomy. It is commonly called the United States (US, USA) and colloquially as America.


 * We can mention that the states govern themselves to a certain extent and also note how the territories are treated with notes and/or in the body of the text -- but we need to take the first step and get the lede into place. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 15:48, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Because that's horrible. The article currently begins, "The United States ... is a federal republic". What is wrong with that? Why this obsession over saying what it's governed by? Seriously, you just wrote "is a federal republic governed by a federal government". This isn't the Simple English Wikipedia, we don't need to repeat words. --Golbez (talk) 16:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * How does that not say outright they are part of the United States? It's very explicit in its inclusion of them as part of the United States. CMD (talk) 15:58, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * the phrase differing degrees of autonomy. addresses that. You need to review the weeks of discussions. This point has been addressed. No one is 100% satisfied. The idea is to not to say the territories are completely independent and have nothing to do with the federal government. We are trying to move on, not start at square one all over again. Thanks for your interest of late. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:15, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * "Differing degrees of autonomy" does not answer the question of if they are part of the nation. You can have differing degrees of autonomy within a nation (see Hong Kong and China) and differing degrees of autonomy without a nation (compare Bermuda and Pitcairn Island)). --Golbez (talk) 16:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I have read over the discussions, since they were linked on my talkpage. The phrase "differing degrees of autonomy" addresses nothing. Even if we accept that autonomy is something that determines whether an area is part of a country or not, which it isn't, are we now trying to say the territories are parts of the countries to differing degrees? We could, but most of the the discussion has been a simple in/out up to this point. CMD (talk) 16:36, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The source provided for the broader definition of the U.S. made a clear distinction between parts of the U.S. that were part of the republic and parts that were outside. "Governed by a federal government", which is awkward grammar, is misleading because by definition federations also have state governments.  We should get sources supporting the consensus view and see what they say.  TFD (talk) 16:10, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Is the above lede finally acceptable?
 * Yes -- Gwillhickers (talk) 15:53, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes -- ancillary, non-critical, could also read, "governed by a national government". TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:57, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No - see my comments above. TFD (talk) 16:10, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No -- see my comments and alternate suggestion below. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 16:13, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes though the first "federal" is redundant here. Collect (talk) 16:16, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * God no. "Governed by a national government"? As opposed to what, a subnational government? Supernational government? Where on earth are y'all pulling this? Has anyone in Wikipedia or, indeed, anywhere ever described a country in such a repetitious way? What makes you feel the need to be the first? --Golbez (talk) 16:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Another suggested wording
I'm not crazy about that phrasing; to me the "republic" is the "government", and at that point we might as well say "The USA is a federal republic consisting of [etc]." Oddly, I think I understand Golbez' position a bit better in light of this phrasing. Sorry. How about this instead?
 * "The United States of America . . . is a federal republic governing fifty states, a federal district, and several territories and possessions."

I don't think it's contested that the United States governs those places, though the degree of governance is certainly open to debate. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 16:09, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * While vastly less horrid, that still seems to divorce the type of government from the country. Unless I'm mistaken, we don't describe any country like that. The amazing thing is, this is all wording specifically designed to not answer the question that we went to DRN to answer. Simply amazing. Months of discussion and the best they came up with "Let's word it in an obtuse way to avoid having to actually make a decision!" People, it's simple: Is Puerto Rico part of the United States? Is Guam part of the United States? Is American Samoa part of the United States? Is the CNMI part of the United States? Are the USVI part of the United States? Is Palmyra Atoll part of the United States? Are the other uninhabited minor territories part of the United States? These are seven simple yes/no questions that somehow got drowned in volumes and volumes of repetitious, empty discussion. If there is NOT a simple yes/no answer for any of the above, then ... gosh, the status quo kind of works, then, doesn't it. --Golbez (talk) 16:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Wasn't there objections from you about a nation being a "republic", i.e.a state of being, as opposed to a republic that is the actual government, which is an instrument of rule? My proposal makes that distinction, and your objection, once again, is highly opinionated and goes against your own criticism. Instead of endlessly picking and poking at the constructive suggestions of others why don't you break away from the endless blur of fuzzy criticisms and simply offer us a constructive suggestion of your own for the lede, for a change?-- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:45, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Were there? The nation IS a republic. It has a republican form of government but I wouldn't say it was governed by a republic. Iceland is an island governed by a republic; Cyprus is an island at present governed by two republics; but the Republic of Cyprus is not a republic governed by a republican form of a republic. And here's a constructive suggestion: The status quo (you know, the thing that got the second most votes). Bam, problem solved. --Golbez (talk) 17:02, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * "Bam"?? Sounds more like a 'thud' -- same old sand-bag. The above phrase America is a federal republic, governed by a federal government clearly states that "The nation IS a republic" and doesn't say it is ruled by a republic. Hello? Seems you're simply objecting out of habit, still. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:35, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The reason for separating the type of government from the country is in part because of the ambiguity of the term "United States". By doing so, we avoid foreclosing the possibilities that the various territories and possessions are or are not part of the United States. I have argued that the phrase is ambiguous, and from context to context may include or exclude the territories. So yes, you're right in that it avoids making the decision, but I consider that a necessary and even desirable aspect of phrasing the lede, and that we will go on to discuss the status of the territories and possessions in a later section. And you're right, that's not a simple yes-no answer, but I don't think that necessarily pushes us towards the status quo. It has been argued, though not by me, that the status quo does exclude, or at least denigrates the position of the territories and possessions. Does a rephrasing to appease those concerns actually harm the article? Are the points being made actually spurious or tendentious? I don't think so on either point, even if I don't agree with the merits of the argument for explicit inclusion. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 16:55, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It was proposed by some that we somehow split out "United States (country)" and "United States (greater sphere of influence)", since it lacked convenient terms for those like we have for the Realm of New Zealand, Kingdom of Denmark, etc. However, because there are not common terms for those in the US, they are not common terms that exist. We have the UK and its greater sphere, but that greater sphere does not get mentioned because it is not specifically a thing. Just like the US's. This paragraph makes almost no sense. :P --Golbez (talk) 17:02, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Collect, and others, if the use of 'federal' in the above proposal is "redundant" we can say this:


 * The United States of America is a federal republic, governed by a federal government, consisting of fifty states and a federal district, as well as several territories with differing degrees of autonomy. It is commonly called the United States (US, USA) and colloquially as America.

