Talk:United States/Archive 49

A world without sources (cont.)
Citizenship was extended to Puerto Rico under the Jones–Shafroth Act 1917, and the court determined in Balzac v. Porto Rico 1922 that this had not incorporated Puerto Rico into the United States. Could TheVirginiaHistorian please provide the date and legislation that incorporated Puerto Rico into the United States. TFD (talk) 14:27, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * From the sources that I can find, there are incorporated and unincorporated parts of the United States, but they are all part of the United States within most contexts.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:45, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Except VH's position is that they are incorporated. Because the government saying in multiple locations that they are unincorporated is overruled by, er, him. For example, he claims that organized and incorporated are identical, despite all primary sourcing. Which is precisely why, when I started this section, I was clear about wanting a primary source on the inhabited territories being part of the country, avoiding the incorporation argument altogether. --Golbez (talk) 18:08, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Scholars and the Court say territorial incorporation is to be "exactly in the position" as the Northwest Territory at Constitutional ratification. It is the Stage 3 Territorial Legacy of Northwest Territory described by scholars in 2005 cited here and consistent with the UNs "self-determination" described by scholars for Puerto Rico in 2009 cited here. Somehow my position is repeatedly reduced to one-point ahistorical absurdity. There are four (4) elements to incorporation in the Articles Congress organized Northwest Territory at the time of ratification among resident populations of US citizens, US nationals, foreign aliens (i.e. French) and domestic aliens (i.e. Oneida Iroquois).


 * Each of the four is necessary, the four (4) together are sufficient to the constitutional condition of the Northwest Territory. 1. Fundamental constitutional rights, 2. voluntary citizenship, 3. an organized territory with self-government and 4. territorial Member of Congress. Puerto Rico was held by the Court to have the "essential characteristics of a completely organized territory" by 1913. But it did not have republican self-government including electing its governor until 1947, or voluntary citizenship under its self-written constitution until 1952. Organic acts expand the preparation for statehood over time, "consistently expanding self government" over time as cited here in secondary government and scholarly sources.


 * There is no one Act of Incorporation in US constitutional practice for any territory, continental or outlying in its history. Populations are incorporated in places by the legacy of Northwest Territory. Places are NOT incorporated --- unless imagined by judicial fiat without statutory precedent one hundred years ago to exclude alien children, "savage and civilized" from citizenship. Today, that judicial incorporation ONLY can be imagined for uninhabited islands without anyone to MAKE citizens, such as Palmyra Atoll, which is not under discussion, because 'incorporation' by judicial fiat for places of guano pits is NOT common usage for being "a part of the US".  TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 19:30, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Then surely you can provide a source as requested that says the inhabited territories are part of the country. --Golbez (talk) 19:41, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Which source provided is not as requested? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:48, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * All of them so far. You're using legalese and clauses when I want straightforward statements. You're also making up rules as you go along (DC not part of the country until 1971?) and then ignoring them when convenient. I do not feel I'm being unreasonable here; in a world where this question has been mired in legalese such that you can look at the data and see one thing and I can look at the same data and see another, I want a straightforward affirmative statement that the inhabited territories are part of the country. --Golbez (talk) 12:46, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

With apologies to our faithful readers, in addition to the cited, directly quoted and linked secondary government and scholarly sources provided above and unanswered to date, modern era US territories are included as a part of the US by president, higher courts and Congress within the last twenty years.


 * President at the REMARKS BY President Obama at Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, June 15, 2011. “I include Puerto Rico not just on my itinerary, but also in my vision of where our country needs to go… And this is how it should be.  Because every day, Boricuas help write the American story… I also want to take a moment to acknowledge all the Puerto Rican men and women who serve in our country’s uniform… They want to protect the country that they love. Their willingness… is as American as apple pie –- or as Arroz con Gandules. The aspirations and the struggles on this island mirror those across America.”


 * Federal courts both district and higher observe the evolution of Congressional incorporation by expanding organic acts without any unprecedented “Act of Incorporation”. First District Court, Consejo v. Rullan, The court today holds that in the particular case of Puerto Rico, a constitutional evolution based on continued and repeated congressional annexation has taken place. “The territory has evolved from an unincorporated to an incorporated one.” *** Higher court, First Circuit Court of Appeals, Consejo v. Feliciano affirms First District application of the Eleventh Amendment, and federal statute law for Puerto Rico, incorporated as though a state. Only the confusion of a Health Department formula was remanded for reconsideration following executive clarifications submitted after the District trial.


 * Congress says in Statutes that citizenship includes individuals and populations in the nation of every place “a part of the US”. GAO Report to congress, documents for the five large territories in its Application of the U.S. Constitution, November 1997. In four, specific organic acts establish fundamental constitutional protections, full citizenship, republican government and territorial Member of Congress. Samoa has all but with citizenship by blood, birthright nationals and naturalized U.S. citizens. 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. “The Samoans are non-citizen nationals owing permanent allegiance to the US… They are not aliens and consequently cannot be excluded or deported." TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:38, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The first does not say that any territory is part of the country. The second is irrelevant as it is about organized and incorporated status. As for the third, the GAO document, it's an excellent document and very informative, but the best it says about various statuses are: "insular areas under the jurisdiction of the United States"; "Congress extended the Constitution in its entirety to ... Palmyra Atoll"; "The CNMI consults regularly with the United States on all matters affecting the relationship between then"; "Eight [of the smaller insular areas] are unincorporated and unorganized ... to which constitutional rights have not been extended by law" (This one is tricky; are they saying that unincorporated and/or unorganized means no full constitutional rights, or is it correlation without causation?). That's about it, the rest of history and current movements but little on current status beyond the above.
 * All I want it one of these options saying affirmatively - that is, plainly and directly - that the inhabited territories (all of them; PR is also alone not sufficient, as that only allows you to say PR is part of the country) are part of the country. Not entering it backwards, and preferably being all inclusive, i.e. including American Samoa. (Though if you can only find sources for the other four territories I would accept that, since the U.S. clearly places American Samoa in a different status whether you believe it or not) Not their incorporated status, not their citizenship status, but part of the country. I'm trying to sidestep the whole organized/incorporated question altogether. If you do not have such a statement then simply accept that you'll have to hedge your proposed edit with "sources say" rather than making an affirmative statement. Is that so wrong?
 * PS, I apologize earlier for mischaracterizing your usage of "Downes" as a third party source. You had told me to look elsewhere in the article for "Downes", I assumed this to be the name of an author rather than a court case. --Golbez (talk) 12:46, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * [insert] First, common American-English usage for “part of the country” is the word “American” and our country the United States as “America”. Obama said, “I include Puerto Rico in my vision of where our country needs to go”, and “Boricuas [Puerto Ricans] help write the American story”, and Puerto Ricans serve in “our country’s uniform”. To the American ear, he said the territory of Puerto Rico is a part of the country, of America, of the United States.


 * Second, the court observed what Congress had done --- Puerto Rico has evolved into an incorporated territory --- so that seems relevant to the discussion of whether Congress has incorporated Puerto Rico.


 * Third, as it bears on the discussion of the status of populations in the big five territories, the GAO report says they are not alien foreigners, but their domestic status by birthright is citizenship and nationality, “a part of the United States”. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:30, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to join you in dissecting the president's remarks. They do not accomplish what I seek, and you know that. "Puerto Rico has evolved into an incorporated territory" Citation needed; unless this has been explicitly stated then you're still just making up rules. They have birthright citizenship/nationality, this has never been in dispute. This however is alone not sufficient to make a region part of the country. I feel I've been clear on this point and I would appreciate you not rehashing it, especially since you insist on contradicting it wrt DC. So since it alone is not sufficient please don't bring it up alone. What I consider sufficient: A country formally saying that another region is part of them. Not "four steps" to incorporation, not a backwards annexation through a half dozen laws that is never formally acknowledged, it's very simple. A single statement, or law, or treaty, or whatever. You do not get to make up four or five or whatever criteria for being a part of the country, unless of course the country itself had published those rules in an explicit form and we all know they didn't. Please stop wasting our time and accept that you lack an appropriate source and we can move on. Finally, I don't know what you're quoting there at the end, where did "a part of the United States" come from? --Golbez (talk) 13:22, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I can find sources for the legislation and date that admitted each and every part of the U.S. Can you please provide the date and legislation that any of the territories became parts of the U.S.  TFD (talk) 13:46, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Damn it, TFD, don't you get it by now? By asking these kinds of questions you're giving him the chance to to flood us with further paragraphs of synthesis, and ignore the pertinent question (mine!). --Golbez (talk) 21:45, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I asked a clear question. Obviously TheVirginiaHistorian has an idee fixe and is willing to misinterpret questions, sources and what other editors write, while Collect routinely joins discussions in which I am involved in order to argue against me.  I do not see that whatever you ask them will change their minds.  TFD (talk) 17:15, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * [insert] You have no sources, only rhetorical flourishes: "all sources say", and "I can list", and "the whole history of colonization", etc. --- all without sources. Charming certainly, good educational background, various erudite aspersions cast authoritatively, but unsourced, as always. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:33, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Of course you can find one-only date for the domestic incorporation of states, but you cannot find one only for territories which are 1. possessions, 2. presidentially administered, 3. incorporated at self-governed to prepare for statehood in multiple stages, beginning with Louisiana, 4. admitted. But regardless of the one-date strawman, common usage includes DC and the modern organized territories as a part of the US, because citizenship confers nationality in a federal republic. The DC population, "DC the last colony", are not incorporated constitutionally as-the-NorthwestTerritory-at-Constitutional-ratification until they have fundamental rights, citizenship, self-government, AND Member of Congress in 1976. --- Or we have judicially 'incorporated' places without preparation for statehood in Palmyra Atoll.

If there is a WP standard for 'incorporation' of the population in DC -- US possession with citizens and nationals WITHOUT self-government or admission to national councils --- LAXER than that of Downes, THEN it is easier to see Congress has incorporated modern era US territories. To EXclude populations of US territories and INclude constitutionally lesser DC --- whose people are without 1. authority to write their own constitution, or 2. Article III federal courts with life appointment --- would be inconsistent. But today, both DC and the big five US territories are included by the more demanding Downes standard.

Please note Samoan children are no longer aliens constitutionally, they are incorporated into the nation --- they CANNOT be deported from Hawaii, California or DC. The big five US territories today are "a part of the US", whether "savage or civilized" by 1901 Court speculation. Regardless of "serious consequences" to the nation looming in 1900s eugenics or social-darwinism --- Congress HAS subsequently enacted the 1901 jurist unthinkable. Populations of the overseas territories are incorporated into the nation by birthright citizenship and naturalization for themselves AND their children. No court need OVERTURN Samoans-as-aliens speculation of 1901. Making Samoans nationals a part of the US, SUPERSEDES the case declaring Samoans aliens. Whether Samoans may be WP "savage or civilized", they are by reliable sources, "a part of the US", birthright nationals and bloodright citizens. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 20:23, 18 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I can find a date and legislation for the incorporation of every territory which has become part of the U.S. We already discussed that Orleans and Lousiana were incorporated into the U.S. by legislation passed March 2-3, 1805. Now please provided the date and legislation for the incorporation of any of the existing inhabited territories into the U.S.  If as we know they originally were not part of the U.S. and are now, as you claim, part of it, then you would be able to find a date and legislation when this happened.  TFD (talk) 20:57, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Odd -- I found references that the Gadsden Purchase was incorporated by treaty and not by any Congressional legislation at all. Did you overlook this exception to the rule you assure us exists? Collect (talk) 21:22, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * See the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. constitution: "all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land."  In one of my earlier iterations of this question I asked, "Can you please supply the date and treaty or act of Congress that terminated Puerto Rico's status as an unincorporated organized territory." (20:52, 12 April 2013)  I changed that to "or other action".  (14:06, 13 April 2013)  If you think it is wrong to refer to these laws as "legislation", then just add "and treaties."  TFD (talk) 22:01, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * US sovereignty over Puerto Rico was granted by Spain under treaty. Thus under the Constitution, already under US sovereignty as the "supreme law of the land".  Acts of Congress extending citizenship by birth etc. occurred later - but had nothing to do with the real sovereignty transferred many years earlier.  Because it was already under US soveregnty (as the Insular Cases noted) it did not take special additional acts to assert such sovereignty.  By enacting laws, the Congress gave Puerto Rico a different status than it had at the time of the Insular Cases a century ago which are therefore moot as to PR's current status.  There is no Constitutional requirement that Congress pass a law terminating a status which has already been altered. Collect (talk) 22:48, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Please provide the date and legislation for the incorporation of Puerto Rico into the U.S. TFD (talk) 04:11, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Insular Cases stipulate Congress will incorporate populations as a political matter, it is not a judicial one. Federal District Court observed Congress has incorporated Puerto Rico. The Insular Cases ruled that the 1901 Puerto Ricans were aliens so Congress could acquire territories without making citizens, else "serious consequences" would beset us.


 * Please provide the date and legislation making aliens of Puerto Ricans in effect for 2013, so that your point of view can be related to the subject of this article, the United States today. And what are your terrible consequences?


 * You have current statute in force incorporating Puerto Ricans into the US nation with a primary source, secondary government and scholarly sources including Puerto Rico as "a part of the US" nationality and geographically, politically and constitutionally, de facto and de jure --- for all modern populations of the big five US territories. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:43, 19 April 2013 (UTC)


 * You said that Puerto Rico has been incorporated into the U.S. Please provide the date and legislation.  TFD (talk) 17:08, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There is this Unincorporated territories of the United States.
 * Collect, IMHO, does put forward a compelling argument of treaties (such as the Treaty of Paris (1898)) transferring sovereignty to the United States of territories (as is the case with Guam and Puerto Rico) which were ceded or annexed by the United States.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:29, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * All further proof that even our own government doesn't seem confident in stating the status of the territories, so how can we assert a certain version of history upon them? The most neutral fashion is to say that the territories are possessed, and then go into more detail later in the article. To say the territories are part of the country, or that incorporation/unincorporation doesn't matter, or whatever, is synthesis and original research. I think this will be my last word on the subject, as the rest of my response here sums up my resolve, and that will not be changing absent an affirmative source as requested. I will shift to policing the article to make sure that no unsourced statements are made on this front. --Golbez (talk) 19:38, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Can we agree that the United States has sovereignty over all the territory (not including bases on foreign soils or embassies) that it currently controls/"possesses"?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I don't believe that's been in doubt. --Golbez (talk) 20:09, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think my position regarding this topic has been very clear. It is my humble opinion that ambiguity is the best solution, in regards to the lead. I like that compromise of explaining this ambiguity in the body of the article, perhaps in its own section. I understand that a compromise will not make everyone happy, but most compromises don't.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:19, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Isn't "possesses" pretty ambiguous? :) (If you want to look at it that way, I previously found it rather unambiguous) --Golbez (talk) 20:21, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

No reliable sources question the use of the terms "sovereignty", "possession", or "cession", or that these could be carried out by treaty under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. constitution, which, unlike the U.K., considers treaties to be domestic laws. I do not however see the term "annexation" used. Also, while all these terms in their common meanings may be ambiguous, the courts have defined them to have specific meanings. TFD (talk) 20:42, 19 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The USG is confident in stating the status of its territories in multiple authored primary and secondary sources in addition to scholarship including territories in the US and showing them in a constitutional status that is equivalent to the incorporated states.


