Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 August 11

= August 11 =

Gold reserves and currency
So is it possible to raise a a country's currency's values if all the gold in that country was mined and sent directly to its gold reserves? And will such a move improve a country's economy? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew
 * Keeping it in reserve would have no significant impact, but if the country used the gold to buy up some of its circulating currency, you would get a deflationary impact that would increase the value of the currency. The economic impact would be negative, though. Looie496 (talk) 00:02, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The world currencies haven't been based on actual specie or hard money for many decades. That is, there is no connection between the strength of a currency and how much gold there is in the posession of the issuing government.  Currency today is all fiat currency.  Arguably, since the value of gold itself was only based on the faith of the world community in its value, all currency ultimately is fiat currency, whether paper money, precious metals, or wampum.  The modern change was in recognizing the silliness of using gold/silver as the value holder when it was obvious that even gold has no "inherent" value beyond what the world market gives it.  Value is a socially negotiated concept, and is not an inherent property of a thing.  -- Jayron  32  19:02, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to argue about this, but the inherent value of gold is that it is obviously a nice material to make jewelry whereas lead isn't. It's hard to maintain that the value of gold is a "socially negotiated concept" where it has been the most valued material in any culture, at any given time, no negotiation needed. Using gold (or any other rare material) as a value holder is a lot less silly than paper money which value comes from the number of digits printed, just trusting the bank (or the crooks) won't print too much of it. The OP raises a nice question. I'd think a country with a huge gold reserve would be more trustworthy to pay off its debts, so it would have to pay lower intrest, so it would improve its economy. However, the only reason all gold hasn't been mined yet is that its not that easy. Joepnl (talk) 23:56, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

U.S. Census Bureau Classification of Asian
How come the U.S. Census Bureau classifies all people of Asian origin (excluding the Middle East) as Asian, rather than creating separate categories for South Asian and East/Southeast Asian (or "Oriental")? All the other race and ethnic U.S. census definitions seem to make sense, but it would appear to make more sense to separate the "Asian" category into two parts.