This still retains the structure of what was voted on yet distinguishes between the republic and the federal government and it still mentions that territories have differing degrees of autonomy. It's a real shame that after all the original talk here, then on the DRN, that we are back here still entertaining endless minor points of contention. This is as close as it's going to get considering everyone has at least one point of contention. Some, as usual, have endless points of contention and are unable or refuse to offer suggestions of their own, so we need to recognize that and move forward. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:35, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * The dispute resolution discussion was about whether the U.S. included territories, not whether the territories were part of the republic. The main source to include the territories clearly placed them outside the republic.  The compromise wording at DRN reflected that.  TFD (talk) 17:45, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * There are no secondary government sources but those below. There is no imaginary "main source". You cannot cite it, there is no direct quote, "the modern U.S. territories are not a part of the U.S." the compromise reflected the territories are a part of the republic, because there are no sources cited in the last half-century to the contrary. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 18:00, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * The secondary source you have brought up numerous times is rrowrrow's "Empires External and Internal". The sources below are primary which do not define the U.S. but you are using as evidence3 to argue your position.  TFD (talk) 18:16, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The primary documents are the statutes. I am relying on interpretation from secondary government sources from the State Department, Homeland Security, Government Accounting Office, and Census Department. At your request, scholarly sources to follow, but wait, we already did that and you refuse to acknowledge them, without supplying any of your own. "All sources say" is not a source. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 18:24, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * "At present, the United States includes the Caribbean and Pacific territories, the District of Columbia and, of course, the fifty states." (Sparrow in Levinson and Sparrow, 2005, p.232). Louisiana Purchase and American expansion, 1803-1898 There is only tertiary editor synthesis of 100-year old court cases and superseded 50-year-old resolutions to the contrary, supported by wp:personal attacks to exclude territories, versus secondary government and scholarly sources supported by primary sources to include territories. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 01:33, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * And, as we all know, Sparrow is the singular authority on the territorial extent of the United States of America. --Golbez (talk) 04:58, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

insert
 * @ Golbez, we have reliable scholarly sources in Lawson and Sloane, Juan R. Torruella, Levinson and Sparrow, and others, but none to contradict them, because you and three others have found no alternatives, October 2012-March 2013. Let’s have a sourced online encyclopedia best done by secondary sources, backed up by primary for illustration. To date, after some discussion, instead of a tertiary source confusing governors and mayors and the order of the U.S. branches of government as found in Article I, II, III, used now by editor synthesis to exclude territories without a direct quote,


 * We now have direct quotes to include territories in the federal republic from international law review articles from Boston College, University of Pennsylvania, and Federal Lawyer, and an academic publication of constitutional historians and political scientists, along with secondary government sources interpreting the primary statute sources from Government Accounting Office, State Department, Homeland Security and the Census Bureau, along with fourteen modern U.S.G. primary sources to illustrate --- modern U.S. territories are included in the U.S. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:15, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * "modern U.S. territories are included in the U.S." Awesome, but why are you bringing this up now? You already had your DRN. you already WON your DRN. NO ONE HAS DISPUTED THE NATURE OF THE DRN WHEN IT COMES TO TERRITORIES WHY ARE YOU CONTINUING TO FIGHT OVER THIS I SERIOUSLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON --Golbez (talk) 12:10, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Sparrow wrote, "Despite the continued existence of the territories and the U.S. government lands, students of federalism and the U.S. political system chronically assume the United States to be a nation of states, operating under federal principles and constituted wholly by the separate states. How, then, did the United States come to encompass these persons and areas outside the sphere of its federal republic.... And at present, the United States includes the Caribbean and Pacific territories, the District of Columbia, and, of source, the fifty states....  The reality of the United State' possessions within and without the several states, however, has not been integrated into thinking about the American political system. Rather the consistent premise has been that the United States has a federal system, a national polity consituted in its entirety by its component states. Writers on the U.S. political system ignore how the existence of the territories and U.S. government lands can be reconciled with the notion of a federal nation-state.(pp. 232,240)"  None of that, even your quote out of context, supports your opinion that the territories are part of the republic.  Even Sparrow says that they are not normally considered to be part of the U.S.  TFD (talk) 04:33, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * @ TFD. An academic forum of scholars rewrote their papers for academic publication co-author-edited by Sanford Levinson and Bartholomew Sparrow. Sparrow, the political scientist lead, noted historical context can inform the earlier mistaken view in the field of political science, that the federal republic was solely the states without territories. "The U.S. has always been more than states." Correcting errors of narrow-scope in the fields was the point of constitutional historians and political scientists talking to one another, and the book.


 * Territories can be a part of a federal republic. They are incorporated prior to statehood by congressional “legacy of the Northwest Territory”. The modern U.S. territories all enjoy more privileges than the last four territories admitted to the Union. You admit Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska and Hawaii were all incorporated into the U.S. federal republic before statehood, but you still misunderstand Sparrow’s direct quote, cited and linked, copied and pasted. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:15, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Note 1. secondary sources
Here are four secondary U.S.G. sources. A previous editor saw that the secondary sources were supported by primary sources of statutory law and objected. The contrary editor a) claimed the source did not show the "geographical extent" of the U.S., b) Government Printing Office was foisting unsourced original research on the public, and c) misrepresented me.


 * U.S. Census secondary source interpreting U.S. statutes, Community survey reports. The term "native-born American" refers to "anyone born in the United States, Puerto Rico, or a U.S. Island Area, ... [including] Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands”.


 * GAO Report to congress, secondary source interpreting Congressional larger organized territories, U.S. Insular Areas, Application of the U.S. Constitution November 1997. Specific organic acts establishing fundamental constitutional protections, full citizenship, republican government and territorial Member of Congress, four organized territories, Samoa with nationals and naturalized U.S. citizens voting.


 * An American national is either a citizen or someone who “owes permanent allegiance to the U.S..” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(21), (22). Citizenship legislation has been enacted for Puerto Rico (8 U.S.C. § 1402); the Virgin Islands (8 U.S.C. § 1406); Guam (8 U.S.C. § 1407); and the CNMI (sec. 303 of the Covenant, as approved by the Congress). (Under section 302 of the Covenant, authority exists for certain CNMI residents to have elected to become nationals but not citizens of the U.S..) “No such legislation conferring citizenship has been enacted for American Samoa. The Samoans are non-citizen nationals owing permanent allegiance to the United States… [T]hey are not aliens and consequently cannot be excluded or deported."


 * Department of Homeland Security secondary source, interpreting U.S. statutes, Welcome to the United States A Guide for New Immigrants Pages 77, 83 and 101, "Today, the U.S. includes 50 states, DC and [five organized territories]."


 * U.S. Department of State secondary source interpreting Congressional INA statute: U.S. citizenship and nationality. 7 FAM 1112, a. and b. p.3-4, “the term ‘United States’, when used in a geographical sense, means (a) the continental [U.S.], Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the [U.S.] Virgin Islands.” and (b) since 1986, “Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands [is] in Political Union with the United States of America”. Secondary government source, Welcome, A guide for immigrants p.7, “The [U.S.] now consists of 50 states, the District …, the territories of Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the commonwealths of the Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico.”