 * "Today the US includes the territories of Guam, American Samoa, Virgin Islands and the Commonwealths of Northern Marianas and Puerto Rico." vetted by federal lawyers and published by the US Govt Printing Office by Homeland Security in a source link “guide for new immigrants” who would be US citizens.
 * The president at a sourced link says, “I include Puerto Rico… in my vision of where our country needs to go.” And Puerto Ricans serve “in our country’s uniform” but one cannot make out how he means Puerto Rico is included in the US? --- and, What does “idee fixe” mean, anyway.
 * “Puerto Rico has evolved into an incorporated territory”, cited at source linked Consejo v. Rullan in 2008, also, search on “an incorporated territory” for matches, “Congressional action… has incorporated the territory”, and “given Puerto Rico’s status as an incorporated territory of the US”. There is no contrary congressional statute since.
 * The US territory populations are no longer the "aliens" of the Insular Cases, as source linked at Insular Areas Report 1997, they “are not aliens and consequently cannot be excluded or deported.” from anywhere in the US.
 * The US territories are included in the US. There are no primary or secondary sources to the contrary, only tertiary synthesis or editor’s rhetorical unsourced denials. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:24, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Concur with Golbez, without complete agreement. --Golbez (talk) 12:28 am, 14 April 2013. That "fashion" being now documented as nationality, geographically, politically and constitutionally. --- which leaves us with the ambiguous phrasing of the present lede, with various degrees of autonomy. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:39, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * As you have been told, the current phrasing of the lead is in no way ambiguous. CMD (talk) 10:09, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The current lead says unambiguously that the territories are part of the U.S. That should be changed to the U.S. "has territories."  I have no objection to saying, "with differing degrees of autonomy. " TFD (talk) 16:28, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, whoops, I thought we were still on the "possesses" language. My mistake. It should say "possesses". I see no reason to say "with differing levels of autonomy" in the intro, as it's a useless statement without explaining that autonomy and is better said later in the article. Though "has territories" is also accurate, as it makes no statement whether or not those territories are part of the country (though I'm sure people will decide one way or another based on their assumptions). The current intro is thus not sufficient as it says the country includes the territories. I will correct it. --Golbez (talk) 17:37, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There. It now says the country has territories. It does not say whether or not these are part of the country (though by omission it is implying they are not, but that is better dealt with in detail below.) It does not use "possesses" which some consider to be insufficient. "Has" must be perfectly acceptable by all parties, I imagine. I find this as close to sourced fact as we are going to get, considering the country itself doesn't seem to know if it includes the territories. --Golbez (talk) 17:40, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you could include "overseas." TFD (talk) 17:42, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * That seems extraneous; the US doesn't technically have the same "overseas territories" notion that other countries do. Until such time as we have a mainland territory, I see no reason to artificially differentiate. (good god that word choice sounds pretentious) --Golbez (talk) 22:50, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * [Insert] Our sources show American Samoa and Swains Island are the last "overseas territories". I'll boldly double check and correct the first sentence omission to reflect the larger editorial process, somehow based on the discussion and references here. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 18:01, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * All US citizens and nationals are non-aliens in the US by birthright, that is agreed by all, AND the status of "alien" applies to NO population in modern era US territories per sources. The people are a part of the US, whether or not there has ever been in history an "Act of Territorial Incorporation", which there has NOT. Only populations in places have been 'incorporated' by sources referenced on both sides, never places regardless of their populations for the US. Hence the 85 year delay for Alaska's statehood and others. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 21:26, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * [aside] I note some editors believe in kings only --- not republics, not resident populations. If a king gives a place without or without resident consent to Canada as a territory on a date certain, it is incorporated into Canada on that date. If a king gives a place without resident consent to the US for its Northwest Territory on a date certain, it is incorporated there without discussion according to the entire "history of colonialism" --- of kings.


 * If modern populations resident in a place voluntarily accept citizenship in a federal republic by a democratic process, -- well then without a king, NEITHER the US nor its citizens can know what they may have done on any date certain. Without a king, they may have saved themselves the trouble because their self-government and nation-state cannot be admitted on WP pages for a federal republic country-article. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 21:26, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * what --Golbez (talk) 22:50, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Kings flip flop territories and the people in them without their consent. Democracies incorporate people as voluntary citizens and nationals. As there are no aliens in the five populated territories, the people there are incorporated into the nation, they may not be deported. One usage in jurisprudence relates to territories without a state's constitutional privileges as DC does not, but that is not common usage, and so irrelevant in this application. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:38, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

English Official Language in Specific Cases
There is a piece of legislation going around and English will become necessary to know at a federal language for both permanent residence and citizenship. So should we change the official language? http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/details_of_the_senate_immigration_bill_2/ I cannot find the bill's name, but I did read about it on CNN(mobile) and I found a Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/senate-immigration-reform. Also English is necessary on the naturalization test, the citizenship test, and I do not know should English be the de jude language? 68.192.201.174 (talk) 01:18, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It's de jure not de jude. We don't make changes to an article of this nature before a bill is even passed. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 03:22, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

US Territories by inhabitants, not place
Territorial incorporation into the US takes place "through inhabitants, not the territory per se," with Congressional extension of Equal Protection Clause and Privileges and Immunities Clause. That incorporation places them integrally within the geographic boundaries of the US. Two lengthy source quotes follow from "The territories of the US (general)" at 'academic room', Harvard Innovation Lab, each supported by two government sources.


 * "The Supreme Court of the US is unanimous in its interpretation that the extension of the privileges and immunities clause of the Constitution of the US to the inhabitants of a territory in effect produces the incorporation of that territory. The ... territory becomes an integral part of the geographical boundaries of the US and cannot, from then on, be separated. Indeed, the whole body of the US Constitution is extended to the inhabitants of that territory, except for those provisions that relate to its federal character."

Executive Order 13423, "‘‘United States’’ when used in a geographical sense, means the fifty states, the District … Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands."


 * "More so, the needful rules and regulations of the territorial clause must yield to the Constitution and the inherent constraints imposed on it in dealing with the privileges and immunities of the inhabitants of the incorporated territory. Notice must be taken that incorporation of a territory takes place through the incorporation of its inhabitants, not of the territory per se. As such, those inhabitants receive the full impact of the US Constitution, except for those provisions that deal specifically with the federal character of the Union."

''US Insular Areas Application of the US Constitution 1997, p.35, 9. "Among the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are due process and equal protection. Both rights apply to the five larger insular areas. --- p. 9, "[US nationals] are not aliens and consequently cannot be excluded or deported."'' It is irrelevant to reference judicial findings that people in territorial places were once aliens when inhabitants there are no longer. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:02, 21 April 2013 (UTC)


 * If this winding-road interpretation you make is correct, then if you could please, convince those government authorities that present at least some of the territories as "unincorporated" to correct and re-publish their position. older ≠ wiser 12:02, 21 April 2013 (UTC)


 * You are using the "Academic Room" as a source that Puerto Rico was incorporated into the U.S. But the source says that opposite - that Puerto Rico is unincorporated.  (See www.academicroom.com/topics/territories-united-states-general.  Notice that this is not a reliable source anyway and is on the Wikipedia spam blacklist.)  Also, your reference to citizenship law is unhelpful.  Puerto Ricans were nationals when the Supreme Court decided in Downes v. Bidwell 1901 that PR was not part of the U.S. and they were citizens when the Court decided in Balzac v. Porto Rico 1922 that PR was not part of the U.S.  The Supreme Court has never questioned that people born within territories under the jurisdiction of the United States are U.S. nationals, or that Congress may extend citizenship to them, without making those territories part of the U.S.  TFD (talk) 17:41, 21 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Sources with support trumps digests with rhetoric. ”Unincorporated” can mean “not all constitutional provisions” but that is not common usage as no territory has ever had state-only provisions. Reference to an online digest and a specific chapter is better than reference to an online digest without chapter reference. The point is that the Downes and Rassmussen formulation is not my own, but US constitutional practice and American historiography. You still have no secondary sources at all. ---, What qualifies for spam-blacklist?
 * We have direct quotes from secondary government and scholarly sources that US territories are included in the US, and nothing comparable to the contrary. I thought you would like the legaleasey, there's more to choose from -- since direct sourced quotes saying the same thing from Downes 1901 and Consejo 2008 did not persuade. Still no statute from anyone declaring US territory populations “aliens”, per the Insular Cases --- now superseded by Congress at the Court's behest. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 19:49, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You are quoting rules set in the insular cases to argue that PR is part of the U.S., which is original research. Yet the insular cases argue that it is not.  You need to provide sources that support your personal opinion that they have been.  Can you please provide the legislation and date that Puerto Rico was incorporated into the U.S.  TFD (talk) 20:00, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Again, from linked direct quotes and using previously cited legal scholar Vignarajah, U. Chicago Law Review, Judicial Legitimacy p.796 and political scientist Sparrow “Federalism in the US” (Levinson and Sparrow, 2005), pp.232 ---


 * Downes argues Congress would never annex territories if it had to grant immediate citizenship. Louisiana Territory was not until citizenship, therefore alien populations will not be incorporated until Congress does. Congress made citizens in US territories to incorporate them politically into the federal republic, by citizenship, as though US territory at 1789 ratification, they are no longer the aliens Downes found in 1901.


 * The argument in Downes is NOT, Territories are UNincorporated until the Court says so the way courts say so.The argument is that, Territories are INcorporated when Congress does it the way Congress does it. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:13, 22 April 2013 (UTC)



TFD's Insular Cases are interesting history superseded by statue in force. Citizenship by the “Privileges and Immunities Clause” is irrevocably conferred on the inhabitants of an area in all “big five” inhabited territories as a matter of their constitutional status. For your first-day-in-history project, you could pick among the dates for any statute or as reenacted for the following law.

US citizenship is 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 (CNMI Covenant, sec. 303). Samoan birthright US nationals have a “Court House citizenship” eligibility by application. Guide to Naturalization, p. 18, be * 18 years old; * a U.S. national; and * a resident of any State; --- "Any time in American Samoa counts the same as a State". Alternatively, citizenship is conferred by marriage to a Samoan US citizen at three years, and a child of a Samoan US citizen is born a US citizen in Samoa. --- Samoan nationals are not aliens and consequently cannot be excluded or deported.

There is no current legislation or court ruling making aliens in the inhabited US territories, only reenacted legislation confirming their inclusion in the nation. You refer to jurisprudential argot that merely observes territories are not states for discriminatory taxation. That is irrelevant to including their citizen population in the US. You have no statute or court case making them aliens today by overturning the cited law currently in force.TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:17, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * And you still have no authority that explicitly makes the winding-road conclusion that expressly contradicts the position stated in various government publications that at least some of these territories are unincorporated. older ≠ wiser 12:15, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * [insert] Various government online sources use "unincorporated territory" as a judicial construct without a statute to justify discriminatory taxation prohibited by the Uniformity Clause in states. Most sources contradict your position that territories must be states before political incorporation. Downes is one authority that says making citizens incorporates territories politically when they are constitutionally as US territories at 1789 ratification, before statehood. No government source reports populations born in the big five US territories as Insular Case "aliens" in the modern era. You have no source which says birthright citizenship in a place, jus soli EXCLUDES populations in that place from a nation. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 14:57, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It's no-one's position that territories must be states before incorporation. Making up opposing arguments doesn't help yours. CMD (talk) 15:03, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * [insert] Oh, but yes, such absurdities have been put forward here. Protests about including US territories as a part of the US have been based on ** state-only constitutional provisions not applying to territories, or ** state-only representatives in Congress not in territories, or ** state-only presidential electors not in territories -- are all editor-based confusion surrounding the wrong-headed assumption that territories must have all the rights and privileges of incorporated states BEFORE they are incorporated. The territories are found wanting as states, they cannot be a part of the US. Wrong.


 * First, territories do NOT have all the rights and privileges of states UNTIL they are admitted. Second, territories admitted to be incorporated in the past had NONE of those privileges. So NOT having them cannot disqualify modern territories from being a political part of the US. Thank you in advance for your support opposing sophistry. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:13, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * No, no protests by anyone have not been based on that sort of stuff. The only editor trying to create a long argument based on rights and privileges is you. CMD (talk) 18:05, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * [insert] I try to source every statement I make. Scholar Polly J. Price in the Yale J. of Law and Humanities says, --- unlike Virginia charter guaranteeing rights of Englishmen, in the “Calvin's Case, by contrast, judges resolved the question of whether persons in Scotland were by birth ‘subjects’ of the English King by turning to the common law rather than to charters or other royal proclamations.” From 1608-1908, “determining citizenship in the English-speaking world, [was] a rule based on place of birth, was self-consciously the product of judicial decisions." But, she says, "Today, the determination of national status in most parts of the world, as for the Virginia colonists in 1606, is a matter of positive law--either statutory or constitutional."


 * I have provided the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the US 14th Amendment, and the specific statutes extending that citizenship equivalent to incorporated states onto the territories, which is the US constitutional practice of politically incorporating territories since the Northwest Territories in 1789 “at the time of ratification”. (recounted in the Downes Case). You have no sources to exclude the modern US territories as a part of the US, only throwback to a judicial tradition now abandoned in the English-speaking world for one-hundred years (Price). TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:26, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * That response has nothing to do with what I said. You yourself even provided a source noting American Samoa is unincorporated, so let's not pretend there are no sources. CMD (talk) 11:00, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * [insert] The response answers precisely you who do not accept US citizenship by positive law. You have no source that modern inhabitants of Samoa are not a part of the US by US statutes. You have only Samoa as judicially “unincorporated” in Insular Cases -- without a statute -- for discriminatory taxation in a place, NOT relevant for political inclusion of populations in the US federal republic.


 * Insular Cases say islanders are to be aliens, UNTIL Congress makes them citizens -- as it did in the Louisiana Territory. Which Congress has done for the modern US territories. 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 (CNMI Covenant, sec. 303). Samoan birthright US nationals have a “Court House citizenship” eligibility by application. Guide to Naturalization, p.18


 * My response said, all big five territories are a part of the US by statute, as “in most parts of the world … a matter of positive law” (Price), there is NO source to make them “alien” in the modern era. Regardless of federal territory TAX policy, they are POLITICALLY a part of the US in their territories, by citizenship, self-government and a Member of Congress. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 23:32, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * None of this addresses the fact that you've now misrepresented opponent's arguments multiple times. I mean, sure, as you say, "there is NO source to make them “alien” in the modern era", but the only person who has brought that up as relevant is you. No-one has provided sources that they are alien, because not a single person has argued that they are aliens. You're making a complex legal argument because the simple fact is that no act of law, legislative or judicial, has declared the areas incorporated. CMD (talk) 00:12, 24 April 2013 (UTC)


 * [insert] You agree that territories are incorporated before admitted to statehood. But there has NEVER been an Act declaring a US territory “incorporated”; --- how does it ever happen? Political incorporation occurs by citizenship (Downes Case 1901) in a process of sequential Acts (Consejo Case 2005).


 * US territories are judicially “unincorporated” for discriminatory taxes, apart from populations made citizens (Vignarajah 2010). For the last century, English-speakers do not make citizens by judicial declaration, but by positive law (Price 1997). Statutes in force 2012 supersede those a century before.


 * NO sources for ending the constitutional practice of 200 years -- politically incorporating territories by citizenship, as shown in Downes, Consejo, Vignarajah and Price. For the US article, use US constitutional practice, not wp:madeup “incorporated” of imaginary America a century past. The modern era US territories are a part of the US by positive law as linked. Simple. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:35, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You know quite well that incorporation is not made up (especially considering even you provided a source noting unincorporation). None of these territories have even been around for 200 years, and the insular cases all occurred after this. Argue your legal opinion all you want, but your modern era US territories still can't vote in elections, still are able to opt for independence, and in one case aren't even automatically citizens. And I see you still haven't acknowledged the misrepresentation of your opponents arguments. CMD (talk) 10:11, 24 April 2013 (UTC)


 * [insert] "Unincorporated" is a judicial term, there is no statute to incorporate places and never has been -- demanding such a statute is nonsense. Defining the nation is a political question and Congress has politically incorporated territories since the Articles of Confederation by citizenship. That’s what’s over 200 years, mister misrepresenter. You say “no one has argued they are aliens”, all have paths to citizenship by birthright and by blood, at age 18 Samoan residence "counts as a state" for citizenship. Populations are incorporated by citizenship not by territory, as it is described by judicial argument in the Downes Case and by scholars in Levinson and Sparrow (2005).


 * All modern territories vote in elections --- as territories, not as states. You say “no one argues territories are states” but there you go again. Modern territories vote for municipal government, territorial legislature and governor, and territorial Member of Congress to participate in national councils as a political part of the United States --- as have all the politically incorporated territories for 200 years, each in their turn. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 06:03, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Again, you are just presenting facts and arguing to a conclusion that is supported by the sources. In fact the insular cases decided that extending citizenship to Puerto Ricans did not make it part of the U.S.  I suggest you read Calvin's Case 1572 which formed the basis for both U.S. and U.K. citizenship laws.  Hence Canadians and other Commonwealth citizens are not "aliens" in the U.K., these nations are not "foreign" to each other, have varying degrees of autonomy from no self-government to independence, do not exchange ambassadors, etc., yet the Commonwealth is not part of the U.K.  TFD (talk) 14:26, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I am again presenting sourced interpretation of primary documents, you still have none. As for Calvin's Case, citizenship in the modern era is based on a free individual's voluntary allegiance, not on your king's territorial titles. British @ 1572 and US @ 2013 constitutional practice is not the same, you still have no sources to say they are. It may be that the modern Commonwealth have no ambassadors, but there are no Members of Parliament for them either.


 * Political practice in the US makes its citizens a part of its federal republic with Members of Congress to participate in national councils. Canadians and British Virgin Islands, "aliens" or not, have no MPs in London. --- They are not a part of the UK as US territories are a part of the US. The two are constitutionally different, the analogy fails, you still have no sources for the modern US territories. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:50, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * See Price, Polly J. "Natural Law and Birthright Citizenship in Calvin's Case (1608)", Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, Winter 1997, "Coke's report of Calvin's Case was one of the most important English common-law decisions adopted by courts in the early history of the United States. Rules of citizenship derived from Calvin's Case became the basis of the American common-law rule of birthright citizenship."
 * That the common law bestowed U.S. nationality on Puerto Ricans, and statute extended citizenship, but neither incorporated that country into the U.S., is explained in sources, which you claim have not been provided, viz., Downes v. Bidwell 1901 and Balzac v. Porto Rico 1922, respectively.
 * Now please explain at what date and by which legislation any of the inhabited territories became part of the U.S.
 * TFD (talk) 16:51, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Still no sources for modern US territories making them alien to the US nation. What does Polly Price say?