Also, this is a similar question--does anyone have data on the East/Southeast Asian ("Oriental") and South Asian population in the U.S. in 2000-2010, 1950-1970, and before 1910? Thank you very much. Futurist110 (talk) 01:02, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Race and ethnicity in the United States Census... -- AnonMoos (talk) 01:15, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The census definitions are, at best, tailored to fit the needs of the government and, at worst, the ugly results of years of political compromises. There is apparently no great desire from constituents, or from the government statistical bureaus themselves, to make a distinction between Indians and Southeast Asians, though one could imagine that changing over time. There is no end of controversy about census categories of race and ethnicity. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:04, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Just putting this here: "Oriental" is pejorative in American English. It exoticizes and objectifies. It was almost always spoken with condescension in its heyday and brings up all the connotations of the negative things it was associated with in 19th century America&mdash;the image of the early Chinese immigrants working on railroads in the western United States with broken English, pigtails, and fu manchu beards. People who were incidentally one of the most common targets of [often state-sponsored] racial violence in the wild wild west. The word itself is innocuous, it's the history behind the word that's offensive. I can't help but think of it as someone's polite way of saying "coolie". It remains acceptable in British English where it was used more correctly in the meaning of "eastern". Same thing happened with "negro" which literally just means "black", but has become highly offensive in the US, although it remains acceptable in a lot of other countries where it has never acquired a racist connotation. Also I'm wondering why you separate South Asia but still lump East Asians and Southeast Asians together? The difference between the latter two are just as vast. -- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  02:21, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That's a big WP:NPOV, buddy. If it actually is pejorative, you don't need to argue that it exoticizes (stripper aerobics?) and objectifies (makes a follower of Ayn Rand?).  No one complains the term "Western" is racist.  Well, maybe at Berkeley.... μηδείς (talk) 03:45, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Tell me why "Yankee", "Nigger", "Guido", "Guinea", "Limey", and "Cracker", etc. are all pejorative then? None of those words actually originated from anything bad yeah? But go ahead, call every Asian you know an "Oriental" or a "Mongoloid". And then act all haughty when they take offense, after all "Occidental" and "Caucasian" aren't offensive at all, so they should just shut their big yellow mouths about it. I wonder how many Asian friends you'll have left, if you even have any in the first place.-- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  04:16, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * "Yankee" is not pejorative. Some non-Americans try to make it so. But it ain't. (Unless you're talking about the Evil Empire in the Bronx.) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:04, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You just realized that? Now compare your revelation with what I just said about "Oriental". Pay close attention to how I differentiated the difference in the acceptance of different words in different regions.-- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  05:23, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Which is why if you google [oriental restaurants] almost nothing will show up. (Ha.) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:17, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Last time I checked restaurants weren't people. Neither are rugs. See Yellow Peril for context. -- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  04:16, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You said, without qualification, "'Oriental' is pejorative in American English." Obviously, it isn't, necessarily. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:06, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah semantics.-- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  05:23, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I apologize if someone was offended by my use of the term Oriental, but I do want to point out that the Gerontology Research Group (a very respected gerontology research organization) and even the Wikipedia page List of supercentenarians from the United States uses the letter O as an abbreviation for Oriental. The reason that I used the word Oriental was because I do not know of a better, more politically correct, short term for collectively saying East Asians and Southeast Asians combined. If you know of such a short politically correct term, please let me know. Keep in mind that English isn't my first language, though I am rather good at it. As for why I separated South Asians but not Southeast Asians is because the cultures and appearances of Southeast Asians are much closer to East Asians. In contrast, the cultures and appearances of South Asians are very different from those of East Asians. I can always easily distinguish between an Indian and Chinese person by looks, but it is much harder to distinguish a Chinese person from a Laotian or Thai person. Futurist110 (talk) 03:39, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I know you didn't, just had to mention it because "Oriental" is actually banned or discouraged by law in some parts of the US, hence why it's unlikely to appear in census forms. Anyway, Indochina (which includes the Thais and Viets) is closer to East Asia in culture. But Maritime Southeast Asia isn't. The latter is actually culturally closer to South Asia and ethnically to the Pacific Islands. -- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  04:16, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Your apology is unnecessary. But the term Mongoloid race is probably safer. μηδείς (talk) 03:47, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The funny thing about people who object about political correctness, is that they're usually just objecting because they still want to call their neighbors "niggers" whenever they want to. Out here we usually just call that "rude". Arguing that it's not pejorative, but then using it pejoratively... yeah, very convincing, sahib. Incidentally, if you want me to still keep calling you gwailo, just say so. After all, we're all friends here, right?-- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  04:16, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * "Gwailo"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:02, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * WP:WHAAOE - Gwailo -- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  05:23, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Well fuck you, Obsidian, on behalf of my black family, for pretending that the terms "nigger" and "oriental" have any sort of moral equivalence anywhere among English speakers. Please refrain from implying racist motives as if it were a valid form of argument, and please provide a reliable source that shows where anyone has ever used the term oriental itself with the intention of insulting anyone.  Not source that says people find the term offensive.  A source that says people use the term to give offense.  This is the ref desk, and your hijacking it to create a politically correct niche controversy is not welcome. μηδείς (talk) 05:36, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * LOL. You just basically called me mongoloid above and you have the guts to pretend it wasn't anything racist?


 * "Anyone has ever used the term oriental itself with the intention of insulting anyone". Please, why do you people always pretend it doesn't exist when you don't want it to? Don't blame me for telling you something you already know but don't want to accept because it's so inconvenient to have to watch your words. I already gave you a reason why we find it insulting, which you pooh-poohed away. You can do a Google search if you want more. I've read enough 19th century and early 20th century books to make me cringe every time the word was used (same with "chinaman" or "yellow races"). It was usually used as if it referred to an animal. Or someone who doesn't deserve to be American, but will always be the alien "oriental". The history of the word has always been an ugly "us vs. the strange inscrutable people" and the violence and segregation that came with it. Read a few newspapers from those days to get an idea of the other invisible minority and their largely forgotten fight to gain the same rights other Americans had,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , And you wonder why Asian Americans don't want to hear it anymore?