 * GAO Report to congress, secondary source interpreting Congressional statutes on smaller unorganized territories, U.S. Insular Areas, Application of the U.S. Constitution November 1997. Since the United States established sovereignty over the five larger insular areas, each has pursued greater self-government. None of the nine smaller insular areas has a native population or local government. p.9. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 17:57, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * TheVirginiaHistorian, you said above, "Congress...cannot suspend territorial legislatures." Is there any source for that and what relevance does it have to the discussion?  TFD (talk) 17:57, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Constitution application among a population can only grow, never retract. Congress cannot withdraw citizenship, republican government, constitutional protections "at will" from territories. Secondary source, Lawson and Sloane showed whatever the "theoretical powers" speculated for Congress by Insular Cases, the modern territories have constitutional status "equivalent" to incorporated states. That is, they are a part of the U.S. federal republic in the modern era.
 * Secondary source is supported by primary sources: Downes v. Bidwell, 1901, that once the Constitution has been extended to an area, its coverage is "irrevocable"; Boumediene v. Bush, 2008- “The Nation’s basic charter cannot be contracted.” That where the Constitution has been once formally extended by Congress to territories, neither Congress nor the territorial legislature can enact inconsistent laws. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 18:15, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * The prolonged DRN (and every) discussion was and is all over the map and you are demonstrating the point of endless contentions. Time to move forward. We realize you and Goblez will never be happy with anything, so again, we need to recognize that and move forward. It seems that several participants have bowed out of this 'discussion' such that it is, because of this and this has got to stop. Please don't think for a minute we are going to leave the existing lede version in place after we all had a chance to raise objections, answer numerous questions and voted, several times, simply because you and Golbez think you can do so by endlessly dragging your feet. It's become obvious that this is your 'plan'. You are purposely flooding the page again with more of your lengthy and repetitive discourse. We all voted and are now doing the final adjustments regarding "republic" and "federal government". -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:12, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, never mind, I'll stop explaining repeatedly how I'm willing to work with this, how I wasn't going to revert or otherwise interfere with your precious version, but never mind. I have nothing more to prove to you. If you want to be willfully blind to my repeated pleas that I actually am NOT acting out of sour grapes, then I won't make them to you anymore. Maybe I'll revert! Who knows! Wildcard, baby! --Golbez (talk) 18:37, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Is it only me, or is there anyone that is even remotely persuaded by TVH's voluminous verbosity? older ≠ wiser 18:15, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Your forgot to mention TFD's "voluminous verbosity", in full view of your 'reply'. We need constructive suggestions. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:24, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * My posting are more concise that yours. TFD (talk) 18:39, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * @Gwillhickers, not only are TFD's posting more concise, they are generally far more intelligible that the discursively indiscriminate firehose wielded by TVH. older ≠ wiser 19:53, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Still no sources? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 18:19, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Still beating that dead horse? older ≠ wiser 18:27, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No not dead, the dream of a sourced online encyclopedia lives on. Editors see in Lawson and Sloane, Juan R. Torruella, Levinson and Sparrow --- that the five organized U.S. territories of today have a constitutional status “equivalent” to incorporated states, they are "a part of the United States". TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 23:41, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Proposal

 * The United States of America is a federal republic, governed by a federal government, consisting of fifty states and a federal district, as well as several territories with differing degrees of autonomy. It is commonly called the United States (US, USA) and colloquially as America.


 * Yes -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:12, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No, "governed by a federal government" is confusingly redundant.
 * No --Golbez (talk) 18:37, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, the "federal government" of U.S. usage is "national government" everywhere else, as opposed to a confederated republic. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 18:47, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Better --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:07, 19 March 2013 (UTC)--

Alternate: "The United States of America is a federal republic, governed by a national government, consisting of fifty states and a federal district, as well as several territories with differing degrees of autonomy. It is commonly called the United States (US, USA) and colloquially as America." TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 18:47, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I only object to losing "Federal republic".--Amadscientist (talk) 19:19, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Proposal II

 * The United States of America is a federal republic consisting of fifty states and a federal district. The federal government also possesses/administers several territories with differing degrees of autonomy. It is commonly called the United States (US, USA) and colloquially as America.