''"Only two years prior to Calvin's Case, the English King granted to the colonists of Virginia a charter that guaranteed them the "rights" of Englishmen: The colonists were to "have and enjoy all Liberties, Franchises, and Immunities. . . to all Intents and Purposes, as if they had been abiding and born, within this our Realm of England."'' and again, "Today, the determination of national status in most parts of the world, as for the Virginia colonists in 1606, is a matter of positive law--either statutory [in the US] or constitutional [in France]."

I have provided US statute for positive statutory national status in the five populated territory. You have no source making them aliens "as a matter of positive law" --- your source, my point to include US territories as a part of the US, because national status attaches to persons not places, by statute not judicial fiat, just like is says in US jurisprudence in the 20th and 21st century.

"Calvin's Case, by contrast, judges resolved the question of whether persons in Scotland were by birth "subjects" of the English King by turning to the common law rather than to charters or other royal proclamations." and "But Calvin's Case began a three-century period in which the rule determining citizenship in the English-speaking world, a rule based on place of birth, was self-consciously the product of judicial decisions."

You insist on trying to recreate 1608-1908 judicial tradition which is no longer applicable in the English speaking world. UNLIKE that of today which is a matter of positive law. Positive law is insisted upon in BOTH Downes 1901 and Balzac, 1922: Congress is to make law at its discretion in its way, national status is NOT to be by your 300-year judicial tradition, now 100 years past. You have NO sources to make US territory populations alien to the US in the modern era of the last 50 years. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 20:10, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Of course Puerto Ricans are not "aliens" because under common law they are "nationals" and under statute they are citizens, despite the fact, clearly explained in the insular cases that Puerto Rico is not part of the U.S. Now please provide the date and legislation that incorporated Puerto Rico into the United States.  TFD (talk) 00:16, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The US constitutional practice of national status is not the common law of your original research, it is the modern 14th Amendment and organic acts extending that citizenship to territories just as incorporated states. Scholar Polly J. Price says in the Yale J. of Law and Humanities,, "Today, the determination of national status in most parts of the world, as for the Virginia colonists in 1606, is a matter of positive law--either statutory or constitutional."  Even your judicial tradition is now abandoned one-hundred years in the English-speaking world according to Price.


 * The Insular Cases clearly explained Congress would not have taken possession of the aliens, “savage and civilized”, were immediate citizenship constitutionally required. Congress was to politically incorporate the aliens in territories by citizenship as in the 1789 territories “at ratification” (in the case of Louisiana Territory, as recounted in the Downes Case). Congress has politically incorporated US territories into the nation by US Constitutional practice, not the common law of the British Crown, since independence, and it has done so today for the modern US territories. There is no counter-source. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:44, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The 14th amendment did not extend citizenship to Puerto Rico, because Puerto Rico is not part of the U.S. As your source says, citizenship was extended by statute in 1917 rather than constitutional law.  Now please provide the date and legislation that incorporated Puerto Rico into the United States.  TFD (talk) 02:49, 24 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The 14th Amendment currently extends to Puerto Rico by 8 U.S.C. § 1402 according to secondary government report, GAOs Insular constitutional status. The First US District Court observed Congress had “incorporated” Puerto Rico by progressive Organic Acts over the years in Consejo v. Rullan. The US article today should be written with sources about the US today, not about America a century ago without current sources. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:54, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * More deliberate distortion and misrepresentation of what the sources say. The GAO's Insular constitutional status report does not say that the 14th amendment extends to PR by 8 U.S.C. § 1402. What it actually says is:
 * An American national is either a citizen or someone who “owes permanent allegiance to the United States.” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(21), (22). Citizenship is derived either from the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution (“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States . . . .”) or from a specific statute that confers citizenship on the inhabitants of an area that, although not a state, is under the sovereignty of the United States. Such 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 United States.)


 * No such legislation conferring citizenship has been enacted for American Samoa. The Samoans, therefore, are not citizens of the United States but, having been born in an area under sovereignty of the United States, are non-citizen nationals owing permanent allegiance to the United States. As such, they are not entitled to benefits for which only citizens qualify. On the other hand, they are not aliens and consequently cannot be excluded or deported. (footnote 10 on page 9 -- emphasis added).
 * To be absolutely clear, this states that citizenship in PR derives from the specific legislation enacted and not from the 14th amendment. older ≠ wiser 10:20, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * To unmuddy your unsourced assertions, Insular Constitutional Status page 35, "Among the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are due process and equal protection. Both rights apply to the five larger insular areas." These are found in the 14th Amendment, extended to the modern US territories. No SOURCE says territories are EXCLUDED from American constitutional practice by extending 'Due Process Clause' and 'Equal Protection Clause'; they say that for 200 years, Congress extending and expanding rights to territories politically incorporates them in preparation for statehood (Levinson and Sparrow 2005). It is NOT to make them aliens as they were found in the 1901 Insular Cases, but citizens with fundamental rights, self-government and Member of Congress, a political part of the US -- to be absolutely clear. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 04:59, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Although the U.S. government is obligated under the 14th amendment to observe the fundamental rights of people under their jurisdiction, the Citizenship Clause does not apply to everyone born under their jurisdiction, otherwise Haitians born in Guantanamo Bay would be U.S. citizens. And the 1901 insular case did not find Puerto Ricans to be aliens, but to be U.S. nationals because they were born in a territory that, while outside the U.S., was subject to the U.S.  All of this has been explained to you by numerous editors throughout the months.  Why do you continue to misrepresent sources and make disingenous arguments?  Do you think that repetition of false information will eventually persuade us?  Or do you obtain pleasure from continuing to assert "facts" that both you and I know are false?  This is just plain disruption.  TFD (talk) 05:32, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * What? Organized US territories with fundamental rights, self-government and Member of Congress as a military prison? Haitians are not US citizens, Guantanamo has no self-government. On the other hand, Puerto Ricans have voluntarily accepted US citizenship in their elected territorial legislature and in referendums, most recently last year. Your analogy fails, even leftist scholars admit "only a small minority" believe the USG-Puerto Rican relationship to be a violation of international law. With all due respect, no article should belong to the wp:fringe alone. We should share with sourced contributions relevant to the subject, in this case, modern era US territories.


 * The Insular Cases are superseded by statute as the Court indicated citizenship was properly Congressional domain. Today the US includes the territories of Guam, American Samoa, US Virgin Islands and the Commonwealths of Northern Marianas and Puerto Rico. Welcome to the US: a guide for new immigrants, p. 7, 101. You have no modern source excluding them, that’s a fact. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 06:41, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Again, it is settled law that the unincorporated territories have not been incorporated into the U.S. and that the relevant constitutional guarantees apply anywhere under U.S. jurisdiction, including Guantanamo Bay. And the "leftist" position, which you support, is that the U.S. has illegally incorporated them into the union.  The mainstream position that you reject, but is accepted by the U.N. and U.S. government is that the U.S. has not violated international law and continues to respect the right to self-determination of the overseas countries it administers.  Now please provide the date and legislation for the incorporation of any of the inhabited territories.  TFD (talk) 07:06, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Territories are not states. Judicial use of ‘unincorporated’ means all state-only provisions of the Constitution – specifically the Uniformity Clause – do not apply to territories for the purposes of discriminatory taxation. Political incorporation by Congress begins at conferring citizenship in a process (process described in Consejo Case 2008, Levinson and Sparrow 2005) ending with admission to statehood. Distinguish between money, places and people. The consent of the people governed is fundamental to the American federal republic. Mutual, voluntary citizenship by democratic process between the American people in Congress and the territorial populations in their local elected legislature, legitimates the political union among the modern US territories as part of United States – for us, today.

We agree to autonomy for the republics of Marshalls, Palau and Micronesia, but otherwise --- the last you mentioned about territorial autonomy was to something over sixty years old now superseded, nothing applicable now, subsequent to territorial legislatures and referendums accepting political union with the US. That is, were you to believe in the people living in their self-determination --- as opposed to the feudal dead hand of the past by judicial common law, such as the Calvin Case, a tradition not in use by the English speaking peoples for a century (Price 1997).

As we see in the Insular Cases such as Downes v. Bidwell “The 'United States' designates the whole… composed of states and territories.” The Louisiana territory had not been incorporated into the US by virtue of the cession, but "Congress, on March 2, 1805 (2 Stat. at L. 322, chap. 23), an act was approved, “citizenship was conferred, and the territory... was incorporated into the US… within the boundaries of the US as a territory at the time the Constitution was framed.”

What is that legislation for the political incorporation of the modern territories? [Note: Not the judicial "unincorporated" term of art for discriminatory taxation]: Puerto Rico (8 U.S.C. § 1402); the Virgin Islands (8 U.S.C. § 1406); Guam (8 U.S.C. § 1407); and the CNMI (CNMI Covenant, sec. 303). Samoan birthright US nationals have a “Court House citizenship” eligibility by application. Guide to Naturalization. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:59, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Your quote is from Loughborough v. Blake 1820. The Court held in Downes v. Bidwell 1901 that Puerto Rico was not part of the U.S.  Your misrepresentation of sources is becoming even more egregious than before.  TFD (talk) 20:20, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The Court held in Downes that Puerto Rico was unincorporated territory for a discriminatory taxation regime impermissible under the Uniformity Clause, were Puerto Rico to be held incorporated as a state, directly quoted and properly cited by me from legal scholar Vignarajah, U. Chicago Law Review, Judicial Legitimacy p.796. That holding -- territories are not states for the Uniformity Clause -- is the “good law” referenced in legal digests. That is different, other than, political incorporation as a part of the US.


 * The rationale of the Insular Cases depended on a race-based reasoning were citizens to be made immediately of aliens and their “children, savage and civilized”, as directly quoted and properly cited by me from the political scientist and sociologist (Julian Go in Levinson and Sparrow 2005, pp200.) Those islanders and their children are now made US citizens by express Congressional organic law in the US territories, which you refuse to comprehend in the American context, insisting instead on British Empire idioms and false parallels which do not apply from a century-old jurisprudence, now superseded by positive law granting citizenship.


 * You have now twice played this same sourcing word game cuteness --- charming, but irrelevant. The reasoning in Downes 1901 used phrases from John Marshall CJ and the Loughborough Case. I show the principles of US constitutional practice incorporated in Downes that are likewise reported in secondary sources. Because you will not accept scholars of American historiography and political science, I show you the same material in the Insular Cases, which you purport to take as authority.


 * But then you dismiss the US constitutional practice of 200 years as described in Downes by claiming that no modern territory has been held for 200 years, or that I misrepresent the case. There is never a direct quote for your assertion, that is also unsourced. It's as though you are trolling a search engine to find other places my quote from Downes may appear, such as in “Loughborough v. Blake 1820”. Darling internet techie perhaps, but irrelevant to the political status of modern US territories as a part of the US. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:46, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Judicial Legitimacy, which you just referenced, says, "But the basis of [Downes v. Bidwell] was crucial, for the Court reconceived of Puerto Rico not as foreign or domestic, but rather as “a territory appurtenant and belonging to the United States, but not a part of the United States"....Ultimately, even those who doubted the reasoning and consistency of the rulings nevertheless accepted them as the authoritative and final judgment on American expansionism." TFD (talk) 17:21, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay, so far so good, you can keep your discriminatory territorial tax regime, but you cannot stop all things concerning the people at one-hundred years ago. The final judgment for acquisition was not the final solution for your aliens, "savage and civilized". Let’s look at island developments after Taft was the appointed first civilian American colonial governor of the Philippines. It did not persist forever. The Philippines became independent in 1946, Puerto Rico elected its own governor in 1948.
 * In the latter 20th century, Congress expanded rights and self-government by mutual agreement between Congress and territorial populations. The 1901 Court-found status was ONCE a “final judgment” for acquiring possession of aliens, but NOW these populations have since become mutually US citizens by positive law, a part of the US with fundamental rights, self-government and a Member of Congress. A source for discriminatory taxes and one-hundred year-old acquisitions is no final judgment for people alive, a part of the US who are citizens today. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:27, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

first paragraph style
First paragraph needs a more encyclopedic style, I believe all elements following the first sentence are captured in this rewrite. The passage as written also suffers from blue-out. Related geographic place names are identified at the US place links, and do not need linking here in the first intro sentence.

''The United States of America (USA or U.S.A), _____ [first sentence] _____. The lower forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C. are centered in North America south of Canada and north of Mexico. The state of Alaska is west of Canada and east of Russia across the Bering Strait; Hawaii is in the north mid-Pacific. Its five populated and nine unpopulated US territories are divided between the Western Pacific and the Caribbean Sea.'' --- TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:40, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This does not look bad IMHO.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:46, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I am not seeing any objection to this wording. Is there?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 13:26, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * "are centered in"? No, they are present in. Maybe he means they're in Central North America, if so then say that. "are divided between" Just say "are in"; it may just be me but "divided between these areas" seems to me to imply that these areas are a higher level grouping, when they are not. Also, there are some territories not in the western Pacific (the border being, I believe, 180 W, right?) so that's incorrect, just say Pacific and Caribbean, as it does now. It doesn't explain why DC is distinct from a state; it says there's a federal district presumably in the first sentence, but we don't tell the reader DC is that district. --Golbez (talk) 14:42, 27 April 2013 (UTC)


 * drft.2: The United States of America (USA or U.S.A), _____ [first sentence] _____. The lower forty-eight contiguous states and the federal district are in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is west of Canada and east of Russia across the Bering Strait; Hawaii is mid North Pacific. Five populated and nine unpopulated US territories are in the Pacific and the Caribbean. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 17:48, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * posted to the article this afternoon per Talk. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 18:21, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Hawaii needs to be noted as a state, for readers who don't know what it is. CMD (talk) 18:23, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Done.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:39, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Article title -- "United States of America" vs. "United States"
Should not this article be titled by the country's official name, "United States of America," rather than one of its common nicknames (as evidenced by the article's first sentence, "The United States of America (USA or U.S.A.), commonly called the United States (US or U.S.) and America,")?

It is true that the US is much more commonly referred to as "The United States" or "The US" than "The United States of America," but to me it makes more sense to title the article by the official name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cthomas3 (talk • contribs) 04:02, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Please read the Frequently Asked Questions at the top of this talk page. In general, we use the common name on Wikipedia, which is why we have Mexico and United Kingdom instead of United Mexican States and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. There are other logical reasons too. --Golbez (talk) 19:51, 6 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Most country articles aren't titled by the official names, though there's no prohibition against using official names and I agree with you that it makes sense in this case given the USA's unique naming situation of having its demonym root and widely used alternative name "America" in the dropped off portion (by contrast, people don't refer to Germany as "Federal Republic"), the relatively common use of the official name versus other nations' full names, and the name's relative brevity versus other full titles. The most similar example would be the UK, but "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" is unwieldy and not used with anywhere near the frequency that "United States of America" is. VictorD7 (talk) 21:23, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

''I think the problem is that the USA doesn't really have a common name. Our national anthem calls us "America".'' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.201.3.152 (talk • contribs)
 * Er, no, it doesn't. It does not contain the words "America", "United", or "States". --Golbez (talk) 04:26, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * [After Edit conflict] I can accept the concept of using "the" common name, but here we have a country with more than one common name - America, US, United States, "The States" (any more?). Where I come from America would be by far the most common name, but I'm not in America. Why the choice of United States from the multiple common names? HiLo48 (talk) 11:17, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Because the United States says so. --Golbez (talk) 13:19, 16 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Yep. that's a good source. But I'd be interested in your observations, and others'. Is it the most common name, really? As I said above, America is by far the most common name in Australia, If that's the case in the rest of the world... HiLo48 (talk) 21:50, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Well there's also the United Nations. (Only used once, but it notes "...reside in the United States.", rather than "...reside in America."). --Golbez (talk) 21:58, 16 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I do not think "America" is a popular name for the U.S. in the other countries in the Western hemisphere. For most people, who see N. and S. America as one continent, it refers to the continent.  Note that America is a disambiguation page.  TFD (talk) 22:16, 16 April 2013 (UTC)