 * And how exactly did I "hijack" the thread for a "niche controversy"? It was relevant to the thread because it involved the US and it involved the government. And I posted a link on why it's highly unlikely that the category "Oriental" will ever appear in US census forms. It is offensive to Asian Americans, just not you, because you apparently have a black family and thus is entitled to say fuck you to every Asian American that says so. You hijacked the thread by turning this into yet another PC debate.


 * If someone tells you not to call them Bob because it brings painful memories they'd rather not talk about, do you call them Robert, or do you still insist on calling them Bob because Bob's not a bad word, and Bob's probably just being a ninny. So shut up Bob. I said shut up Bob, and fuck you on behalf of my dad Bobby Lee.-- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  06:44, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Silly, silly, silly. I would have hoped that all of you would realise that English meanings vary hugely around the globe, just as what is considered nice and what is considered nasty varies too. Why you are all being so certain about such meanings being global truths is beyond me. Derogatory meanings are very often only regional. HiLo48 (talk) 05:17, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * A fact I pointed out explicitly and was still jumped upon.-- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  05:23, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

To answer the original question — as Mr 98 says, a lot of it is for practical purposes. When you have only a few options to pick for race (White, Black or African American, Asian, Native American, Pacific Islander, or more-than-one-of-the-above), it would be rather absurd to split just one of them, and it would probably be too confusing to split many or all six of the options. Note that individuals are asked to self-classify; while a person having origins in the native peoples of Europe or the Middle East is defined as white, an Afrikaner born in Johannesburg who picks African American will not be rebuked or otherwise have difficulties from census takers. Nyttend (talk) 17:30, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It wouldn't necessarily be absurd to split Asian into South-Asians and East-Asians, nor would it be absurd to have a separate category for people from the Middle East (as opposed to lumping them in with "White," which is not respective of their sociological position whatsoever), but anyway, whether it is rational or absurd is not really the issue, again, it's about the politics and compromises that produce such an outcome. The current census definitions, so far as I can tell, satisfy almost nobody — they make the data retrieved extremely hard to interpret. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:53, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * To be honest, somehow I seriously doubt that a White person born in South Africa would be able to self-identify as black on the census if a census taker is with him. What counts is your original place of origin (original as in 100, 200, 300 years ago) rather than simply where you were born. As for Middle Eastern, the problem with that is that you'd have to include Jews in the Middle Eastern category, due to their close genetic relationship with Arabs. However, Jews look White (and for that matter, so do Arabs) and are culturally very close to non-Jewish White Americans. Futurist110 (talk) 18:23, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I thought the purpose of census takers was simply to hand-deliver census forms to people who hadn't responded by mail? At any rate, I was simply trying to provide an example of someone who clearly doesn't fit the definition despite fitting the name of the classification.  Perhaps you should say "your ancestors' place of origin".  Nyttend (talk) 23:45, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * As per Jewish people, you might want to look at Sephardi Jews and Ashkenazi Jews. Shadowjams (talk) 18:49, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm aware of both of these Jewish categories, but the U.S. and other Western countries have successful and very assimilated Jews from both categories. Besides, Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews are related if you'd go back far enough. Futurist110 (talk) 19:10, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The United States census bureau is forbidden from asking any questions about religion, which creates a problem for Jews when there's a question going beyond the basic race categorization to ask about ethnicity, or "ancestry" as the census calls it (as there was in 2000, but not 2010). Probably the majority of U.S. Jews have ancestors that came from current-day Germany, Ukraine, and Poland, but most of them do not consider themselves to be German-Americans, Ukrainian-Americans, or Polish-Americans, but instead ethnically Jewish-American (even many of those who are atheists). AnonMoos (talk) 19:37, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * My point was that if one creates a race category for Middle Easterners, then one would need to include Jews in it, despite Jews being White by appearance and having a culture very similar to those of non-Jewish White Americans. Futurist110 (talk) 20:26, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * What Shadojams was trying to point out is that most American Jews are not Middle Eastern at all — they are of European descent. The majority are Ashkenazi. There is no "Jewish