 * Not sure which is the most acceptable/least offensive verb to use in the second sentence. Some of the territories are clearly more than mere "possessions", and any disposition would need to be mutual and not unilateral. older ≠ wiser 18:25, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Not bad. though that comma after republic seems superfluous, and I don't think the 'commonly called' etc needs to be changed from what it is now. Administers works for me. --Golbez (talk) 18:37, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Right, the comma was remnant of copy pasting. older ≠ wiser 19:00, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Absolutely not.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:13, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * No source, no good. Second sentence is without sourcing, so it is unsatisfactory. In the GAO 1995 report on Insular Territory, we see only the nine unpopulated places are unorganized, administered by the federal government's Interior Department, NASA and the Army. Otherwise, the Bartholomew Sparrow source shows populated territories are consistent with a federal republic, and today, the U.S. includes the Caribbean and Pacific territories. Do you have a contrary source? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 18:37, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No matter how much you bluster and misrepresent what sources say, the territories are not participants in the union on equal footing with the other states. If there is some other term that can capture the distinction without requiring a dissertation, please make a suggestion. The relationship of the territories to the U.S. is a function of the federal government. Congress and the executive branch have granted a degree of representation and participation in the federal government, though not equal to the states, and that grant derives from statutory or executive authority, and is not the same status as that of the states participation in the federal government. older ≠ wiser 19:00, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Insert: Nonsense, strawman. You have no sources. Since 1805, incorporated territories are never on equal footing with states in U.S. constitutional practice until admitted as states. Sparrow says step-1 possession, step-2 military governor, no citizens, step-3 "legacy of Northwest Territory" prepare for statehood, elected governor, path to citizenship, local self-government, territorial Member of Congress. Modern era territories have more rights than incorporated territories of NM, AZ, AK and HI before them, admitted in the 20th century. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 01:46, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Damn it, Bkonrad, don't make me agree with TVH. :P Territories not being on equal footing with the states has nothing to do with if they're part of the country or not. --Golbez (talk) 04:58, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're right that "equal footing" is really not the issue. I only bring it up as TVH repeatedly makes the bogus claim that territories are equivalent to states. older ≠ wiser 12:35, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not a strict exclusionist. The territories are clearly part of the U.S. in certain contexts. I think it is reprehensible how you misrepresent your sources and then twist other editors words. I've nothing to say to you. If others want to try to represent your positions, there may be something to discuss. older ≠ wiser 02:17, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Insert : If what TVH says is indeed true then it would seem you are the one who's blustering, as you didn't refute his claim. . Also, as you mentioned, the territories are not on "equal footing", but this is acknowledged by differing degrees of autonomy, the details of which are distinguished in the text. Remember, this is the first sentence in the lede, so trying to find a phrase that will cover every imaginable detail will in itself be a self defeating task, given all of our 'agreeable' natures. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:24, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Even the STATES have differing levels of autonomy. For example, some states aren't allowed to change their voting laws without federal permission. --Golbez (talk) 20:01, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * TVH's synthesis and distortions have been addressed previously and I have no desire to engage directly with such tendentiousness. Other than that, I'm not sure what your point is. I agree that equal footing is addressed by differing degrees of autonomy. TVH is the one who seems to have some issue with it. older ≠ wiser 19:46, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * insert. You have no sources. I offer direct quotes, secondary sources, primary source backup and links. "The U.S. is a federal republic of 50 states, a federal district and several territories, all with varying degrees of autonomy." is sourced, there is no source presented to dispute it. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 01:55, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * You have highly selective quotations that you then distort and misrepresent. As far as I'm concerned, nothing (and I mean nothing) that you say can be trusted. older ≠ wiser 02:17, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * @TVH, I don't understand your point here, or why it's contrary to the statement above. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 19:16, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * insert ... federal republic consists of 50 states, a federal district and several territories all with differing degrees of autonomy.
 * The polities are of four descriptions:
 * a) 50 states with or without restrictions on voting rights discretion, statewide, certain counties, et al,
 * b) a federal district, with Article I federal courts of two year appointments, presidential electors, frequent municipal reorganization by congress, territorial Member of Congress, et al,
 * c) five organized territories with local autonomy but self-governance less than states, Article III courts with life appointments, may be constitutional writing authority, without presidential electors, territorial Member of Congress, et al,
 * d) nine unorganized territories without population administered directly by Federal Dept. of Interior (7), NASA (1) or U.S. Army (1). TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 00:20, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Pretty good. I think there should be an adjective before "states" signifying that they have some autonomy as well. Not like French "departments" for example. The para grants "autonomy" to territories. Separating them is much better for readability but lost the adjective for states, I think.
 * How about the vague "has" instead of "possesses or administers" for territories? Student7 (talk) 19:49, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I have actually read TVHs, and everyone else comments, in their entirety. To answer Golbez: Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes. All the territories are part of the United States.
 * TVH has provided reliable sources that verify that they are. TVH's comments may appear to be long winded, and some people when the comments are not concise get all ignore when that happens, but at least they are provided to independently determine the quality of those references. I understand others do not agree with me, guess what, others don't agree with you either. It's OK, we are all entitled to our opinions. That being said, one of the pillars of Wikipedia is WP:VER.
 * Please provide reliable sources that explicitly state that the United States excludes Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Marianas Islands, American Samoa, and all of its uninhabited territories.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:24, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Er, problem: I don't think even TVH has suggested that the minor outlying islands are part of the U.S., which is why he consistently says five inhabited territories. As for a source: The CIA World Factbook. Really, all of this is the government's fault for not saying one way or another. Some agencies say they are, while others (like the Census and CIA) leave out the territories by default. I don't really care what third party sources have to say, and neither should anyone involved in this, and that was the numbers game trap y'all fell in to. --Golbez (talk) 04:58, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * That being said, I understand that there are those who disagree with this, this is the reason why the wording that was agreed at DRN, is a compromise. It leaves room for those different context where some sources only include the continental U.S., only include the 50 states and federal district, and that include all of the United States. Am I 100% happy with the compromise language? No, that's why it's called compromise language.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:27, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * TVH has not provided a single reliable source for his viewpoint. If you want to discuss the issue, then present them.  To kick off RCLC's request for a source, I present a secondary source, Encyclopedia of World Constitutions, "The United States of America is a federal state comprising 50 autonomous regional provinces, called states, plus the District of Columbia, which serves as the capital."  TFD (talk) 02:21, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * TVH's sourcing, as usual, is utterly inconsistent with Wikipedia practices. Executive and administrative publications are not secondary sources, they are not reliable sources for the claims he is trying to make using them. Furthermore, in every case I've actually taken the time to read through one of his sources, the source either explicitly limits itself to a very specific purpose (such as the 7 FLM source) or is outright not scholarly in the least (the "Welcome to America" pamphlet). Finally, his arguments presume, without giving any semblance of justification, that the outcome of this discussion should be controlled by "official" government sources. We aren't talking about politics here, we're talking about the meaning of a phrase, which is a linguistics problem... and linguistics problems are resolved by looking at actual usage in the real world. In consideration of this, the fact that it has been brought up repeatedly during my participation here, and the fact that TVH has continued to bombard this and other venues with the same or similar sources ad nauseam, I propose that TVH's continued participation in this discussion is disruptive. I don't like to make these kinds of pronouncements nor to discourage participation, but I'm seeing this discussion become derailed by arguments about sourcing yet again when it is well settled that all sides have some reliable nonprimary source working in their favor. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 03:01, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Honestly, TVH's obsession with rehashing the argument that HE WON A FEW DAYS AGO is getting a little distressing. If he got his way, in six months would he still be telling us about Sparrow and how the US includes, of course, the fifty states? Maybe we should head straight to Arbcom, do not pass go. --Golbez (talk) 04:58, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd love some binding resolution to this quagmire, but you and I both know that's not happening anytime soon. I wish we had some viable solution to propose (I don't mean the status quo :-P) that we could hold an RFC on and at least get more eyes on this. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 05:31, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Mendaliv, with all due respect, can you link us to the specific WP policy that says "Executive and administrative publications are not secondary sources, they are not reliable sources" in no uncertain terms? TVH's sources are not primary, or tertiary. I have seen governmental sources used throughout WP. e.g.the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress is referred to frequently, while articles like United States Census Bureau indeed use government sources for references. While I agree we should not let the sources be "controlled" by the US gov I don't think that's the case here at all since the US gov is indeed a body of elected officials belonging to separate parties, often in opposition to one another, not some lone dictator, so I would think your usage of the term 'control' is a little off the mark. What you seem to be suggesting is that we should ignore all these official sources and let one author of some 'world constitutions' encyclopedia "control" matters. The government is a body that functions in the "real world". If as you say "all sides have some reliable nonprimary source working in their favor", then we should go with those "reliable nonprimary source"(s) that indeed correspond with the official sources. -- In any case, we need to see some links to the WP policy that supports your contention regarding government sources. The only policy that comes close to this is this one, but the qualifying items 1-5 don't fit the description -- but again, governmental sources are often used for government related articles and articles about U.S. history. Finally, TFD's encyclopedia source is a tertiary source and WP:Reliable sources says: Tertiary sources such as compendia, encyclopedias, textbooks, obituaries, and other summarizing sources may be used to give overviews or summaries, but should not be used in place of secondary sources for detailed discussion. (emphasis added) -- Gwillhickers (talk) 04:29, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:PSTS, WP:V, WP:SYN, etc. I'm not saying that such sources cannot be used period, but their use in this case is absolutely inappropriate because the statement being sourced is not what the source states and other sources demonstrate that there is controversy. And as we're in a lede, we aren't engaged in detailed discussion; we're giving an overview, and tertiary sources are perfect for this (by the way, I reserve the possibility that these legal encyclopedias are secondary sources given they frequently almost exclusively cite primary sources for their arguments). Let's go to WP:RSN if you disagree. It's absolutely ridiculous to bind ourselves to politically-motivated definitions that are explicitly limited in scope, and which are made to prevent these sorts of arguments from happening because (surprise) the argument that the territories and possessions are not part of the United States is not patently nonsensical. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 05:25, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It's like you're saying that using official publications from the Ford motor company is inappropriate for sourcing articles about Ford automobiles. Nonsense. Again, government sources are used to cite governmental topics all the time throughout WP. And it would be nice if, when you link to a WP policy page, you would also highlight the actual passage that supports your claim. Again, if both sides have secondary sources that corroborate official sources then we should go with that winning combination. So far all we have from TFD is an encyclopedia about constitutions around the world, not even specific to the USA, and his Insular cases, well addressed by TVH in terms of American nationals, citizenship, et al. Call the encyclopedia a 'secondary source' if you must but it hardly measures up to the all the other sources that say otherwise. And what is the average reader going to think when they see WP making claims that are completely contrary to all the official sources? It's no wonder WP is not considered a reliable source in colleges and most of academia, and, at least here in California, WP is blocked on high school computers. Seems we have all just witnessed a first hand demonstration as to why that is.  -- Gwillhickers (talk) 06:09, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * The government sources provided by TVH are all either primary or tertiary, depending on whether they are being used as evidence or as sources. For example a government document that says Puerto Ricans are citizens is a primary source used to argue that therefore the country is part of the U.S., while a document that says PR is part of the U.S. is tertiary because it summarizes information.  The encyclopedia of constitutional law on the other hand would normally be considered secondary because the article is signed by an expert.  Anyway, Burnett and Marshall explain the constitutional position in their article in Foreign in a Domestic Sense: Puerto Rico, American Expansion, and the Constitution, Duke University Press, 2001, p. 1,
 * "The phrase that entitles this book, and which describes the constitutional status of the "territories" of the United States, appeared in an opinion of the United States Supreme Court much noted in its time, and crucial to the period of United States imperialism a century ago but almost forgotten since then: Dowes v. Bidwell. This was one of a series of decisons known as the Insular Cases, which in 1901 gave legal sanction to the colonization of islands taken by the United States at the close of the Spanish-American War: Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Instead, they were something in between: in the words of Justice Edward Douglass White, whose concurrence in Downes would eventually be adopted by a unanimous Supreme Court, they were "foreign to the United States in a domestic sense." They had not been, he explained, "incorporated" into the United States upon their acquisition from Spain, but were, in the phrase the Court would later adopt, "unincorporated territories," belonging to-but not part of-the United States."
 * TFD (talk) 05:49, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * TVH has already cited material that puts the Insular cases into proper context and you are simply repeating arguments that have been several times addressed:


 * GAO Report to congress, secondary source interpreting Congressional larger organized territories, U.S. Insular Areas, Application of the U.S. Constitution November 1997. Specific organic acts establishing fundamental constitutional protections, full citizenship, republican government and territorial Member of Congress, four organized territories, Samoa with nationals and naturalized U.S. citizens voting.


 * An American national is either a citizen or someone who “owes permanent allegiance to the U.S..” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(21), (22). Citizenship legislation has been enacted for Puerto Rico (8 U.S.C. § 1402); the Virgin Islands (8 U.S.C. § 1406); Guam (8 U.S.C. § 1407); and the CNMI (sec. 303 of the Covenant, as approved by the Congress). (Under section 302 of the Covenant, authority exists for certain CNMI residents to have elected to become nationals but not citizens of the U.S..) “No such legislation conferring citizenship has been enacted for American Samoa. The Samoans are non-citizen nationals owing permanent allegiance to the United States… [T]hey are not aliens and consequently cannot be excluded or deported."


 * Again government sources are used all the time here at WP, and the last time I checked, the USA page and this talk page are part of WP. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 06:09, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * None of your sources say that the territories have been incorporated into the U.S. See synthesis:  "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources."  Your source says Congress has extended citizenship to PR, but does not say it has incorporated PR.  Your synthesis on nationality is even weaker because all residents of U.S. territories have always been U.S. nationals.  TFD (talk) 06:24, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Please don't mix words. We are not trying to saying anything about "incorporated" in the lede -- we are asserting that the territories are indeed part of the US, and the sources do indeed say this:
 * Constitutional scholar Sanford Levinson edited an anthology in 2005 with co-editor Bartholomew Sparrow. (a) Sparrow says p.232, territories are a part of a federal nation-state; today the U.S. includes territories in the Caribbean and Pacific. (b) Lawson and Sloane in Boston College Law Review p.1160-1162, and (c) Judge Juan R. Torruella in the Journal of International Law p.326, are “include territories" scholarly sources. As TVH has maintained, several times, no one has found any scholarly source to refute these sources i.e. none say they “exclude territories” from the Union.


 * Department of Homeland Security secondary source, interpreting U.S. statutes, Welcome to the United States A Guide for New Immigrants Pages 77, 83 and 101, "Today, the U.S. includes 50 states, DC and [five organized territories]."


 * Secondary government source, Welcome, A guide for immigrants p.7, “The [U.S.] now consists of 50 states, the District …, the territories of Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the commonwealths of the Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico.”


 * Reminder, per the U.S. Constitution: Article III: Section 3, Clause 2: The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States.


 * -- Your argument is not even academic, and a source doesn't necessarily have to be written by someone with a Phd. in history to be authoritative -- and you have provided no sources that says the territories are not part of the United States, still. We have plenty of sources that say they do, along with the Constitution that also supports this fact. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 06:59, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Sparrow says on p. 232 that the territories are not part of a "federal nation-state" but that together both are part of an "empire". Lawson and Sloane reiterate on pp.1160-1162 that the U.S. government considers PR "unicorporated" and claims that it has failed in its obligations to treat PR as a separate, "affililiated state."  Torruella on page 326 merely says that in his opinion Taft erred in not deciding the constitution extended to Puerto Rico.  Basically you are misrepresenting left-wing opinion about the mistreatment of U.S. territories to argue the opposite of what they are saying.  The U.S. government sources are not secondary and are just grasping at straws.  They do not overrule official statements, laws, treaties and judgments of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. government and are contradicted by other tertiary government sources, such as the CIA factbook.  I suggest you read each of the secondary sources you presented in full so that you can understand the facts and arguments they present.  TFD (talk) 07:38, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

insert You have no direct quote for your misrepresentation. You see "empire" and launch off into wp:madeup imagination-America. Sparrow says territories are incorporated before statehood. The federal republic began with territory to the Mississippi River by the 1783 Treaty of Paris. “Territory outside the republic” was incorporated by “democratic empire” in three stages: 1. possession, 2. appointed governor, 3. Territories are incorporated into the republic in preparation for statehood, the “legacy of the Northwest Territory”: on popular referendum accepting constitution, congress and federal courts, then republican self-government, path to citizenship, territorial Member of Congress. The modern territories are a part of the federal republic as cited, directly quoted, and linked to Sparrow, "At present, the [U.S.] includes the Caribbean and Pacific territories ..." which you refuse to admit.