 * In addition to the unique traits I mentioned earlier, it's also worth pointing out that the "United States of America" appears on every piece of US currency (the same isn't true regarding full names for the UK or other nations), and is recited daily by millions of students in the Pledge of Allegiance. That may be why it seems jarring to so many Americans to see the truncated title (though numerous foreigners have raised objections too). The spirit of the common use rule was to make articles easier to find, but that wouldn't be a problem in this case.  Indeed, as others have pointed out, adding "America" to the title would make the page even easier to find (not that it's currently a problem). I think these complaints would crop up less often if the article was titled "United States of America", and that alone would be a good reason for the change. VictorD7 (talk) 23:55, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Even easier to find? Why? --Golbez (talk) 23:58, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Per the FAQ: "The whole purpose of the common naming convention is to ease access to the articles through search engines. For this purpose the article name "United States of America" is advantageous over "United States" because it contains the strings "United States of America" and "United States." In this regard, "The United States of America" would be even better as it contains the strings "United States," The United States," "United States of America," and "The United States of America."" And yes I know the page already pops up high on search results anyway (why I added that it's not currently a problem). My point was just that this wasn't a case of a formal name making it more difficult to find (like an obscure real name for a famous person might). That said, it is worth mentioning that the page doesn't pop up to the very top of current google searches for "America" (sans or cum quotes), though most of the first page of results do refer to the US through sites like "america.gov" or "americaslibrary.gov". VictorD7 (talk) 00:24, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * That's what redirects are for; if you type in "United States of America" in Wikipedia's search engine it redirects here, and "United States of America" in both Google and Bing yield this article as the top result, so changing the title wouldn't create an advantage in that regard. More importantly, "The United States of America" isn't as as concise as "United States", and that's one of the criteria for determining an article's title: that it be concise enough while still being distinct enough to make it clear what the article's subject is. - SudoGhost 00:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * But it's not currently the top result when searching for "America". I"m not sure to what degree a title switch would change that. Regarding concision, your own WP Criteria page says, "These should be seen as goals, not as rules. For most topics, there is a simple and obvious title that meets these goals satisfactorily. If so, use it as a straightforward choice. However, in some cases the choice is not so obvious. It may be necessary to favor one or more of these goals over the others. This is done by consensus," hence the relevance of the USA naming situation's well established unique nature. The naming conventions are meant to make all this easier and improve the article, but we aren't required to be slaves to their letter in all cases just for the sake of following them. If switching to "United States of America" would cause less repeat questioning and complaining then it would be worthwhile.  Conversely, I see no practical reason to stay wedded to the truncated title.VictorD7 (talk) 01:40, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It wouldn't change the "America" result, and SEO shouldn't be a concern for how article's are titled; we're not trying to get to the top of search engines. The "less repeat questioning and complaining" isn't worthwhile, because a name change isn't going to solve that; there will always be someone wanting a different title.  Concerning WP:Criteria, it's not a hard and fast rule, no.  However, this title is overwhelmingly in line with WP:AT and is also what the United States typically uses to refer to itself (as seen above), so the fact that it isn't a hard and fast rule isn't a reason to ignore it; there needs to be a reason, and "people complain" isn't cause to change it.  This title is concise and distinct and appears to be the WP:COMMONNAME for the subject; moving it away from the current title has no benefit to anyone. - SudoGhost 01:48, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I disagree with your assumptions, especially that frequency of complaints wouldn't be affected at all. As for AT, "United States of America" is overwhelmingly in line with it too, and is also how the US refers to itself (including on every piece of currency, as I said earlier, the Pledge of Allegiance, and countless legal documents). There really isn't much difference between the two as far as naming guidelines go (a slight edge to "United States" in frequency, though they're both commonly used and "America" or various abbreviations are even more commonly used), but there are routine complaints about the shortened title.  If nothing else one could cite WP:IGNORE (Ignore all rules rule) in favor of improving the article. I strongly disagree with your claim that avoiding having to rehash this on a regular basis in perpetuity wouldn't benefit anyone.  It would make for a more stable, less contested article edited by less distracted posters on less filled talk pages.VictorD7 (talk) 02:08, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There's a huge difference between a country's official name (such as on currency), and what it uses to refer to itself in common usage, which is what we go by. As for user complaints, that has never been nor should it ever be a reason to change an article's title, especially with the rationale that the cessation of such complaints should be cause to do something.  I'm not seeing any rationale for the statement that "As for AT, "United States of America" is overwhelmingly in line with it too", because it most certainly isn't in line with WP:AT.  There's no reason to move this article away from a concise title, especially when the concise title is used more often and is therefore the WP:COMMONNAME.  WP:IGNORE isn't cause to move it either, because it does not improve the article in any way, especially when no compelling reason is given to change the title. - SudoGhost 02:25, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Most nations don't use their official names on currency or in general with the frequency that the USA does. Of course an added benefit would be to educate those readers who don't already know (and there are many), and who wouldn't do more than glance at the title, on the basis for the demonym "American" ("America" is part of the country's actual name). I guess we'll have to have agree to disagree on whether "United States of America" is prohibitively unwieldy and whether ending an otherwise permanently recurring debate would be in the article's best interest. VictorD7 (talk) 02:36, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't see making a change solely to stop the debate as being in anyone's interest. A change should be made on its merits, not to shut people up. --Golbez (talk) 13:24, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I would characterize it as addressing people's concerns with reasonable flexibility. Sure beats banning people who raise the objection or baselessly labeling them "trolls" as I've seen some editors who are frustrated with having to repeatedly deal with this topic do. Based on that and the unique demonym situation I would consider it a change on the merits. VictorD7 (talk) 18:02, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The United States Constitution states the United States in the Preamble. There is no mention of America in the U.S Constitution. I am for keeping United States as the main title.


 * False. America is mentioned in the Preamble and elsewhere....“establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”...“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”...“Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independance of the United States of America the Twelfth In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,”. Of course it also leads off the Declaration of Independence, the nation's birth certificate..."The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.."We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America"....and appears in countless statutory, court, and other government documents, the Pledge of Allegiance, every piece of US currency, and countless other places. That it's the nation's official name isn't disputed. Whether it should be the title here is another discussion, but this exchange does provide yet more evidence of the need for the educational value that changing the title could have. VictorD7 (talk) 05:21, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Mean income, absolute poverty, Heritage on poor, millionaires
I have some problems with these edits by VictorD7 today. In particular: EllenCT (talk) 00:46, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Describing mean incomes as "average" is misleading because the distribution is so skewed. I have no problem with reporting median incomes. If the mean income rank need be reported, I think it should be described as such and come after the median.
 * 2) The use of absolute poverty rate comparisons with other countries is misleading because it does not account for purchasing power parity.
 * 3) Statements such as "Over 80% of poor American households have air conditioning, three quarters own at least one automobile, about 40% own their homes... Virtually every poor US household has basic amenities like a refrigerator, a stove, a microwave, phones, and multiple television sets.  A majority of poor households have personal computers and a majority of poor homes with children have at least one video game system" distort the day-to-day lives of the poor for the reasons compiled at . If those statements from the very partisan Heritage Foundation stay, then they should be balanced with statements from such sources showing the alternative point of view, which I believe presents a more accurate version of reality.
 * 4) Relating the rank of the absolute number of millionaires and billionaires presents a less accurate description of society than the per capita numbers, where the US ranks 7th instead of 1st.


 * 1. Mean means average, so I'm not sure what the basis for your complaint is or why you find that misleading. I used both mean and median comparisons. Mean is used more frequently than median in international comparisons on topics like income or GDP (including UN HDI and the OECD sources listed) and is therefore more recently available than median comparisons, so I disagree with you that it should receive second billing, but both are relevant.
 * 2. The "absolute poverty" comment is sourced by the NIH report and mentions multiple different studies. You'd have to be more specific with your complaint, especially since adjusting for PPP typically makes Americans look even wealthier.
 * 3. The comments from the Heritage Foundation (which is no more partisan than the CBPP and the other leftist outfits used as sources throughout the article and that section in particular) are the balance for a section that was comically skewed previously. Most of the section's focus was on extreme poverty (hungry and homelessness) and "inequality" compared to Europe, with several repetitive sentences that essentially said the same thing in different ways. It read like an extended leftist propaganda screed. I left those comments in, but added some context about basic living standards for the large majority of American "poor" and a couple of lines about Americans in general. The Heritage info on those below the poverty line comes from self reporting government surveys (Census and Department of Energy) that are available online.  I read them and the Heritage Foundation is telling the truth. I can add the government sources if you like. The addition is a broad and informative contribution to the "Income, poverty, and wealth" section that previously mostly just talked about a small percentage of Americans who were extremely poor, despite the article's broad title.  But if you want to delete that, then I'll insist on heavy pruning of the pre-existing text.  We could just reduce the Income section to a single paragraph of topline stats that describe the nation as a whole rather than cherry-picked, niche portions of it. Wikipedia must not serve as a platform for one-sided propaganda.


 * Your blogger's self described "leftwing" counterpoints contained no facts except for the line about poverty often being temporary, which I would be fine with including in the article. In fact he didn't challenge the Heritage Foundation's facts as presented, and even admitted that many people would be surprised by them and that such facts don't get acknowledged or viewed enough by the left.
 * 4. The six nations that rank higher in per capita millionaires are microstates (one, Hong Kong, isn't even an independent nation) except for Switzerland and the UAE (which are still relatively tiny nations), so I think in this case your presentation would be more skewed than the brief, absolute comparison mentioning the notable facts that the US has more than any other country and all of Europe combined. Listing a ranking of "7th" without explaining that you're comparing a continent sized country of 300 million people to city sized populations (one of which isn't even a nation) would be the misleading presentation. VictorD7 (talk) 05:01, 9 April 2013 (UTC)


 * 1. When a non-negative distribution has a small proportion of distant outliers, i.e., a long tail in only one direction like the income distribution does especially in the US, the mean is a misleading measure of central tendency. The median is the more appropriate description as a matter of basic statistics. Means can appropriately be used to compare such populations, but not to describe them.


 * 2. If you are so fond of the NIH's few sentences on absolute poverty, then do you agree they should be reflected here in the same proportion that they occur in the entire NIH discussion of poverty? This is a clear case of WP:UNDUE weight given to something mentioned only in passing in the source to which you refer. That's because in countries with more poverty, one US dollar buys more than it does in the US, and in countries with less poverty it buys less. So you are exactly wrong about why we should not be ignoring purchasing power parity.


 * 3. You think a general selection of the most basic numerical parameters of poverty and homelessness reads like a "leftist propaganda screed," but you want to balance it by describing how many people have $30 microwaves and $50 videogames? That's just absurd. (Jon Stewart certainly gets plenty of mileage out of it for his comedy show.) Why not list the average cost of those appliances in terms of how many days food for a typical family they could buy?


 * 4. You've given no reasons why ranking by the absolute number of millionaires is a more accurate description of society than ranking by per capita, because it isn't. As you point out, it makes the US look wealthier than Switzerland, Hong Kong, and the UAE, among other countries. What is the point of that misrepresentation? I don't understand the need to try to make the US look wealthier than it actually is. Is it a matter of national pride or hopes for fewer transfer payments? EllenCT (talk) 07:17, 9 April 2013 (UTC)


 * 1. It's not that skewed since the US also has one of the highest median incomes in the world, as the existing text points out. One could argue that the mean is important too because it indicates what's economically possible in a society, but I included both because they're both informative and widely cited in comparisons (I just gave specific examples). You realize that per capita GDP figures are mean calculations, don't you? It's not clear what distinction you're trying to make between descriptions and comparisons in this context.


 * 2. No, you failed to define your terms (what kind of "poor" are you talking about?) and you haven't provided any sources disputing the NIH claim (which, unlike most of the report, isn't speculative). I'll withhold judgement on your PPP remarks until you have a chance to clarify them. The rest of the section already focuses on relative poverty/economic inequality (including in multiple vaguely described rankings mentioned), so I'm not sure why you feel even more should be added. The NIH report, being a left wing call to action across multiple fronts, mainly focused on relative poverty, but did go out of its way to admit and make clear that US poverty wasn't the same in absolute terms as poverty in other nations because of the USA's higher standard of living. That was especially worth mentioning in the article since "absolute poverty" (amount reduced by redistributive policies) had already been mentioned earlier in a potentially misleading way.


 * 3. Focusing on homelessness and hunger means you're focused on a tiny minority of the population, skewing a section that should be about the entire country. The section's pervasive "inequality" drum beat is in keeping with a leftist narrative that sees economic inequality as a bad thing, the correction of which through state action should be the highest priority, all the while not mentioning anything about most Americans' (even most "poor" Americans') actual living standards. Living space, appliances, car ownership, home ownership, and electronic media/entertainment devices compose a large swath of people's daily living activities. You have yet to give a concrete reason for opposing a glimpse into those living standards. Yes, it's relevant that household appliances that were expensive or nonexistent a few decades ago are now plentiful even for the "poor", as are automobiles, living space, and home ownership. Many experts argue that consumption is more relevant to discussions of poverty than income.


 * You're using John Stewart as a source?!?! I won't bother watching the video because I've seen enough of him over the years to know he's an unfunny partisan hack whose seal-like audience claps more than laughs as he tosses them disingenuously contrived scraps of red meat (seriously, Kilborn wasn't any more talented but the Daily Show was a genuinely funny comedy show back in his era, mostly due to the field reporters and the fact that the host's smugness was at least ironic shtick; with the oblivious Stewart it's sincere), but the Heritage report also debunks the leftist talking point on food by pointing out that the overwhelming majority of poor households self reported having plenty of food to eat, and indeed were "super-nourished" according to government guidelines on caloric and nutrient intake. I left that part out of my edit, but can easily add it if needed.  If Stewart made any legitimate points you should type them out and I'll address them.


 * 4. You mean apart from the fact that Hong Kong isn't a country? Where does Washington DC rank on your "countries" list? How about Utah? What's your interest in trying to make the US look less wealthy than it is, even to the extent of ignoring my points about the UN and OECD using mean comparisons in their indices? Are you afraid of a narrative being undermined and hoping for more transfer payments? Do you feel it's relevant from a policy standpoint that a few oil rich Arab sheikdoms with city sized populations have more millionaires per capita than the continent sized US? It's apples and oranges. No, in this case the absolute comparison is more intellectually honest (especially since it includes a comparison with the much more populous continent of Europe), but I can live with a global per capita comparison too if you find a better source that doesn't count non nation states. VictorD7 (talk) 09:58, 9 April 2013 (UTC)


 * It's not like we can ignore Hong Kong's inclusion since it's ranked above the US, impacting the figure you want to report. It's also worth noting that your source's intro states: "The U.S. still ranks as the country with the most millionaires per capita...", before saying that it falls a few spots according to their particular methodology of calculating "millionaire households". Since the "7th" figure is tainted, if we had to use this source, the logical factoid to take away would be that the US has the most millionaires per capita. VictorD7 (talk) 18:39, 9 April 2013 (UTC)


 * As a matter of intellectual integrity, all averages --- mean, median, mode --- all should be reported with ranges. Presentations are most complete with all three, if they align the subject is relatively homogeneous in that metric. If the measurement is relevant, and were the three averages to diverge, explaining WHY they diverge might bring deeper understanding of the subject, yes? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 12:21, 9 April 2013 (UTC)


 * My philosophy is that more information is generally better than less. Do you have a source giving international mean, median, and mode income comparisons, complete with ranges? VictorD7 (talk) 18:39, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that you are doing pretty well. I observe only that using both median and mean figures have a use. Actually, the best visual comparison across time is usually a combo --- a bar chart of fifths distribution numbered at the fifths, with median superimposed as a labelled numbered dot.
 * [Aside: one longitudinal economic study of 100% wool blankets found them at a constant cost by average-worker-man-hours since 1500 --- A thermal bedcovering equivalent is certainly cheaper today, answering machine is a butler, cell phone summons guests as a laird. Foodstore WIC stickers on aisles help nutrition, but sugar seems to win out. We could let the seven families keep their fortunes and drop all US sugar subsidies to boost sugared product sales? Unintended consequences cannot all be addressed, I suppose]. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:47, 10 April 2013 (UTC)


 * 1. You don't use the mode when people pick the numbers instead of natural processes, because modes will form at round numbers instead of the center, unless you use large bins, e.g. the nearest multiple of $5,000. You don't use minimum and maximum because they are very unstable, changing from day to day and not representing anything meaningful about the data. You don't use means unless you are comparing populations (such as with GDP per capita) because they are skewed by outliers. All of the reliable sources use the median for both individual and household income, and there is absolutely no reason Wikipedia should not too.


 * 2. What do you mean by "I'll withhold judgement on your PPP remarks until you have a chance to clarify them"? Here's clarification: using absolute poverty levels vastly misrepresents the wealth of the poor in the US because in countries with more poor people, a US dollar buys more. You refer to a source which devotes only a few sentences to absolute poverty out of dozens of pages. It's a blatantly transparent attempt to violate WP:UNDUE to make the article reflect what you want it to say instead of what is true. You don't want to describe the poor and homeless at all, but you have no problem counting millionaires -- that's obviously not even attempt at neutrality.


 * 3. You didn't answer my question: Why not describe the cost of an air conditioner, refrigerator, video game, and the other amenities by how many days of food for a typical poor family they represent? Here's another question: Why not use your own source to describe the proportion of the poor that don't have various amenities? More than half don't have internet service, which the UN says is a human right. A quarter don't have a car or truck. Half don't have a computer. Why not state it that way? I refer to a comedian, whose viewers constantly score higher on current events awareness than right-wing news outlet viewers, and who consistently gets rated as a more reliable source of news than almost everyone in the mainstream news media, because your inclusion of this is so absurd that the comedian regularly uses the topic as the butt of his jokes.


 * 4. If you don't like the fact that BusinessWeek considers Hong Kong as a separate region for the purpose of ranking the number of millionaires per capita, then we can say that, but the absolute quantity is a ridiculously misleading statistic on which to rank, and has to go. It's wrong for billionaires, too. EllenCT (talk) 03:33, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * 1. We are using mean to compare populations, just as the UN HDI (GDP PPP; standard of living component) and OECD "Better Life" index (income; one of the sources I used) do. The most recent international median income comparison I know of is the 2007 OECD study I used as a source. Do you know of others? International comparisons typically use mean calculations so there are more recent ones available for that metric. You've failed to give a single rational reason why the mean info should be suppressed.  Neither metric tells the whole story, but they both tell a lot and should both be included.