race." Arguably there is an ethnicity, like "Hispanic," but even that is complicated. (Nobody can really answer Who is a Jew?, so I don't expect the census, of all bureaucracies, to try.) --Mr.98 (talk) 22:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Even Ashkenazi Jews are of Middle Eastern ancestry if you go back 2,000+ years. Futurist110 (talk) 03:24, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I'm missing something, but didn't the 2010 census already differentiate between various subgroups of Asian? It didn't attempt to include only two categories for Asian, East Asian/South-East Asian and South Asian; as OS pointed out in the closed discussion, such a distinction is questionable at best, but rather gave several options and allowed people to specify Other Asian if they didn't feel they fit in to any of the given categories but it unless I'm misunderstanding our article, it didn't just give Asian as one category. (Asian as one category distinct from Middl Eastern is also not perfect of course.) Nil Einne (talk) 10:20, 12 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The solution seems obvious: Stop worrying about classifiction and have a simple prefilled tick-box saying "Human" (of course, some fuckwit will complain about that too). Either that or have an empty box in which you can write about your origins.  Astronaut (talk) 15:57, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I would have a problem with that on the grounds that it's a total waste of time and money. Incidentally, I have the same problem with the census in general. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 21:01, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The reason why categorizations exist in things like the census is that the government has an interest in creating a better society. Insofar as people are discriminated against by the society at large for arbitrary reasons, the government has an interest in stopping that societal discrimination.  In order to study such an effect and to combat it, you have to recognize it exists even if you wished you lived in a world where it didn't exist.  That is, african-americans, as a group, still earn less money, live in poorer situations, and on average, when compared to American society at large, still do worse off than other groups.  Yes, the whole idea of racial categorization is arbitrary, but that doesn't change that such problems still exist.  How do we know there is a problem unless we can identify it, and how do we fix the problem unless we can identify it?  So yes, we continue to work for a society where we don't have to ask the question, because it isn't one where society creates a distinction.  Until we live in that society, however, we're still going to have to ask the question, and correct for the inequities.  -- Jayron  32  18:58, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * A noble sentiment, but my impression is that historically speaking, they've usually solved the problem by mapping out the areas inhabited by African Americans, picking out which ones they'd like to develop, getting out the red pen and marking off areas that won't get police patrols or mortgages or insurance approvals. (The rest make great locations for halfway houses and drug rehabilitation clinics)  Crime skyrockets, gangs move in, the residents protest but no one cares, some sell at any price - then the city steps in with urban renewal and forces the rest to sell by eminent domain at the 'market value'.  Then they disperse the properties to real estate agents, many of them the spouses of the city councilmen who drew up the urban renewal, to fund the construction of some vast edifice with a lot of parking lots under which the ruins of the blacks' former homes will now lie, and the new gentrified properties in the up and coming neighborhood sell like hotcakes.  No, if I were black I don't think I'd want the Census to know that. Wnt (talk) 23:55, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It's a semi-paradox that while the 1937 New Deal program of the United States Housing Authority was designed to help blacks with low-cost good-quality housing, the 1934 New Deal program of the Federal Housing Administration got the federal government involved in using economic tools on a large scale to enforce racial segregation in private residential patterns for the first time... AnonMoos (talk) 02:40, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Paumotu and Tuamotu
Why were the Tuamotus also called the Paumotus in the past?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 03:28, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Looks like two different ways to romanize the same name in English. After all, Peking and Beijing are the same city, with different romanizations.  So, the native word may sometimes sound like it starts with a T and sometimes with a P. StuRat (talk) 04:07, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That wasn't really helpful. Anyway I've found the answer already. Paumotu was the older name which means "the submissive islands" while Tuamotu is the modern name which means many islands.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 04:40, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Maro ʻura
Are there any existing examples of the maro ʻura, the feather loincloth, of the chiefs of the Society Islands left in museum or other? --KAVEBEAR (talk) 17:33, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Current on-the-ground status of Azawad
No opinions, please, on what the de jure status of things is; I'm just curious about the de facto status.