U.S. government are secondary interpretation of the primary, "laws treaties and judgements". More nonsense, I do not say they "overrule" the primary documents, WP policy says editors original research and synthesis is not admissible, yours is not. You have no secondary sources to say the primary documents can be applied to the modern U.S. territories in such a way so as to "exclude" them from the U.S. federal republic. There are secondary government and scholarly sources to include them. Your adamant refusal to admit, "At present, the [U.S.] includes the Caribbean and Pacific territories ..." requires administrative intervention only because you have no counter-source, and cannot find one over the course of four months. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:20, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * United States publications are merely statements of the will of the United States government. The definition of words is based on their real-world usage. The lede as we are wording it does not say "The United States defines itself as X", but "The United States is X". While this might be appropriate if what we were saying was uncontroversial or patently obvious, our extensive discussion has demonstrated that it is both controversial and extremely nuanced, and there are sources to support this.
 * Please don't misunderstand, I am not saying primary sources are inappropriate... as you say, it would be ridiculous to prohibit articles on automobiles from being sourced to the specifications published by their respective manufacturers. However, it would be inappropriate, and probably prohibited, is to take one of those spec sheets that describes the method used to calculate the vehicle's fuel efficiency in miles per gallon and use it to source an statement that fuel efficiency for all vehicles is calculated by that same method. That's what TVH is doing with his sources, especially the statutory ones, and it has been pointed out repeatedly. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 08:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * [insert] The parallel is U.S.G. statutes at law is the primary source manufacturer's manual, and GAO, State Department, Census interpretation is made in secondary source is "Chilton's" (for the leftists cause it includes brand advertisements, fruit of the poisoned tree, but also alternative parts), or "Consumer Reports" (for the conservative, State is an independent branch and GAO is independent auditing). It is nonsense that a secondary source on the U.S.G. is disqualified as TFD proposes, just because it is not fringe-madeup without sources, but references U.S. Code as primary sources. I do not rely on my own conclusion from reading primary sources of current law or 50-year old U.N. resolutions to conclude that modern territories are included, I rely on the judgment of reliably published secondary sources, both government and scholarly. Where are the "exclude territory" sources? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:20, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

1. Where to begin to answer the dumps above. There are no sources for a direct quote “territories are not a part of the U.S.” Since February, I use the interpretation of statutes of by State Department, Homeland Security, GAO, and Census, for my understanding of international status, acquiring citizenship, constitutional status, and “native-born American”. I do not rely on my own interpretation of tertiary sources like CIA Factbook, confusing governors and mayors, or the Constitution's article order. I am not led astray by legal digests to report a case to the Talk page as “remanded” when it was “upheld” constitutionally, “upheld” in law, and “remanded” for a formula Dept. of Health amended in its confusion after the initial trial.

2. The federal republic extends to people in the five organized territories with republican forms of government in self-governing autonomy. The nine unpopulated possessions directly governed by the Federal government’s Interior Department (7), NASA (1) and U.S. Army (1), no others. The term “incorporated” in law, opposed to common usage, is strawman, a judicial fiction of Justice White without statutory precedence. Congress has never used such language prior to admitting any state. Just as strawman, ‘territories are not equal to states’ to imagine they are not a part of the U.S., when scholarly sources say modern territories have a constitutional status “equivalent” to (judicially) incorporated states. Lawson and Sloane scholars say so independently of U.S.G.

3. Homeland Security publishes a guide for immigrants who would be citizens, interpreting statutory law in force. It is vetted by their department attorneys, just as all publications by the U.S. Government Printing Office. Editors object that international law does not acknowledge U.S. citizenship, or island referendums, locally elected legislatures, governors or Members of Congress. There was a two-week fight before ETs stopped objection to their existence, given .gov address and official title. But their existence is never acknowledged. U.S.V.I. must be like British Empire B.V.I., although B.V.I has no Member of Parliament, but U.S.V.I. has no appointed governor and a Member of Congress. But all of that objection to the legitimacy of the U.S.G. and its constitutional practice in the modern era is wp:fringe, which is why we need additional intervention here.

4. The article should NOT be exclusively U.S.G. sourced, but it should not exclude U.S.G as illegitimate, hence Sparrows scholarly conclusion after tracing the historical process of making territories a part of the federal republic prior to statehood --- as for all territories since that of 1783 Treaty of Paris --- and for the modern U.S. territories, "At present, the [U.S.] includes the Caribbean and Pacific territories ..." --- APART from U.S.G. and scholarly statement, counter-U.S.G. sources should be reported, including [note-2] - Three U.S. territories are monitored on the United Nations list of “Non-self governing territories” in 2012, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa.” --- To date Dec 2012-Mar 2013, editors here have found no other sourced counter-U.S.G. sources which apply to the modern era U.S. territories.

5. The lede sentence might read, "The U.S. is a federal republic of a three-branch national government, including 50 states, a federal district, and various territories, all with varying autonomy.", or something like it. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:25, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * why are you obsessed with making the intro even worse --Golbez (talk) 12:06, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No. TVH's proposal would require a consensus that the United States includes territories; there is no such consensus. As I support the ambiguity position, I cannot support this wording. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 12:17, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * [insert]. We can try out another, we are in a process, but this one IS ambiguous, “federal district, and various territories”, and “all with varying autonomy”. There is NO source to say territories and the District have identically autonomy to states, or they-would-BE --- states. There is only scholarly source to say territories with elected governors and a path to citizenship are constitutionally “equivalent” to incorporated states. (Is there anything comparable for the municipality of DC?) No one supposes states are not judicially incorporated, though Congress has never EXPRESSLY said they were; it is a judicial term of art invented by Justice White, and not found in U.S. statutes, nor is it in common usage. Thus NO source can be found to say “the official U.S. of A. is incorporated 50 states, District and Palmyra Atoll.” No source, no good. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:38, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * If you think that language does not mean the country includes the territories, then I think we're dealing with a deeper problem than sourcing. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 13:54, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Also, I'd like to point out, the continuous pointing out of NASA by TVH should highlight the ridiculousness of tacking ourselves to government sources. How the hell would anything that NASA could publish have any bearing on this case? It would be like the Department of Education issuing an opinion on workplace safety in textile mills. Why in the world would we use a source like that? Finally, consider this: of the useful government sources TVH cites (i.e., those that aren't essentially propaganda or indoctrination materials) every last one contains some qualification or limitation on its definition, usually that it limits the use of that definition to a very specific purpose... and the reason for doing this? Convenience and readability; if they didn't define it that way, they'd have to say "United States and its territories and possessions" every time they wanted to use the phrase, or else someone would make the argument that a law lacks jurisdiction over the territories because it does not explicitly make it so. Folks, this is basic statutory construction; statutes do not represent actual usage, which is the real benchmark of meaning. Should the person article talk about corporate entities because defines "person" as including corporate entities? Heck no. In short, TVH must provide a source that unequivocally states the United States includes territories in all contexts (the Sparrow quote taken in context doesn't do this). I have provided sources that state it excludes territories (Black's Law Dictionary) and that it's ambiguous (Am. Jur. and C.J.S.). This spray-and-pray tactic, wherein you're flinging every source you possibly can in the hopes that one will stick, is enormously disruptive and will not magically result in some kind of victory after all this time. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 12:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Your reading of a court case which says, “upheld” twice and “remanded” as --- “reversed” --- is based SOLELY on the inadequacy inherent in tertiary sources, such as Am. Jur. and C.J.S. --- It-is-NOT-your-fault, it’s the tertiarys. But wiki-editors should not be caught in the same careless unsourced trap, we favor secondary sources with primary source illustration. Next, Black’s surveys inclusively, the jurisprudence of two-hundred years, without citing what is currently in force, a disadvantage for anyone doing legal research for present-day use, a caution made at every law library reference service. We want a current country-article for a sourced online encyclopedia of the modern era.