 * 2. Wrong. I've done more to describe the poor here than you have (and spent a single article sentence on millionaires and billionaires; don't be disingenuous, Ellen). That's what the Heritage inclusion does.  In that context "poor" means Americans below the US poverty line. You somehow failed again to define what you mean by "poor".  Since absolute comparisons are an attempt to determine which country has a higher poverty rate, it almost sounds like you're making a circular argument. You're also wrong about the NIH inclusion being WP:UNDUE, and you seem to have misinterpreted that rule like you grossly misinterpreted the TPC's basic methodology for corporate incidence (despite having read the methodology page) in our last discussion until I spoonfed you specific quotes, and my segment on revenue volatility that you rushed to delete which you admitted you agreed with.  The rule, as currently written, refers to how various viewpoints are balanced in an article as a whole when there's a dispute (particularly a factual one). It doesn't mean a source has to completely, primarily, or even largely be dedicated to the particular topic of the text it's being used to support. The page is full of broad sources that are used to support a single claim or fact. The current article doesn't say relative poverty is irrelevant.  Indeed the section still spends significantly more time focused on "inequality".  But absolute poverty deserved a mention too, even if it's just the single sentence the NIH citation has in the article.  As Heritage points out, surveys show a majority of Americans think of "poor" in absolute, dire terms and would be surprised by the typical living standards of those below the poverty line, something the liberal blogger you linked to agrees with. In fact he goes so far as to suggest the poverty measure should be drastically narrowed, though that might tactically hamstring those who love to throw large, scary sounding total numbers around when discussing America's poor.  The NIH is a meta-study, meaning it's a report based on many pre-existing studies, and doesn't have original, in depth research on any particular topic. To counter it would require sources claiming the opposite regarding absolute poverty, in which case the NIH claim would still warrant a mention (along with the contrary view). That the NIH report also talks about other topics like relative poverty is irrelevant.


 * 3. The Heritage facts come directly from publicly available government surveys and aren't disputed. I answered your question by rejecting your implied premise, that the typical poor are suffering in the food department. Why list the cost of household appliances and automobiles in days of food? That would be stupid and would make the article look silly, though a discussion of food itself is perfectly appropriate and already exists in the section. The only legitimate rationale for including costs (in dollar terms, not Big Macs) would be to document how they've fallen dramatically in recent decades, though that would make an already long section even lengthier.  Surely you aren't trying to argue that ovens, washing machines, microwaves, televisions, computers, automobiles, and home ownership are irrelevant. That these things have become so affordable says a lot about how wealth creation has boosted living standards across the board.


 * As for your second question, I listed the large majorities of poor who do have these things rather than the few who don't because I wanted to describe a larger percentage of the population than the article previously did. The section is titled "Income, poverty, and wealth", not "Niche examples of extreme poverty". Yet info on most Americans was previously scant. I added the one sentence on the ultra rich because the article contained nothing about the wealthy except for (dated) claims of wealth and income distribution for the top 1%. If "wealth" is in the title and there's a link to the Affluence in the United States page the article should have something informative about the rich.


 * Since you didn't cite anything John Stewart said I guess he made no legitimate points. I couldn't care less what the hack and his vast team of writers "joke" about on their little propaganda show. Conservatives joke about liberals too. "Studies" (and I used that term loosely) on audience knowledge have contradicted each other all over the place over the years, and I've debunked the ones regurgitated by online bottom feeding drones over the past decade, or at least the claims based on them. They usually consist of just a few, often ideologically rigged questions (indeed sometimes the "right" answer has been incorrect or at least subject to interpretation), sometimes contain comical methodological flaws (one recent half-assed survey tied respondents to network by asking what news source they consumed in the past week, while asking questions covering the past year or so, lol!), and almost always ignore the issue of causality. For example, one highly partisan study that targeted Fox News for attack asked who the US Vice President was (Dick Cheney at the time).  Those labeled "FNC viewers" scored somewhat lower than several other networks. Was that because FNC didn't spend much time talking about Dick Cheney (hint: no), or was it because, as by far the #1 news network, FNC has more popular visibility and therefore attracts more occasional, low information viewers on the rare occasions they watch any news (or people who haven't watched any answering the network they've heard about most)? Conversely, on the studies where Stewart's audience did well, was that because his show was so informative or is it because the type of people who are drawn to it (highly partisan Democrats) are interested in and follow politics anyway? The same is true of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, whose audiences also usually score very high in such studies (really impressive for Limbaugh since his audience is so much larger than Stewart's or even O'Reilly's). They attract news junkies.


 * 4. Doesn't a non nation state's inclusion in that source's national rankings bother you? At least a little? No, being the largest or having the most of something is extremely notable and the undisputed absolute millionaires/billionaires facts definitely belong in the article. You've failed to explain why it's supposedly "misleading". It also already includes a comparison with Europe that's more apples to apples than your warped list is. That said, I also support per capita stats and already agreed to their inclusion too, though I'd prefer a better source.  Since you apparently haven't found another source, I see four possibilities for per capita millionaires:


 * A. We keep looking and don't add it until we find a better source.
 * B. We use that source, but use the intro's claim about the US having the most millionaires per capita instead of the tainted household ranking.
 * C. We use that source's household rankings but change "7th" to "6th", though some editors might start throwing a bunch of Wikiperger acronyms at you explaining why that's a no no.
 * D. We use that source but add some kind of awkward note or in-text caveat.


 * And no, your Slate piece doesn't show the absolute numbers are "wrong", it just looks at something else. BTW, isn't it funny how very tiny nations always seem to dominate the top of per capita rankings?


 * Ellen, in addition to including per capita ultra wealth rankings I said I'd be fine with you including that short-lived poverty fact from your liberal blogger if you want to (assuming it checks out). Apart from wanting to delete or move down the topline mean income comparison I'm not sure what other specific changes you want to make. VictorD7 (talk) 07:59, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Brookings complements Heritage as a source, an equivalent think-tank with substantial policy-impact on US affairs. They are especially useful here because both have extensive online offerings available for editor confirmation of sourcing. Comparisons to explain divergence of median and mean is often found in sources from Brookings, as an alternative source to European sources or Jon Stewart, imho. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:21, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone not understand what absolute poverty means? Saying the US has less absolute poverty than other places, all other things being equal, is the same as saying that 1 USD buys more essential goods in places where people have fewer of them. It's completely misleading. It serves no purpose than to try to make the U.S. appear more wealthy than it actually is, and frankly, I think it does far too good a job of that. If this is acceptable for articles about countries, then we need some kind of a standard explanation of why the reader could possibly care. But there can be no reason why any but a propagandist reader would want to know that blurb. Therefore, I do not believe it is acceptable. EllenCT (talk) 18:07, 13 April 2013 (UTC)


 * This conversation has been lengthy and is difficult to follow. Perhaps you could re-formulate the basic disagreement of what should be in the article in a new section.  The U.S. uses absolute poverty, while other nations use relative poverty, making comparisons difficult.  We should use mainstream sources that are able to adjust for the difference.  The Heritage Foundation promotes fringe views that contradict mainstream views and should not be used in this article.  Also, presenting raw stats and allowing the reader to form his own views is unhelpful, because it requires us to choose which stats are meaningful and assumes that they are easily comparable.  It is better to use sources that already do that.  TFD (talk) 18:31, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The Heritage Foundation is precisely as fringe as Brookings and for the same reasons. Massive endowments supporting vigorous research by large PhD staffs. Capitalismojo (talk) 18:45, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Fringe means to be outside the mainstream. The fact that both the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation receive corporate sponsorship is irrelevant. Universities also receive massive endowments and hire PhDs.  TFD (talk) 19:36, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * And many university researchers are more "fringe" than Heritage is. While I agree with you that this TP section's broadside nature makes it hard for others to follow, Heritage is a perfectly fine, quality source and in the Income section is only being used to cite undisputed, publicly available government data on household goods and living space.  The "absolute poverty" segment Ellen's talking about comes from the National Institute on Health meta-study report (meainstream enough for you?), not Heritage. VictorD7 (talk) 19:57, 13 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Is the mainstream/fringe distinction judged by wealth, staff, or agreement with polls? Both of the major political parties are between Heritage and the demographic center of public opinion, but perhaps those who follow means rather than medians might not have noticed. EllenCT (talk) 21:20, 13 April 2013 (UTC)


 * LOL! On what issues?  You didn't show your work.  I'm not surprised that someone who keeps forgetting that I'm the one who added the median income comparison in the first place has such a warped, one sided perspective. VictorD7 (talk) 23:22, 13 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Ellen, are you claiming that the NIH report, clearly written by left wingers, is somehow a right wing "propagandist" source? No, absolute poverty is an attempt to establish a common living standard threshold and measure what percentage of each nation's population falls below that. There's nothing misleading about it. In fact it's more informative and useful than relative poverty in international comparisons, though I'm fine with including both. Only a bitterly intolerant propagandist would seek to suppress its mention. Also, you need to answer my question in the Tax Breakdown section. VictorD7 (talk) 19:57, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Mainsteam views can be biased or wrong, but they cannot be, by definition, fringe. BTW if we are just using the Heritage Foundation for data taken from official statistics, then there would be no reason to source them to the Foundation.  And while your views on poverty may be right, we are supposed to report the views that the mainstream hold.  I do not see how a U.S. government report (NIH) can be considered "left-wing".  Which writers are members of the Communist Party of the United States?  TFD (talk) 20:14, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with your first sentence. Heritage is mainstream.  I could add the government sources with the raw data too, but the Heritage piece is a good secondary source and I reject any notion that an article currently full of leftist sources can't tolerate the presence of the USA's most prominent center-right think tank. Again, however, you seem to be conflating different issues. Heritage isn't the source for the "absolute poverty" segment being discussed. The NIH is.  Your later question is irrelevant, but you honestly don't believe government employees can have ideological views? The NIH report did spend an entire chapter praising the socialist leaning Swedish model.  Regardless, I'm the one who's using the NIH report as a source. So far, no source has been produced disagreeing with the NIH claim. VictorD7 (talk) 20:24, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I do not consider cherry-picking a fraction of the percent of the text because it has a spin which suits your personal political preferences to be "use." Attempting to use wikipedia as a soapbox to promote your views is abusive. If you want to show other editors that you are capable of neutrality, then please remove the sentence about absolute poverty. EllenCT (talk) 21:14, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Your false statements are becoming an increasingly disturbing trend. I didn't cherry-pick anything. I accurately summarized what the NIH report had to say on absolute poverty and linked to the specific pages that said it. Absolute poverty and relative poverty are two different things, and frankly it's not clear you understand either. Look them up. Between the two of us I'm the only one who's used sources from both the left and the right, and none of the facts I've posted have been disputed. You have yet to provide a source to dispute the NIH claim. In your time here so far you've been forced to admit you misread and wrongly deleted my segment on revenue volatility, you wrongly interpreted the Tax Policy Center methodology on corporate incidence (as I proved with specific quotes), you wrongly interpreted the WP:Undue rule and falsely accused me of violating it, and you recently changed an article sentence to wrongly imply the mean income comparisons were from 2007.  You falsely accused me of wanting to talk more about millionaires than poor people (totally false by article sentence count, and frankly a juvenile form of character assassination), and you've been objectively wrong multiple times while you can't point to a single factual error I've made.  If any editor has been abusive it's you. Now you're engaging in hefty projection. Perhaps you should take a break from preaching on Wikipedia and pushing your own political agenda and take some time to sharpen your reading comprehension skills. VictorD7 (talk) 23:22, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Heritage Foundation section break
Victor, on what issues do you believe that the Heritage Foundation is closer to the demographic center than either political party, if any? Of the dozens of pages in the NIH report, you picked the only statement about poverty which makes the US seem more wealthy than it is. You have provided no reasons why failing to correct for purchasing power parity does not make absolute poverty an extremely inaccurate and misleading measure of poverty in the US. The question of corporate income tax incidence is still unresolved, and you and I agreed that most sources on it are wrong, because they do not properly reflect incidence among customers, employees, and owners. I thank you for your help, but I think we both have plenty of room for improvement. EllenCT (talk) 22:05, 16 April 2013 (UTC)


 * You didn't say Heritage was further from the center than any political party earlier (something that's true of the CBPP, American Prospect, Smeeding, and most of the sources involved). You said "both of the major political parties are between Heritage and the demographic center of public opinion," indicating that Americans are generally to the left of the Democratic Party, a claim I find preposterous (as someone who's studied polling and politics for years) and that you've failed to support in any way. If anything the opposite is true, since Gallup polling shows twice as many people self identify as "conservative" than "liberal", and Democrats tend to publicly run away from their ideology in general campaigns much more than Republicans do.  As the old saying goes, there are more Democrats than liberals and more conservatives than Republicans.  One wonders what the partisan balance of power would be if the media/entertainment industry was something approaching 50/50 rather than skewed with a 90/10 liberal bias. Of course all of that is irrelevant to the article since even extreme sources aren't prohibited on Wikipedia.


 * Regarding the NIH report, no, I didn't use the slightly earlier statements saying, "In aggregate, socioeconomic conditions—income and wealth—in the United States are at or above average for high-income countries. Both the size of the U.S. economy and median household income in the United States are among the highest in the world." Though in the next sentence it did go on to cite the 2007 OECD stats I coincidentally added months ago. For those who don't know, here's what it says on absolute poverty: "Absolute poverty is a basis for comparing incomes across countries against a common benchmark (such as given level of income in U.S. dollars). Analyses that have used a common data set to compare countries in terms of absolute poverty find that other countries seem to have higher rates than the United States (Kenworth, 1998; Sharpe, 2011; Smeeding, 2006). This finding reflects the higher overall standards of living in the United States (Smeeding, 2006). For example, in one analysis, the U.S. absolute poverty rate was lower than 8 of 10 high-income countries (Gornich and Jantti, 2010)."  That the report spends most of its time discussing other topics is irrelevant to the issue of absolute poverty. Many sources here cover a wide array of topics but are used to support a specific claim or fact.


 * The absolute poverty comparisons do use PPP adjustment, so I have no idea where you got the idea that they don't. My original wording was faithful to the NIH report, though earlier today I did tweak it with a clarification since the "8 of 10" analysis most explicitly cited is based on market income against the US poverty line, and shows the US with a lower poverty rate than Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Australia, Canada, and the UK, but a higher rate than Switzerland and the Netherlands. When post tax government benefits are considered the US falls more mid-pack in these studies (though the order of the other nations varies wildly depending on researcher), but keep in mind that these are among the wealthiest nations in the world.


 * The absolute poverty inclusion is warranted given the pervasive emphasis on inequality (relative poverty) in the rest of the section, a construct mostly just used in western Europe, despite the fact that most of the world focuses on absolute poverty and all but the most die hard Marxist would admit that absolute poverty is ultimately more important (though many would say both are), and given the earlier statement claiming that the US welfare state reduces both relative and absolute poverty by less than other developed countries. It should be pointed out that the US has less absolute poverty than other developed nations to begin with, since that's a mitigating factor (as is the fact that, as an already used source points out, Smeeding and other analysts don't count consumption taxes in their net, post tax/benefit numbers; I added a brief clause to that sentence mentioning the consumption tax difference).


 * On corporate incidence I said we can develop a note or something, but that, on the matter of overall progressivity, it doesn't matter what corporate incidence is. Overall taxation is progressive.  In fact it's more progressive than in Europe.  Here are a couple of more sources for you to read and consider:  Washington Post, Sep. 2012, Other countries don't have a "47"%; LIS, April 2009, Taxation and the Worlds of Welfare. VictorD7 (talk) 23:33, 16 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I would agree to replacement of the statement that most poor families have video games. EllenCT (talk) 18:41, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you mean you want it back in the article? Why? It's a useless statement. A video game system can cost ten or twenty bucks used, and games are available the library. I don't see how it's a meaningful economic indicator. Also, as I recall, the datapoint only applied to families with children, which makes it even less useful as a broad indicator. --Golbez (talk) 19:27, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure. If Victor or anyone else wanted it back in the article, I wouldn't object to it. I really need to figure out corporate income tax incidence because without a clear concept on that, rentier tax is impossible to figure out, and that's the best political bridge in sight. EllenCT (talk) 19:56, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you still object to restoring the original language on tax progressivity? Presumably you're fine with restoring the volatility language you said you agree with. VictorD7 (talk) 22:02, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes because progressivity has been getting so much worse in recent decades. Nobody gets it right because of corporate incidence. I'm disappointed that something so fundamental to the basic decisions about tax policy is utterly neglected. I have to see what the most predictive models assign it. EllenCT (talk) 15:40, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Ellen, three questions:
 * 1. Have you found any sources stating that the overall US tax structure isn't progressive?
 * 2. Doesn't your CTJ source, which still calls overall taxation "progressive" in its prose, offer the most extreme, regressive interpretation of corporate incidence out there? The only others I know of are the CBO and Tax Policy Center numbers, which both show it far more progressive.
 * 3. Have you read these sources? Washington Post, Sep. 2012, Other countries don't have a "47"% - "But as the Northwestern sociologists Monica Prasad and YingYing Deng have found (pdf via Lucy Barnes), the progressivity of taxes alone in the United States is much higher than that of European tax systems. Indeed, most European tax systems are straight-up regressive.The United States has by far the most progressive income, payroll, wealth and property taxes of any developed country. Scandinavian social democracies like Denmark, Sweden and Norway have quite regressive direct taxes, as do the Netherlands and Switzerland. Foreign British territories are more progressive, but neither Australia nor Canada is nearly as progressive as the United States.The disparity is even starker when you bring sales taxes into the mix, as VATs are an extremely important source of revenue for most European countries as well as Australia and Canada: Belgium, for example, goes from mildly regressive to extremely regressive once the VAT is taken into account. What’s going on here? Basically, all of the progressivity of our fellow developed nations’ welfare states comes on the spending side. They spend a whole lot more on transfer programs, education and health services, and other initiatives that are redistributive in impact. We, by contrast, tax progressively, and then spread the money around in a less progressive fashion."


 * In fact according to the charts the US is the only nation examined with overall tax progressivity.  LIS, April 2009, Taxation and the Worlds of Welfare - '''"We use Luxembourg Income Study data to compare the progressivity of the tax structure in the U.S. and Europe. LIS data allow a comparison of tax rates that attempts to take different starting rates, thresholds, and exemptions into account. Our study supports the argument others have made that the US has more progressive taxes than the European countries."...."(1) As other scholars have suggested, the US has a more progressive tax structure than the European welfare states. Of the six countries for which it was possible to calculate sales tax, the U.S. is the only country to have an overall progressive tax structure. All other countries for which it is possible to calculate overall tax progressivity have been, and remain, regressive throughout the period of study. For the 13 countries for which it was possible to calculate income, payroll, and property tax progressivity, the U.S. has the most progressive tax structure; Sweden and Denmark are the most regressive. Our finding of an inverse correlation between tax progressivity and welfare state effort supports those scholars who suggest that regressive taxes allow the growth of the welfare state, while progressive taxes constrain it."...."Second, to give a picture of the robustness of the overall progressivity score including sales tax in the face of possible tax evasion, we took the year in which the American tax code is most regressive (1994) and compared it with the most progressive overall score, including sales tax, for any European country for any year (Germany in 1989). We then calculated what percent of American taxpayers would have had to pay an income tax of zero for the two scores to be equal. For the US Kakwani Index of 1994 to match the German Kakwani Index of 1989, 63.6% of the top quintile group of taxpayers in the US in 1989 would have had to pay an income tax rate of zero. These calculations are available in the online supplement. We therefore conclude that top coding does not change the comparative picture. And while tax evasion is certainly an important issue, both substantively and analytically, these numbers suggest that even extremely widespread evasion at the top of the income distribution in the US would not change the comparative progressivity picture: even in the year in which the US is most regressive, almost two-thirds of the top quintile group of taxpayers would need to pay an income tax rate of zero (i.e. evade their tax obligations23 completely) for the US Kakwani index to match the most progressive score of any European country, for any year."''' VictorD7 (talk) 19:49, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * VictorD7, you quote your second source, which is a working paper, as saying, "Our study supports the argument others have made that the US has more progressive taxes than the European countries." We are not here to sift through original studies, weigh them and draw conclusions.  Please present secondary sources that explain normal opinions of experts.  TFD (talk) 07:09, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Leaving aside the fact that this article and Wikipedia in general use studies as sources all the time, my first source is a Washington Post piece doing just what you say. Please feel free to contribute a source with a contrary opinion if you can find one, so we can evaluate how much weight it should be assigned (if any). VictorD7 (talk) 20:22, 21 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Golbez, I wasn't planning on pushing the issue, but that all this stuff, video game consoles included, has become so affordable in recent decades is relevant in and of itself. BTW, libraries have free internet access too. VictorD7 (talk) 22:02, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The relationship of an organization to the center of average American believes has nothing to do with the weight we assign it. Otherwise we would have to assign weight to fringe theories on global warming, evolution, 9/11, etc.  I do not see social scientists comparing the measure used for absolute poverty in the U.S. with other countries.  Whether or not they should is another issues.  But there are problems with the comparison:  the U.S. measure is based on a basket of commodities, etc., which may not today reflect what people need, no adjustment is made for the fact that people in different countries but different types of goods, e.g., potatoes may be expensive in China but people buy rice, transportation costs for the urban poor in Europe are lower that for the rural poor in the U.S., adjustments for taxes and government transfers are not completely reflected, in particular it does not account for free universal health care.
 * Basically, Molly Orshansky calculated the cost of food for short term subsistence nutrition, then multiplied by three, reasoning that families spend one third of their pre-tax income on food. The threshold has been adjusted for inflation.  Many of her basic assumptions, assuming they were reasonable in 1966, may not be valid today.
 * We need to make a lot of assumptions and judgments to determine that the U.S. rate is meaningful today, even more to use it as a comparison to Europe. That requires a lot of original research.  Using a report from a pressure group not respected in academic writing is just injecting unreliable information and bias into the article.
 * TFD (talk) 23:04, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You have a tendency to leap headfirst into debates and discussions you haven't read and don't understand. Again, as I already explained to you, Heritage (which you inaccurately described anyway) is not the source for the absolute poverty comments. I understand it can be confusing when this section is simultaneously discussing various different items, but you're conflating different issues. VictorD7 (talk) 03:32, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Victor has made the point that the Heritage Foundation is not the source of the "absolute poverty" data. More importantly Heritage Foundation is not a "pressure group". It is a think tank, just as Brookings and Hoover are think tanks. You may not like its politics but that does not change what they are. As to fringe: Heritage is a center-right organization. It is the largest, oldest, most "establishment" of the conservative think tanks. AEI and CATO are further to the right, others more so. If you characterize it as "fringe" you are therefore consigning the entire US conservative movement and the establishment wing of the Republican Party as "fringe", but then maybe that's your point.Capitalismojo (talk) 21:27, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Reliability and viewpoint are two separate issues. That the Heritage Foundation supports a right-wing position does not make it unreliable.  The issue is whether their views can be considered "mainstream."  Well, they cannot.  And we have the same argument in articles about global warming, evolution, etc.  Just because many Americans believe something, does not mean it is a mainstream view.  It has nothing to do with what you or I believe either.  TFD (talk) 05:13, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You can't dismiss a source's views as non mainstream (which you're wrong about anyway) in entirety. You'd have to identify a specific claim or fact being considered for inclusion in the article, and then build an argument that the particular claim or fact is either disputed (meaning perhaps alternative views should be included as well) or too fringe to warrant inclusion.  Normal minority viewpoints are allowed in Wikipedia, the "fringe" label applying to such things (per Wikipedia policy examples) as flat earth views or conspiracy theories about 9/11 or the moon landings. Clearly nothing being discussed here should be equated with such fringe claims.  Heritage is being used to source the section on household amenities for those below the poverty line, and simply recounts publicly available government stats from the Census Bureau and Dep. of Energy.  The facts are undisputed, so not only is there nothing fringe about them,  they aren't even minority views.  Unless reliable, significantly contrary data is produced for the same categories, they're the only views on the matter. VictorD7 (talk) 00:17, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Again, the views are fringe. The group advocates ideas that are rejected by the mainstream, e.g., on global warming, and attempts to inject them into the national debate.  If you want these views included in articles then you need to change the policy on weight.  But pretending that their views are mainstream is intellectually dishonest.  TFD (talk) 05:20, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * What views are supposedly fringe? We aren't talking about the global warming issue (not that any of the major national debate positions are too "fringe" anyway). We're talking about undisputed facts on household amenities.  Pretending otherwise is dishonest. Please provide sourced, contrary facts or end this pointless flailing around. VictorD7 (talk) 18:08, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The Heritage Foundation assembles a number of facts to reach the conclusion, "only a small number of the 46 million persons classified as “poor” by the Census Bureau fit that description," which is a fringe view. Although we do not explicitly report that finding in the article, the assembly of the same facts makes an implicit conclusion, which is synthesis.  If you want to make the point that the poor in the U.S. have basic amenities, then you should use a mainstream source, whether that source is left or right wing is irrelevant.  Because it would provide a complete comparison, noting that the poor in the U.S. do not have access to non-emergency health care and many other social programs available to the poor in Western Europe, and have lower life expectancy, lower education and greater exposure to crime.  The mainstream right-wing view on poverty in the U.S. btw is not to deny it exists, but to claim that the lack of social services in the U.S. is fair to the taxpayer and provides an incentive for the poor to break out of dependency and attain self-sufficiency.  TFD (talk) 18:50, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * So you've found no contrary sources and have no reason to seriously doubt the facts? Since, as you admit, nothing you raise or indeed any subjective opinion at all from Heritage actually appears in the article, you have no case (your statement isn't an example of a fringe view anyway, as the surveys they go on to produce demonstrate; you left out the preceding sentence where they explicitly say they're talking about Americans' perceptions of the word "poverty"). The facts presented (which, again, are undisputed government figures) are useful in describing broad aspects of lifestyle for the American poor. The section already includes extended discussion of extreme destitution, income inequality, and comparisons of social welfare with Europe. The Heritage inclusion provides some reasonable balance and a fuller picture of a larger percentage of the population than much of the rest of the section focuses on. The issues of health insurance and life expectancy (neither a solely poor issue; btw the US poor generally do have access to non emergency health care) are already given extensive coverage in the "Health" section.  Likewise crime has its own section as does education, although the latter currently lacks any mention of the coercive nature of the government school system and lack of school choice for the poor relative to many other nations. Your opinion on the "mainstream right-wing" view on US poverty is uninformed and irrelevant. VictorD7 (talk) 19:38, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Also, TFD, please stop misrepresenting Wikipedia policies. Synthesis refers to an editor using multiple sources to state an original conclusion in the article, and has nothing to do with this discussion. VictorD7 (talk) 19:59, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * See "Implied conclusion" under "Original synthesis" in No original research/Examples#Implied conclusion. Whatever policy it comes under, it is certainly improper to present an implied conclusion.  And stop accusing me of misrepresenting policy.  I find it irritating.  Try phrasing your comments in a less controversial way.  TFD (talk) 20:42, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There is no original conclusion implied or stated. It's faithful to the source, and indeed is taken almost verbatim. If you stop misrepresenting policy I won't have to point out that you're doing it. I'm trying to be patient, but you seem to be desperately and almost blindly tossing anything at the wall in hopes that something sticks because you find certain undisputed, properly sourced facts inconvenient to your ideological agenda. Please drop your hostility, or at least express it in a more rational manner. VictorD7 (talk) 21:53, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The "original conclusion" is that "only a small number of the 46 million persons classified as “poor” by the Census Bureau fit that description." That is obvious.  Again, please stop commenting on me and comment on the material.  TFD (talk) 22:07, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You're quoting the source, TFD, so how on earth would that be an original conclusion?! Original conclusions are formed by editors, not sources.VictorD7 (talk) 22:18, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

It is implicit. The selective presentation of facts leads the reader to believe that poverty figures in the U.S. are overstated, which is what you believe and the reason why you want the material included, without any sort of serious analysis about whether or not that conclusion is reasonable. TFD (talk) 00:03, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * What's implicit? The explicit statement in the source? That's not original research; indeed your quote proves it wouldn't be. An original conclusion is when an editor says or implies something that's not attributed or attributable to a source. Heritage's conservative agenda is no more relevant than the leftist agenda of the CPBB, The American Prospect, Smeeding, Kenworthy, the NY Times, and even the NIH paper (which I added), all of which are used as sources in the section and advance controversial positions that go way beyond the specific text they're cited for (another source is a 2004 opinion piece lobbying against social security reform, lol!). I suppose you could try to argue that the facts themselves, despite being verifiable and undisputed, don't belong in the article because they'd leave a skewed impression or something like that, but that would require intellectual dishonesty of staggering proportions since the section still spends more time focusing on a tiny percentage of the population, extreme destitution (hunger and homelessness), and abstract inequality. There are several frivolous sentences that keep hammering the same point about "inequality" dressed up in different ways (including some pointless indices). By contrast, the Heritage inclusion describes a much broader swath of what anyone would agree constitutes basic living standards (living space, car ownership, home ownership, basic appliances, entertainment devices, etc.), and for a much larger percentage of the poor and overall population. It's informative, addresses topics not already covered elsewhere on the page, adds balance, and improves article quality. One could more legitimately argue that, without the Heritage inclusion, the very selective facts and opinions presented from a litany of liberal sources would leave readers with a skewed, misleading, and excessively dire view of US poverty that mostly ignores actual living standards. That you support leftist positions is no excuse for seeking to suppress undisputed facts that possess salient pertinence, even if you find them inconvenient to the narrative you'd like to construct. If, on the other hand, you try to argue that the level of detail is simply too great for a country article, then page consistency and bias avoidance would demand that we prune most of the rest of the section as well, possibly leaving just a few lines with topline data describing the population as a whole.VictorD7 (talk) 02:00, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * If you list all the evidence that a partisan source has presented to push their POV, then that is POV. It is similar to covering a case by presenting only the prosecutor's or the defense evidence, and ignoring what the judge said.  Anyway, I have explained it as clearly as required to make myself understood, and see no point in continuing this conversation.  I suggest that you try "writing for the enemy" - pretend that instead of a right-wing article someone had taken facts from a left-wing site, and think about how you would react to being told it is all factual and no opinions have been explicitly stated.  TFD (talk) 02:23, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Do you even read the posts you respond to? I just laid out how the leftist sources that fill the section do just that. Most of the sources used are pushing POV.  Before the Heritage inclusion the section itself was pushing a one sided POV, and that's what we should strive to avoid.  I'd advise that you practice what you preach, and that you actually read the policy pages with more care than you obviously have. BTW, the NPOV rule applies to the article.  Sources are allowed to push POV. "As a general rule, do not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased. Instead, try to rewrite the passage or section to achieve a more neutral tone. Biased information can usually be balanced with material cited to other sources to produce a more neutral perspective, so such problems should be fixed when possible through the normal editing process." WP:NPOV In this case the Heritage inclusion is providing some balance, and the facts cited are undisputed, broad and relevant in scope, and already written in a neutral tone.VictorD7 (talk) 02:39, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I posted the question to WP:NORN. TFD (talk) 00:44, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * And I responded. It's still unclear why you feel a claim made in the source would constitute original research, especially when it wasn't even added to the article.  All the examples on the policy page you linked to are of editors stating or implying unsourced conclusions, hence the word "original". VictorD7 (talk) 02:39, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Victor, in response to the first of your three questions above, you implied something that is not true. I had already shown you several sources including the ITEP/CTJ chart showing that taxes are regressive for the top 1%. Just because the taxes for the other 99% are progressive doesn't mean that overall taxation is progressive, because an inordinate amount of wealth is controlled by the top 1%. You can compare the US to groups of other countries until the cows come home, but that's not going to get median incomes up. EllenCT (talk) 14:18, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Your apparent use of "regressive" would imply the price of food (heck -- anything at all in the cost of living index) is "regressive" because people do not have to pay proportionately based on their income or their wealth . For taxes, the definition is Decreasing proportionately as the amount taxed increases which is clearly not the case.   That you seem somehow to oppose any uneven distribution of wealth does not excuse misuse of an economic term.  Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:35, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * No, my premise is correct, Ellen. We're here to describe what the sources say, not your own opinion. We're also discussing a brief, vague statement about overall taxation, not your interpretation of a cherry-picked tiny percentage. Even your CTJ source, a liberal lobbying group that we can agree has the most extreme view in understating tax progressivity, says in its own words that "federal personal income tax is a progressive tax, and the combination of this tax with the other (mostly regressive) taxes results in a tax system that is, overall, just barely progressive." It also shows the top 1% paying a larger share of taxes than their share of income, like the rest of the top 40%, while the bottom 60% pay a smaller share in overall taxes than their share of income. Other sources, like the conservative Tax Foundation (using CTJ's state/local and TPC's federal numbers), liberal The Atlantic, Washington Post (a liberal reporter), and the study by Northwestern researchers, show and/or describe overall US taxation being even more progressive. You didn't answer my other two questions for some reason, and I don't recall you even providing any sources for the top 1% apart from the dubious CTJ figures, not that it would matter since we aren't singling out the top 1% in the sentence.  In this context "progressivity" refers to income, not assets, which is presumably why you described property taxes as "regressive" in the article.  I've given you a long time, Ellen, but if you can't find any contrary sources or make a rational argument undermining the claim then I intend to restore the original language soon. So far, apart from mentioning CTJ (which actually calls overall taxation "progressive"), the only specific objection you've given is to nebulously claim that "progressivity has been getting so much worse in recent decades." Whether "worse" means more or less progressive, that's hardly a rebuttal since the sources are all recent, though, given the latest TPC projections showing effective tax rates for top earners skyrocketing, non leftists might agree with you that progressivity is indeed getting worse. I'm also considering whether to revise the language to include a comparative statement on US and European progressivity, given that the weight of source evidence and commentary on that is clear. VictorD7 (talk) 18:46, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * We can't state the ratio of progressive to regressive taxes without agreeing on the corporate income tax incidence. I am beginning to think that the source which says it's 44.5% consumers and the other half split between labor and owners is about right. And again, that's generally consistent with the ITEP graph. EllenCT (talk) 06:17, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The sources I have seen say that the U.S. taxation system is barely progressive, as VictorD7 says. But I would expect any comparative studies with other OECD countries be from reliable sources.  Anti-tax groups in the U.S. typically use incomplete information into order to push the view that the U.S. tax system is more progressive.  Incidentally, corporate taxes are considered to be regressive, since the incidence is passed to the consumer.  TFD (talk) 06:51, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Do you think it is possible to accurately represent the extent to which taxes are progressive without using a graph? The problem is a lot of the graphs inaccurately account for corporate income tax. Raising taxes on corporations is the same as raising it 44.5% on consumers, and 27% on both the employees and the owners. It varies from corporation to corporation, and industry to industry, but I don't see any obvious reasons not to use it. Most of the graphs Victor has come up with on the topic imply that corporate income tax either affects owners solely or owners and employees equally. EllenCT (talk) 07:04, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Ellen, ITEP/CTJ explicitly states that overall taxation is "progressive", so corporate incidence doesn't matter. No one's suggesting we say anything more specific than "US taxation is generally progressive" in the beginning and a clarification at the end that state/local regressivity doesn't trump overall taxation's progressive nature, though I'm considering also adding an equally vague comparison of US and European progressivity per the sources. As for corporate incidence, both the CBO and Tax Policy Center have traditionally counted 100% of it to the owners.  The CBO recently changed its methodology to 75%/25% owner/employee, but the CBO and TPC federal effective rate numbers still closely track each other.  So far the only source you've provided for federal effective rates is your CTJ/ITEP graph, but their numbers are wildly different from the CBO and TPC.  The CTJ is an aggressively partisan outfit dedicated to lobbying for liberal policies and uses an opaque methodology. It has an interest in understating US tax progressivity, and apparently does so dramatically. On the other hand the TPC is a joint project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institute, two liberal think tanks, so it's not like it has a conservative agenda. The CBO is....the CBO. Clearly the CBO and Tax Policy Center carry more weight as sources than the CTJ since their results track each other's so closely over time.