 * As to direct federal administration of uninhabited territory which you again deny without sources, your concern went to NASA, which I took from my notes, but 7 of 9 is verifiable by link now, this morning. Checking Nov 1997 GAO report on U.S. Insular Areas, previously I reported currently Interior Dept. (7), NASA (1), Army (1). In 1997, it was Interior (7), Navy (1), Army (1). THE SOURCE of course reports the "five larger insular areas" continue to increase their self-government, which you refuse to admit, but have no source to deny.


 * Direct Federal administration for seven uninhabited “smaller insular areas” by Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), Department of Interior --- for Palmyra Atoll, Navassa, Johnston Atoll (daily administration under Defense Nuclear Agency 1997), Baker, Howland, Jarvis, Midway, p.41, 49, 52, 54, 55, 56, 60, 63. U.S. Navy administered Kingman Reef 1974, p.57. Wake was administered by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command 1997. P.63 As I remember NASA got Wake, Army got Kingman, but I'll have to get back to you for the current status.


 * Note 2. Addition: counter-U.S.G., Navassa Island in the Caribbean is also claimed by Haiti, Cuba, Columbia, Jamaica, Mexico and Honduras. p.49. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 14:43, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Culture and history
The article seems to be well-written, having once been GA, I guess. History is merged in with culture, "explaining" why the US attained preeminence in a particular area. The "whys" should be rm IMO and moved to "History." The culture should tell that we have the Smithsonian, Metropolitan Opera House, or produce many films, or whatever. Current situation. Student7 (talk) 16:16, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

DRN result should be used
This has gone on far too long - a compromise was reached at DRN and should be used. A lot of the current "stuff" appears purely dilatory and there is no reason to delay longer about the consensus lead arrived at through much discussion. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:32, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 12:37, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. --Golbez (talk) 12:38, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Read WP:CONSENSUS. It does not mean "unanimity" it meand that we used compromise in an organized manner and got a result.  Not liking the result of compromise is an improper argument for rejecting it - we got there after a lot of discussion, and there is no rational basis for saying that DRN is of no vale - it is set up for that specific purpose, and we got to wording that most accepted.  Cheers - but it is tendentious to delay using the compromise a single day more. Collect (talk) 12:48, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep in mind that if you implement the wording about "a country governed by a republic" I may be forced to require a citation for that wording. Coming up with that novel new phrasing rises to the level of original research. Maybe y'all should have stuck with the territories question. :) --Golbez (talk) 13:19, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Read WP:LEAD - the lead is a summary, and thus does not need internal cites if the basic text in the body of the article has cites. A "republic" is a "form of government", a nation or country is not "a form of government."   Cheers - now is there any reason for this weird excursion? Collect (talk) 13:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I see nothing in the article that justifies this strange description of "a country governed by a republic", considering that phrasing has never been used before. Therefore, it requires a source, either in the intro or later in the article. Shouldn't be hard to find a source justifying that description, right? I mean, according to Google, "a country governed by a republic" has been used a total of one time, but on the other hand it's discussing Aristotle, so maybe that gives it some intellectual cachet? I tried some other variants but those had even fewer results, which is to say, zero. --Golbez (talk) 14:02, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Would "with a republican form of government" satisfy your cavil here?   Else I do not see precisely what the cavil would seek to establish.  BTW, seeking "exact matches for wording" is silly - no policy or guideline of Wikipedia makes that sort of requirement at all. I trust, of course, that you acknowledge that the US has "a republican form of government".   Collect (talk) 14:12, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Please explain why "is a federal republic" or whatever is insufficient for this article yet is sufficient for every other article. Yes, the US has a republican form of government and it is a republic. But you aren't saying "a country governed by a republican form a government", though as I recall that might have been suggested (or I was pre-emptively making fun of it, either way). "France is a republic". "Russia is a federal republic." "Belgium is a monarchy." These are uncontroversial sentences. What is your fascination with trying out a new construction on this article? Is this so you can say "is an X governed by a republic" to say that some definition of "X" allows for territories and some does not, thus accomplishing the desired waffliness? --Golbez (talk) 14:16, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, I found scores of Questia and Highbeam articles with substantially similar wording - so your limiting of it to Aristotle fails . And the redundant "governed by" is not in my suggestion, so your jocular dismissal of an earnest attempt to find wording you would accept is not a great idea.  France is a nation which has had monarchies, dictatorships, republics and near-anarchy  in the past.  So your analogy fails on that point as well.  The purpose of WP:CONSENSUS is finding wording most editors can live with - it is not "perfection". it is not WP:TRUTH, it is what the consensus policy says to try to achieve,  It is disheartening indeed to see people so enamored of their own position that they will never accept compromise, and what usualy happens is their "truth" gets lost.  Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:31, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I know, it IS disheartening to see you so enamored of your "consensus" solution that you can't see why it's so bad. Yes, France is a nation that is currently a republic. In the past, France was a monarchy. However, we don't have an article on "France (country separate from its government type)", we have an article on the French Republic ... Now I'm wondering why you reject that wording as somehow inaccurate. Are you planning to inform the rest of Wikipedia that we're doing it wrong? --Golbez (talk) 14:44, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I fear you think snarkiness is a rational substitute for discussion, and I am quite done with you if you think this is how Wikipedia consensus is arrived at.   Perhaps you should have a gallon of tea or so.  Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:01, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Question: should we come up with a phrasing that isn't horrific by your standards, Golbez, would you be able to agree to a lede phrasing that leaves open both inclusion and exclusion to other editors' standards? &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 14:05, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * To be honest, asked and answered. I'm tired of repeating myself on what I would do if and when an intro was implemented. But, for you, whom I respect, I'll repeat: All I care is that it's properly sourced and doesn't create an inconsistency. I feel I've been very clear on this point. I conceded the territorial question to the community the moment we went into DRN. I don't give a shit about that part. I care about people thinking that this is a sentence that should exist on Wikipedia. DRN should have been about the broad strokes; somehow it turned into a committee designing a sentence. I didn't agree to that part of the process and I'm offended at the suggestion I should agree to it because they tacked it on to a legitimate debate. But it should not be this difficult to create an intro that handles the issue. --Golbez (talk) 14:16, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

@ Golbez, there need be no consensus for a sourced contribution of knowledge. As there IS a source that the U.S. includes territories, are we really going back to December, “That’s just what an expert says, so its not a fact admissible at Wikipedia.”? That was 1-4 days, now its 7-4 with Buzity gone? You were keeping count in December.

Possible editor decision tree in four steps: 1. Find sources to include territories at ‘United States’, include territories. 2. Find sources to both include and exclude territories at ‘United States’, write embracing language, or put secondary view in a [2] footnote. [Aside. We have chosen both here --- although there are no “exclude” sources --- out of collegial wiki-love.] 3. Find unsourced inconsistency with this sourced statement in another article, make a sourced correction there. 4. Find sourced inconsistency in another article applying to modern era U.S. territories by direct quote, bring the source to this article, then write embracing language at ‘United States’ Talk page.