 * TFD, The Atlantic and Washington Post are liberal sources, not "anti-tax" ones. Post writer's Dylan Matthews bio says he worked for the The New Republic, Salon, Slate, and The American Prospect, all leftist publications. I don't know the politics of the Northwestern University researchers, but their comparative study, like Matthews' piece, indicates that they're sympathetic to welfare state expansion and would prefer to see the US adopt more European style taxation to fund it. You've given no reason to doubt these sources' reliability. As for corporate incidence, it is usually considered highly progressive, not regressive, at least by the most reliable sources.  Of course one could argue there are ripple effects to consumers and others, but that's true of all taxes, including income tax hikes on the top 1%.  If you're going to formally attribute tax burden, however, it should be to those most directly paying it. VictorD7 (talk) 08:04, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * You should read WP:MEDRS which cautions against the use of articles in the popular press because articles are often based on primary studies, the authors often do not have the ability to assess the information, etc. While the guideline is not written for economics, the same reasoning applies.  In the Washington Post article, the author writes, "sociologists Monica Prasad and Yingying Deng have found the progressivity of taxes alone in the United States is much higher than that of European tax systems."  Those authors say that "The international comparison of tax progressivity is not a well-developed field."  They then evaluate the different approaches that have been taken and explain the reasons they have chosen their approach.  But to consider their findings definitive, one needs to show that it has been accepted as such.  Do they treat property tax rebates for low income people as a reduction in taxation or as a transfer?  I.e., does it reduce regressiveness or is it government spending.  Do they treat social security premiums in Britain which are paid into private individual retirement accounts as a regressive tax or exclude it from the calculation?  Do they treat corporate income tax as purely regressive or do they treat them as partly progressive?  These are all questions one expect to be addressed by subsequent review studies, not in newspaper articles.
 * Incidentally, the political orientation of writers is wholly irrelevant to the reliablity of their writing. Facts are not right or left, they are right or wrong.
 * TFD (talk) 20:05, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Are you aware that the WP guideline (not policy) that you have just recommended we follow here is related to medical articles? Medical articles! This article is not about medicine, unless I am missing something. WP:MEDRS which cautions against the use of articles in the popular press in medical articles explicitly. You are really reaching with this one. Capitalismojo (talk) 20:27, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Before replying to postings, you should read beyond the first sentence. The second sentence was, "While the guideline is not written for economics, the same reasoning applies."  MEDRS was developed because there are a lot of advocates of fringe medical theories, and is helpful in explaining the relative reliability of news reports of primary studies, primary studies and review studies.  However, I do not expect you to agree with me because you do not think that economics is subject to verifiablity and base your decisions on what to believe on your ideological views rather than evidence.  TFD (talk) 20:48, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * TFD, you're the one who raised the sources' alleged political affiliations, and I was addressing your professed concern. The issue of tax progressivity is actually much clearer and more straightforward than other, more complex issues that are already sourced with studies, news reports, or even overt opinion pieces in the article (like comparative poverty reduction by welfare state, effectiveness of reducing elderly poverty, and a value judgement about level of assistance to US youth) and stated as fact in Wikipedia's voice. The LIS study in question "evaluate(s) the different (dated) approaches that have been taken" which find different results by detailing that they either don't show their work and/or don't include consumption taxes (though the weight of sources shows US income taxation is more progressive too).  They state that their study "supports the argument others have made that the US has more progressive taxes than the European countries." Regarding your specific questions, they rely on widely used LIS data sets employed in numerous other studies, including by Smeeding and others in this article. I'm not sure the specifics matter given the extreme robustness of their findings, as I quoted higher in this section. 63.6% percent of the top US quintile would have had to have paid zero income tax for the least progressive US year to match the most progressive European country (Germany) and year.  The study's results persist even when applying different methodologies or indices. They also find that sales taxes are regressive "in every country in every year", which wouldn't surprise anyone.  The bottom line is that European nations rely much more on consumption taxes than the US does, paying around 4-5 times as much according to a different, already used study in the article. Add the fact that US sales taxes are less regressive in design than European ones and there's even less question about the overall picture. BTW, here's the actual version published by the Oxford University Press in the journal Socio-Economic Review, complete with a more detailed online supplement.


 * Can you find you any source we can evaluate that claims overall taxation isn't more progressive in the US than in Europe? VictorD7 (talk) 22:25, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I have looked for sources on progressivity and cannot find them. As your source says, "Beginning with Steinmo (1993), a handful of scholars have argued that the liberal welfare states actually have more progressive taxes than the conservative and social democratic welfare states....The international comparison of tax progressivity is not a well-developed field."  One would expect that if the subject were significant then one should be able to pick up a brief article about the U.S. and expect to find it.  At least it should appear in economic textbooks.  TFD (talk) 23:00, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Econ textbooks often don't get into this level of detail, though I don't currently have a recently published bunch of them in front of me to sift through. If you're trying to apply a "textbook or nothing" standard, then consistency would demand that we delete most of the article, especially the economic facts. Clearly that's an unreasonable requirement. However, the findings laid out have generated much media and analytical commentary, including books that might be used as textbooks, though I didn't list all of them. Here are some sources on progressivity:


 * 1. Overall US tax progressivity.
 * CTJ - "..federal personal income tax is a progressive tax, and the combination of this tax with the other (mostly regressive) taxes results in a tax system that is, overall, just barely progressive." (most extreme in understating US progressivity)
 * The Atlantic - "US taxes really are unusually progressive." (mostly about income taxes, but also mentions sales taxes)
 * Washington Post - "....countries like the United States with progressive tax codes..." (complete with charts showing positive US Kakwani scores for both federal and overall taxation)
 * Northwestern study (Oxford University Press, Socio-Economic Review) - "Of the six countries for which it was possible to calculate sales tax, the USA is the only country to have an overall progressive tax structure." (main source for the above Washpo piece)
 * Lane Kenworthy (liberal author/columnist/professor already cited in various places in these sources and the article)- "As best we can tell, America’s tax system is slightly progressive and the tax systems of most other affluent nations are slightly regressive."
 * Tax Foundation (combining TPC federal rates with CTJ state/local rates) – “Federal effective rates are progressive to a much higher degree than the regressivity of state and local effective rates…. When the entirety of the tax system is examined, the top 20 percent of individuals pay a much larger percentage of their income in taxes than the other four income groups.”


 * 2. Comparative.
 * Washington Post (based on OECD data) - "...the U.S. tax code...is actually the most progressive in the developed world."
 * Taxation and the worlds of welfare, Socio-Economic Review, Oxford University Press - "We use Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) data to compare the progressivity of the tax structure in the USA and Europe. LIS data allow a comparison of tax rates that attempts to take different starting rates, thresholds and exemptions into account. Our study supports the argument others have made that the USA has more progressive taxes than the European countries....As other scholars have suggested, the USA has a more progressive tax structure than the European welfare states. Of the six countries for which it was possible to calculate sales tax, the USA is the only country to have an overall progressive tax structure. All other countries for which it is possible to calculate overall tax progressivity have been, and remain, regressive throughout the period of study. Of the 13 countries for which it was possible to calculate income, payroll and property tax progressivity, the USA has the most progressive tax structure; Sweden and Denmark are the most regressive."
 * Washington Post (mainly based on the above LIS study) - "the progressivity of taxes alone in the United States is much higher than that of European tax systems. Indeed, most European tax systems are straight-up regressive.The United States has by far the most progressive income, payroll, wealth and property taxes of any developed country. Scandinavian social democracies like Denmark, Sweden and Norway have quite regressive direct taxes, as do the Netherlands and Switzerland. Foreign British territories are more progressive, but neither Australia nor Canada is nearly as progressive as the United States.The disparity is even starker when you bring sales taxes into the mix, as VATs are an extremely important source of revenue for most European countries as well as Australia and Canada: Belgium, for example, goes from mildly regressive to extremely regressive once the VAT is taken into account."
 * Reason - "...the American tax system is more progressive than those of most industrialized democracies."
 * International Encyclopedia of Political Science, Volume 1, page 2586 - "Actually, left governments in Sweden and elsewhere have opted for regressive consumption taxes and social security contributions rather than progressive income taxes, to fund social spending...Anglo-Saxon democracies rely more heavily on progressive income taxes and corporate taxation than...continental and Nordic European countries".
 * Forbes - “When we look at the entire tax system we need to look not just at income taxes but, as we’re looking at the entire tax system, at the effects of all taxes. And when we do this for the US we find that the US tax system is indeed more progressive than that of almost all other OECD countries.”
 * CNN analyst Fareed Zakaria (video and transcript) - "Ironically, the heavy reliance on income taxes makes the American system more progressive than those in Europe. The federal government gets about 43% of its total tax revenue from taxes on individual incomes and profits, compared with only 29% in Germany and 22% in France. The balance for France and Germany comes from the VAT, which is highly regressive. One recent OECD study showed that the top ten percent in America pay a larger share of total taxes, 45.1%, than do the top ten percent in any of the 24 countries examined. In Germany they pay 31% of the taxes, in France 28%."
 * Mercatus Center, George Mason University - "This week, Mercatus Center Senior Research Fellow Veronique de Rugy shows that the United States has the most progressive income tax system among industrialized nations." (obviously adding consumption taxes would make the difference even starker)
 * NY Times (based on both OECD figures and the aforementioned LIS study) - "...but the United States already has one of the most progressive tax systems in the developed world, according to several studies, raising proportionately more revenue from the wealthy than other advanced countries do. Taxes on American households do more to redistribute resources and reduce inequality than the tax codes of most other rich nations....Big-government social democracies, by contrast, rely on flatter taxes to finance their public spending, like gas taxes and value-added taxes on consumption. The Nordic countries, for instance, have very low tax rates on capital income relative to income from work. And they have relatively high taxes on consumption. In Denmark, consumption tax revenue amounts to about 11 percent of the nation’s economy. In the United States, sales taxes and excise taxes on cigarettes and other items amount to roughly 4 percent."
 * Kenworthy (linked above)- "Is the U.S. tax system more progressive than those of most other rich countries? Yes. As best we can tell, America’s tax system is slightly progressive and the tax systems of most other affluent nations are slightly regressive."
 * Salon, The Liberal Case for Regressive Taxation - "This means that on the revenue collection side the U.S. federal tax system is much more progressive than those of Western Europe, which rely more on flat payroll and flat VAT taxes that fall more heavily on the middle and working classes than on the rich.....In his new book, “The Narcissism of Minor Differences: How America and Europe Are Alike,” Peter Baldwin notes that “the U.S. tax system is at once less demanding and more progressive than the Continental European,"
 * NCPA - "A 2008 study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, for example, found that the highest-earning 10% of the U.S. population paid the largest share among 24 countries examined, even after adjusting for their relatively higher incomes. "Taxation is most progressively distributed in the United States," the OECD study concluded."
 * The Atlantic - "According to the OECD, rich Americans bear a bigger share of the tax burden because they earn a bigger share of the income and because the US income tax system is more progressive."
 * WSJ - "Upper-income taxpayers have paid a growing share of the federal tax burden over the last 25 years. A 2008 study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, for example, found that the highest-earning 10% of the U.S. population paid the largest share among 24 countries examined, even after adjusting for their relatively higher incomes. "Taxation is most progressively distributed in the United States," the OECD study concluded. Meanwhile, the percentage of U.S. households paying no federal income tax has been climbing, and reached 51% for 2009, according to a new analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation."


 * The weight of source evidence is clear on this matter. Since the article already states matter of fact conclusions, sourced by a study or two or even just a partisan opinion piece, on even more complicated issues like international comparisons of welfare state reduction of poverty, effectiveness of the US welfare state in reducing elderly poverty, and alleged "relatively little assistance to the young", it would be a bizarre double standard to try to exclude such well established information on the more progressive nature of taxation alone in the US. Indeed the latter is half of the equation used in claims like Smeeding's about overall welfare state poverty reduction.  Why include the more complex matters but not the relatively simple one focusing strictly on taxes? VictorD7 (talk) 04:03, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * That you are obtaining so much information from fringe sources such as Reason casts doubt on your assertion that the views are mainstream. It may be, as you say, that we should delete most of the article.  If experts who write books about the U.S. do not mention comparative taxation, then it is outside what a brief article should mention.  Also, we appear to be unable to assess what the weight of opinion is, since the subject is obscure.  TFD (talk) 17:40, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I do not consider Reason a fringe source.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:40, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * That you singled out only one source (a perfectly fine one, btw), ignoring the numerous other articles, books, expert columns, and studies from across the political spectrum I cited that firmly establish that the observation that the US has a more progressive tax structure than Europe is a mainstream view (what's relevant here, not how "mainstream" a particular source allegedly is), shows you're just desperately reaching. It's also interesting that you only singled out a libertarian source for attack, ignoring the leftists I used who agree with them on the facts. Again, feel free to provide contrary sources we can evaluate, because so far you've just got.....*crickets*. VictorD7 (talk) 20:15, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Comparative taxation section break
"Europe" includes many countries with a flat tax. Do any reliable sources say countries that score better on the Human Development Index tax less progressively than the United States? Do any sources say countries with longer lifespans tax less progressively than the United States? EllenCT (talk) 22:09, 27 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Did you read the sources, or at least the quotes I went through all that trouble to provide? I'm not sure why those questions are relevant, but the US ranks 3rd on the HDI so that would be a very exclusive club, and yes, specific countries are singled out, most prominently ones from northern and western Europe with slightly higher life expectancies, more ethnic homogeneity, fewer drivers and youth auto fatalities, less affordable food, lower obesity rates, less risky behavior, lower GDP per capitas, and lower mean and median incomes than the US. VictorD7 (talk) 06:30, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Political Divisions revision
In 'Political Divisions', second paragraph, second half, rewritten now to ''"Those born in the major territories are birthright U.S. citizens except Samoans. They are not aliens, but are born U.S. nationals. Samoans are eligible for citizenship at age 18 or by birth to a Samoan US citizen. American citizens residing in the territories are like those in states with fundamental constitutional protections and elective self-government. They have a territorial Member of Congress as previous US territories, but they do not vote for president as states. Territories have personal and business tax regimes different from that of states." [Note] ''

The previous version needed some clarification and edit for style. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 14:37, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I can understand the need for the addition, but can it be summarized better? It goes into a lot of detail in a section that generally doesn't talk about differences in citizenship, national, resident alien, or alien.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:58, 29 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Drft.2: Those born in the major territories are birthright U.S. citizens except Samoans. They are born U.S. nationals with several paths to citizenship. American citizens residing in the territories have fundamental constitutional protections and elective self-government, with a territorial Member of Congress, but they do not vote for president as states. Territories have personal and business tax regimes different from that of states."''[note] TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 00:15, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I say keep as is. Who are the "They"? The current version state who are born as U.S. nationals, and naturalization is verified using a reliable source. The second two sentences beginning with "American citizens residing in..." is the same as what is already in the article.
 * One thing that I have to question is whether it should be limited to Samoans. Are non-Samoans born in the territory of American Samoa also born as U.S. nationals? Also, are those who live on Swains Island (administered as part of AS) called Samoans, or Swains Islanders? If they are not called Samoans, would using the word Samoans as a catch all correct?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Drft.2 it is. Thanks. "They" refers to the immediately preceding proper noun, the next word adjacent, "Samoans". That is common American idiomatic usage. Drft.2 does indeed say what Drft.2 says. Yes, non-American Samoans from the independent nation of Samoa are born American nationals on US soil at American Samoa. Swains Island population has not agreed to the republican forms of governance to the extent American Samoa has. The hereditary rule is particular on the point as agreed to by Congress and islander chiefs, another reason why American Samoan US territorial legislature has not petitioned for all provisions of the US constitution, -- in one example of self-government, they would keep hereditary rule in tribal areas, allowing one-man one-vote in the municipal areas. In this they maintain a tradition which was lost in Hawaii, but preserved among some self-governing Native American tribes on federal lands. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Recentism in the history section
I have reverted the bold removal of verified content by User:NuclearWarfare, an admin, per WP:BRD. There was no consensus for removing the content which is verified to multiple reliable sources. Furthermore the content was removed and replaced with a brief sentence that was not verified using a reliable source regarding the reelection of President Obama. The reason for content removal was recentism, yet to include the reelection of Obama could also be seen as recentism; furthermore, looking at the history section I do not see other presidential reelections being given inclusion into the article; therefore it could be seen as unintentional good faith addition of undue weight regarding the Obama Administration (which I am pretty sure wasn't the case). I mean we don't have content about the reelection of Clinton, Bush (43), Reagan, etc. so why include content about the reelection of Obama?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:12, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * These entries should not be there, they are only there because they are fresh in people's minds and do not, at this point, indicate any long-term importance to the subject of the article. Why mention Benghazi but not Jonestown? Why mention Boston but not the DC Snipers or Sandy Hook? We shouldn't mention any of these as, in the greater scheme of things they do not warrant placement in this summary article. I agree that mentioning Obama's re-election was recentism and undue weight, but then again so was everything else you re-placed. --Golbez (talk) 20:40, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, what Golbez said entirely. I'm torn about mentioning either Sandy or Obama's re-election (Oct/Nov 2012); in fact, the only reason I added them at all is it seems a little odd for the Iraq War (2011) to be the last thing mentioned in a 2013 summary of United States history. I would not be opposed to none of the four being mentioned in that section. The fact that content is sourced (or not) is largely irrelevant when no one is disputing the accuracy of the statement, only merits for inclusion. Also, I'm very clearly not acting as an administrator here; that's irrelevant to this discussion. NW ( Talk ) 21:25, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I very much agree that there was no reason whatsoever for RightCowLeftCoast to point out you're an admin, it had no bearing on the reversion and RCLC's mention of it can only be seen as underhanded. Then again, there was no reason for them to link every single policy they remotely referred to, as if it's our first day here. --Golbez (talk) 21:31, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It is standard when writing about a country to provide some information about the most recent elections. In 2016, we should mention who wins that year's election and remove the reference to Obama's re-election.  But articles should not usually include what is in today's newspaper, because over a couple of months the article would be primarily about what happened in the U.S. in the last few months.  The U.S. news report btw says the bombings "have earned – at least in some minds – the designation of first successful terrorist attack on America soil since 9/11."  The Guardian, using the Global Terrorism Database, says, "There were a total of 207 terrorist attacks in the US between 2001 and 2011."  We should not report as fact what "some minds" believe.  Incidentally, editors should only be referred to as administrators when they are performing administrators' functions.  TFD (talk) 10:21, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It may be standard, but not in the History section, but rather the Government/Politics section. --Golbez (talk) 12:46, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I will ignore comments relating to how I wrote my notice, as that is not a discussion about content but an ad hominem fallacy.
 * I see there is a consensus of other editors not to include Libya, Benghazi attack, or the Boston bombing. But why those and yet mention Hurricane Sandy? Using the recentism argument that is also relatively recent, as the removal of all the above listed (including Hurricane Sandy) would leave the U.S. forces withdrawal from Iraq as the last event listed.
 * Also, I am suggesting that the "reform" sentence include the word controversial, as it is; and if required I can list a number of reliable sources that are critical of the health care "reform".--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:08, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Speaking of fallacies, isn't there a fallacy in your false appeal to authority? It implies being an admin is relevant to this, which it isn't.
 * As for Sandy, I wondered about that myself at first, and had even written, in my examples, "Why Sandy but not Andrew?" But then I checked the numbers and Sandy was a lot worse than I thought, ~$75 billion in damage, second only to Katrina and a long way ahead of third place (Andrew is down to 4th). So I decided that was a less blatant example of recentism, since it was the second most damaging natural disaster in the nation's history, just as we mention Japan's multiple bank-breaking earthquakes in its article. (though, not in its history section; the two older ones are relegated to Geography, which makes sense and we should consider doing the same here. Maybe this calls for a deeper discussion on what truly warrants being in a country's history section)
 * As for whether or not health care reform is controversial, I think that's sufficiently orthogonal that it can be discussed separate from the discussion of recentism for the above topics. --Golbez (talk) 18:25, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * My mention of adminship was more a statement of fact rather than attempting to appeal to authority. For instance stating that I am a reviewer is a statement of fact, even though it has nothing to do with my reversion, which was per WP:BRD.
 * Is the damage figures in the same dollar value, or based on dollars lost at that time?
 * Also, only one use of controversial is used in the article, and this is about the Iraq War. There is sufficient criticism and opposition of health care "reform" that it is clearly notable, and thus could be said to be controversial (which the terms "Obamacare controversy" returns back 34.6 million hits, where the terms "Iraq War controversy" returns a smaller 26.3 million hits).--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:52, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Hurricane damage figures are adjusted for inflation, but not adjusted for "wealth normalization", which as I recall was the method used to suggest the 1926 Miami hurricane was the worst ever. However, that's a minority method, and those figures haven't been updated since Katrina so they lack Ike and Sandy.
 * You're distracting yourself from your own complaint, you really shouldn't do that. Our lack of focus in this talk page is the single largest impediment - not our disagreement, but our lack of focus - to getting anything done. Stay focused on the topic at hand, which is the recent issues in the history section. Don't change it out of nowhere to a discussion on whether or not PPACA should be described as "controversial." Yes, I'm telling you how to run a section of the talk page you started, but we need to stop doing this. We get into this pointless cycle of "Here is a legitimate concern" "Hm how should we do this" "Oh also there's this mostly- or entirely-unrelated issue" "Well we need to discuss that" "Hey guys what about the original?" "But we need to discuss this unrelated issue!" "This is how sovereignty and the territories figure into it" "I disagree! Let's rehash the long fight we've had all over the talk page in this section and drown out everyone actually trying to improve the article!" So, please, please, please for the love of God and all that is Wikiholy, please do not distract yourself. Make a new section if you want to continue it, but please do not change the subject from what you yourself established. We need to gain some self-control on this talk page.
 * So all that said, there appears to be a consensus for removing the recent issues as stated, and also for not mentioning Obama's re-election in the history section (it's more than relevant, and should exist, in the Government section, however). I will make the appropriate edit. We can continue to discuss Sandy here but please don't change it into whether PPACA should be labelled "controversial", make a new section for that if you must. I just want us to gain focus. --Golbez (talk) 20:21, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I understand the concern that Golbez has posted, and thank the editor for the constructive criticism, yet at the same time I had the initial feeling that it is a bit has a slight tinge of WP:OWN. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:41, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Can one own a talk page? :P And less 'ownership' and more 'adult supervision'. I could simply leave and the exact same amount of progress (zero) would be made. I'm trying to corral things. --Golbez (talk) 21:16, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh well, here is the section:


 * [pulled in from another section --Golbez (talk) 13:31, 3 May 2013 (UTC)]

Is it just me, or does the inclusion of Hurricane Sandy seem to be a case of recentism? I say this, given so many other more historical and deadlier disasters are not mentioned (1900 Galveston hurricane, 1906 San Francisco earthquake, 1925 Tri-State Tornado, 1974 Super-outbreak, the 1993 Superstorm, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings, the 2011 tornado outbreaks, etc.). Other than being the 2nd costliest hurricane, how has Sandy really contributed to American history so much that it is worthy of inclusion in the very succinct and limited history section? It certainly wasn't one of the strongest hurricanes in terms of wind-speed or barometric pressure, and it doesn't even come close to Katrina, Galveston, San Francisco, etc. in the scope of casualties. It may have damaged surge-prone coastlines and flood-prone areas, but it didn't nearly completely destroy an important city like New York or Newark or Atlantic City in the same way that the Katrina and Galveston hurricanes did, or the San Francisco earthquake did.

In addition, the 1900 Galveston hurricane and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake not only killed thousands of people each and obliterated important American cities, but were much more groundbreaking as being wake-up calls for the country regarding the need to forecast, prepare, and plan for disasters. And Oklahoma City was a national tragedy and representative of the other kind of terrorism that is not mentioned here...that being domestic terrorism.

Can someone please shed some light for me on why Sandy is included when so many more historically important disasters are not included? Thanks. Abog (talk) 06:35, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for joining the recent active editors to this article. We are presently beginning a discussion that may lead to a major overhaul of the section which the above editor has concerns with. Please join us, as perhaps the overhaul may address the concerns stated above.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 07:14, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * [end of pull from other section --Golbez (talk) 13:31, 3 May 2013 (UTC)]
 * Thanks to the way you put it, I agree. Sandy, while very costly and devastating over a large area of the country, ultimately may not have the same impact as Katrina did. A major city was not partially destroyed and left uninhabitable for months. I would definitely say that San Francisco and Galveston would warrant mention before Sandy... but I'm not sure I would say they should be in the article. Katrina's impact truly was national, it exposed flaws in the governments at every level, it created a national economic crisis with the spike in oil prices, and it created a cultural wound that is still healing. I struggle to think of any disaster, natural or otherwise, that hits as hard as Katrina, except 9/11, and perhaps the Oklahoma City Bombing. But, this goes to my point in the section below on the history section - instead of giving a laundry list of "this happened, then this happened", we need to build a narrative about the history of the country. That doesn't mean listing what happened, that means giving an image of what happened. It's a summary section in a summary article but that doesn't mean it has to be bad. So, I agree - remove Sandy. But don't add anything in its place. (Sandy and other hurricanes and major earthquakes should be mentioned perhaps in a paragraph under geography, since it is ultimately geography that allows these things to happen) --Golbez (talk) 13:31, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree...Katrina was so significant in so many different aspects and belongs here. But as there appear to be no objections, I will remove Sandy. If someone can make a case for including Sandy (especially in light of excluding the OKC Bombings, Galveston, 1906 quake, etc.), I am open for further discussion. Abog (talk) 05:35, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

A review of the history section
Bear with me, this may be somewhat stream of consciousness, but I want to get a discussion going on the quality of the history section. First, the structure and see if there are any gaps or extraneous issues.


 * Native American and European Settlement
 * Pre-history
 * Spanish settlement
 * English settlement
 * Continued English settlement and slavery
 * French and Indian War
 * Issues between Colonies and England
 * Review of the above: Pretty good, and the linearity works well for it.
 * Independence and Expansion
 * American Revolution
 * Revolutionary War
 * Social issues; slavery and religion
 * Westward expansion
 * Jacksonian Democracy (this is only the third mention of a president, despite being the 7th; keep this in mind)
 * Indian removal and annexation
 * Gold rush and further Indian removal
 * Review of the above: The linearity doesn't do as well here, as we have the Texas and Oregon issues bunched in with Indian removal. Indian removal should warrant its own paragraph, I think, despite it not fitting neatly in the chronology. I think it might stand to combine all of the expansion and annexation of this period, and combine all of the Indian removal, despite there being an overlap in the chronology. One paragraph for Indians, then one for expansion. We don't need to be perfectly linear here.
 * Missing any mention of the Monroe Doctrine, which signified a large change in American attitudes over the hemisphere.
 * Slavery, civil war and industrialization
 * Confederacy
 * Civil war
 * Reconstruction
 * Immigration
 * Annexation, Indian wars
 * Gilded Age
 * We run into the same issue here again: A sentence about the Indian wars is thrown in between the Alaska Purchase and the Hawaii annexation. The Indian wars should be expanded to a paragraph, with further information on how Indians have been treated since, with reservations, etc. Again, this doesn't need to be purely linear, and it's harming any narrative that can be made here. Then we can have a paragraph talking about Alaska, Hawaii, and the Spanish acquisitions, and it will make much more sense.
 * WW1, Great Depression, WW2
 * WW1 (Wilson is mentioned; he is the first president named since Grant. Keep this in mind.)
 * Great depression, women's rights, roaring 20s
 * New Deal and Dust Bowl
 * WW2
 * The New World Order
 * A little sad that only a single paragraph is given to the entire 1920s, but here we are. I almost want to suggest a mention of Prohibition there just to flesh it out a bit. I'm not sure we need so much detail about the end of the war; we could simply say Japan surrendered shortly after the atomic bombs were used, rather than giving it another sentence and the exact date (this is the first exact date in the History section since July 4, 1776, by the way. Keep this in mind.)
 * Cold War and Civil Rights era
 * Cold War
 * Space Race and civil rights
 * Great Society, Vietnam War, new cultural movements
 * Nixon. Carter. Reagan. End of the Cold War.
 * Here you see the great shift in this section from passable to bad. The Cold War section is great. The Space Race paragraph is where this really devolves into pure bullet listing. I would suggest fleshing out the space race graf into a second graf about the Cold War and the competition between the two blocs, expanding the formation of NATO as well. The civil rights issues should get their own paragraph.
 * LBJ's laws are given without any context whatsoever. What is the purpose of the Civil Rights Act? Or the Voting Rights Act? Or the Immigration and Nationality Act? What did these do? Better to say what they did rather than just give their names and expect the reader to click to find out.
 * The last two paragraphs is where it falls apart into pure bulletlist. This happened. then This happened. then This happened. etc etc. The Great Society should be combined with the civil rights section; the Vietnam War and its consequences (for example, ending the draft, which isn't mentioned) should be expanded.
 * And then we get to the laundry list. Jimmy Carter's administration is given a sentence. Why? It appears to be there solely so he gets a sentence. Remember how I told you to keep in mind how many presidents were named? We had Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and Grant. Then some decades of silence and then Wilson. And then since 1932, we had: FDR, Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama. The only ones missing since 1932 are Truman, Eisenhower, and Ford. This is not a history section, it's a book report.
 * I don't have all the answers at present as to how better to explain the country since 1970; I just know what we have is incredibly insufficient.
 * Contemporary era
 * There's no point; the paragraphs have nothing to do with each other anymore, it's simply become a list of "This president did this thing", with a few actual events interspersed.
 * A suggestion on where to go with this, for example: Instead of saying "Under G HW Bush, we went into the Gulf War", say ... we went into the Gulf War. Does the president matter? Whoever wrote this (and I'm sure I'm guilty of some of it) seems to think that modern American history is defined solely by who sits in the White House.
 * Does the Bill Clinton impeachment warrant special mention? And, does it warrant three links while Nixon's resignation gets one?
 * Here's a sign of a bad history section. Look at how every sentence of the last two paragraphs begins:
 * The 2000 presidential election...
 * On September 11, 2001...
 * In response...
 * Taliban insurgents...
 * In 2003...
 * In 2005...
 * In 2008...
 * Major health care...
 * In 2011...
 * The Iraq War...
 * In October 2012...
 * Half of the sentences literally are "On this date, this thing happened." It's nothing but a list, with no narrative and only vaguely prose. This is supposed to be the history of the country, not a list of events that happened in the country. There's a difference.

I hope I haven't bored you with the above, and hope I've made sense with my critique. --Golbez (talk) 06:18, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * A month or two back I had began sourcing (adding reliable sources) the content for the contemporary section, as well as began adding sources and content to the "Cold War and Civil Rights era". What the overall history section should be a summary of the primary summary articles for the subject. Therefore we should look at the History of the United States article (which I have note edited), and its sub-summary articles such as Military history of the United States (which I have over a dozens of edits on), and the Outline of United States history (which I have not edited). As a summary of a summary article, the question is what events need more than one sentence, and thus how much weight should we give each event (by explaining the impact on each event)? For instance the immigration reform in 1965 had a major long-term impact on the racial and demographic makeup of the county, yet is often overlook except for those interested in demographics and race relations. The Spanish-American War also had a huge impact on the U.S. place in the concert of nations, yet is often overshadowed by World War II in the minds of most Americans.
 * Perhaps we should place a moratorium on editing the section for a while, and not edit until we can get a consensus on the structure and the major content for the section. While we are at it perhaps we should add a discussion tag to the section, to invite others to add the opinions to this collaboration, and inform WikiProjects United States, United States History, and History as that is their area of editing focus.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 07:11, 3 May 2013 (UTC)