My first few proposals in October-November 2012 were variations of “U.S. federal republic includes 50 states and DC [1].” [note] --- listing organized territories with U.S. citizens etc., etc., and 9 unpopulated administered directly by the federal government, as sourced. You removed it, we discussed at Talk, you let me post it, something like had been up before you said, then you removed it without discussion at talk or counter-sources. (?!) You say no one, no one, has done anything on subsidiary pages, but I made a SOURCED contribution at Territories of the United States for a new section “Territories in the 20th Century, and I think there have been five friendly edits improving it over a couple months. Why would other sourced wiki-editing not be similarly successful on other U.S. subsidiary pages, your voiced concern not seeing the "forest" of subsidiary pages for the "trees" of sourced contributions? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:54, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * "No one has done anything on subsidiary pages" I meant soliciting opinion. Did you go to Talk:Puerto Rico? Why not? --Golbez (talk) 18:24, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

DRN Redux
Let’s let the discussion here inform the language selection in the style of the Constitutional Convention drafts. Please craft your own first sentence below noting common DRN language:

DRN language discussed, “The United States of America is a nation state governed by a federal constitutional republic, consisting of fifty states and a federal district as well as several territories...The territories have differing degrees of autonomy.”

"The United States of America is a _____ 
 * [federal republic], [nation state],
 * [governed by a federal republic], [of a three-branch national government],
 * [consisting of], [including], [governing], [governed by a federal government]
 * [fifty states], [a federal district], [as well as several territories], [and various territories], [and possesssions]
 * [the territories with differing degrees of autonomy], [with differing degrees of autonomy], [all with varying autonomy.]"
 * [notes] to follow.


 * The United States of America is a federal republic consisting of fifty states, a federal district, five territories and nine possessions with differing degrees of autonomy. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Nice, but I would simply say The US is a...republic, ruled by a federal government.... Simple and includes all the ideas of republic and ruled by. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:09, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * whyyyyy do we need "ruled by" how can you not understand how easy it is to describe a country --Golbez (talk) 18:24, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * This is actually not too far off. I don't see any basis or need to enumerate territories and possessions. Most sources use refer to them all as territories. And the federal government has many more "possessions" other than the uninhabited territories. I also don't see the need for Gwillhickers distinction between being a federal republic and being a republic ruled by a federal government. If anything, the latter formulation is problematic in terms of the shared sovereignty between states and the federal government -- i.e., the states are not, strictly speaking, "ruled" by the federal government. older ≠ wiser 17:16, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * The "consensus" was a compromise where we would say the country includes territories but not make any constitution claims. Hence in reply to my comment, "The "federal constitutional republic"...unambiguously does not include possessions" (23:49, 3 March 2013), Mendaliv suggested "The United States of America ... is a country, governed by a federal constitutional republic" (00:07, 4 March 2013).  Most editors then voted for a similar version "The United States of America is a nation state governed by a federal constitutional republic" (Option 9).  The compromise consensus did not say the U.S. is a federal republic.  TFD (talk) 17:32, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I see, but it does seem like splitting hairs to say the U.S. includes territories (at least in some contexts) but that the federal republic does not. While I could go along with saying something like the U.S. is a [country/nation state] governed by a federal republic, saying the U.S. is a republic, ruled by a federal government seems an unhelpfully redundant circumlocution that doesn't actually help clarify anything. What is an uninitiated reader to make of this. The article republic says it is a form of government. So this then would in effect be saying the U.S. is a is a form of government ruled by another form of government. older ≠ wiser 17:49, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Jesus Christ people, here is how you do it:
 * "The United States of America [insert uncontroversial alternate name info here] is a federal republic consisting of fifty states and a federal district, as well as several territories." ... "The country also has several territories in the Caribbean and Pacific" and rely on text in the political divisions section to further elaborate on the territorial question and which ones are included in which sources or what not.

Is this sufficient or do I need to add some extra-repetitive terminology in there? Am I allowed to implement this or will it get reverted because the DRN squad didn't consensusize it? --Golbez (talk) 18:24, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * i did a bad thing --Golbez (talk) 18:26, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * But Sparrow argues that because the U.S. includes insular territories, it is not a federal republic: "The rulings of the Supreme Court in the Insular Cases fundamentally challenges and, I would argue, ultimately belies the existence of the United States as a federal republic."  Even sources that say the term U.S. can include unincorporated territories do not claim they have been incorporated into the federal republic.  The term they appear to favor for the republic plus territories is "empire."  TFD (talk) 18:52, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I never cared what Sparrow had to say before, why would I start now? --Golbez (talk) 19:00, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I'll drink to that. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 19:03, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * It still seems like splitting hairs. The critics are pointing out that the U.S. doesn't really meet the ideals of being a federal republic (in some ur-sense of the term), but for most common applications, it would not be incorrect to say that the U.S. is a federal republic. And it is also not incorrect to say that the U.S. includes territories (at least in some contexts). Then there is the gray area that has been causing so much dissension for so long, in that it is not entirely correct, or is at least misleading, to suggest that the territories are constituent or incorporated parts of the federal republic. I'm quite OK with leaving the messy details out of the first sentence even if that does mean there is some fuzziness in the wording such that it can be read to support either interpretation. older ≠ wiser 19:08, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * who caaaaaaaaaaaaaaares. The DRN wasn't about people claiming it's not a federal republic, the DRN was about the question of territories. If some people want to argue the country isn't a federal republic then they can start their own damn DRN. --Golbez (talk) 19:14, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * We are using Sparrow because he is the source for the claim that the U.S. includes the insular territories. And he says (p. 30 of source above) that scholars only consider the 50 states plus DC to be the federal republic.  So the U.S. is a federal republic (50 states + DC) plus insular territories.  Since there is no source that the federal republic includes the insular territories we cannot say it does.  Does in make any sense to say that uninhabited islands have entered into a federation with the states?  TFD (talk) 19:43, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * All the more reason not to use Sparrow as a source. --Golbez (talk) 19:45, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

What the hell do people think they are doing by making major changes to the consensus language without proper discussion - as though this were an elementary school playground? WP:CONSENSUS is clear - discuss before making major changes else the entire DR/N board is a pure and simple laughingstock. Collect (talk) 21:04, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Collect, could you explain why you voted above to change the "consensus wording". TFD (talk) 21:33, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * As I did not make any such change, but am seeking to see where any consensus for change would be, your post is utter snark. Congrats. Collect (talk) 00:00, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * You voted to change the "consensus" wording here. TFD (talk) 02:18, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Try dealing with facts. I asked if that change would make sense - I did not "vote to change" anything at all, and your posts are getting far beyond any rational level of discussion which is what this talk page is for.  Cheers - now please write the truth when you make assertions. Collect (talk) 02:35, 21 March 2013 (UTC)