To my surprise, Azawad is written in the past tense; this, together with the lack of recent edit wars, suggests to me that consensus holds Azawad not to be in existence anymore, even de facto. However, it doesn't give the name used by the people who are now running things in the region, Mali is written with Azawad in the present tense, and I can't find anything at Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, Tuareg rebellion (2012), or Battle of Gao. Imagine that you could talk with the head of whatever organisation is presently ruling things in the former Azawad: if you asked him to provide a name for the country or region or jurisdiction that he headed, what would he call it? Nyttend (talk) 17:41, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I haven't heard or read anything about Mali recapturing Azawad, so as far as I know Azawad is still around and de facto independent. Futurist110 (talk) 20:28, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The impression I got from the article is that the people who put together the Azawad declaration of independence got conquered by Islamists, and that their demise meant that "Azawad" was no longer being used as the name of the self-declared state. Are the Islamists using a different name?  Nyttend (talk) 23:43, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The rebellion was not uniform and homogenous. There were two main groups; basically, tuareg and islamists. (The detail is a bit more complicated than that). These subsequently quarrelled, making it easier for the hitherto inept Malian central government and military to regain ground. Azawad is the tuareg aspiration; the islamists are not aiming for a particularly national goal. Right now, well, you could argue about whether "Azawad" meaningfully exists, but some parts of northern Mali are still not under government control - although government control is not boolean, and many areas away from towns were never particularly strongly controlled to begin with. In some cases, local people living in northern towns (not necessarily Bamako's biggest fans) may have got together and kicked out their new soi-disant governors - but don't expect wholly neutral coverage from news that travels via Bamako. However, the MNLA have captured some Malian government soldiers, which might make a useful bargaining piece. Adding to the confusion, there has been a coup in Bamako, followed by a failed counter-coup; the junta currently seems to oppose foreign intervention. If you were planning to visit Mali, that would still be practical - they're still issuing visas &c and the only sane ways to enter the country are under central-government control. It would be possible to travel through some areas of the north with a great deal of caution and a pile of €5 notes, whilst you'd get robbed in other areas; that's not drastically different from the situation before the rebellion. The HUBB is often a good source of information if you really want a western/anglophone view of the actual situation on the ground, but sadly there's not much discussion there right now... bobrayner (talk) 03:13, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * How's your French? Here's a very recent account from a reporter travelling in northern mali: bobrayner (talk) 03:21, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Can't understand what IF and AND and OR commands have to do with this, and I've never heard of the HUBB (here?), but otherwise this is really helpful. I'm not planning on leaving the USA anytime soon; it's simply a matter of not understanding the article too well.  Thanks for the detailed response!  Nyttend (talk) 04:30, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Non-sovereign monarchy in Easter Island
Has Chile recognized a non-sovereign monarchy in Easter Island in the person of Valentino Riroroko Tuki or is it just a claim?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 20:03, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The latest news that I can find online is TIME: A Quest for Independence: Who Will Rule Easter Island's Stone Heads?, which is dated 12 March 2012 and says; "Riroroko and Rapa Nui leaders made good on (their) pledge and filed a lawsuit seeking independence from Chile. Their claim: that the South American nation has violated the 1888 treaty that let Chile annex the island..." A search on the Time website reveals no update on that, nor can I find anything more recent anywhere else. Alansplodge (talk) 15:32, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * A bit more digging in the bowels of Google reveals Hamburger Abendblatt: Ein König geht vor Gericht (A King goes to Court) - if only I could read German! Google Translate suggests that he intends to "...bring the action before an international court. 'Later this year,' he says". Although what happened in the original lawsuit is unclear to me, the general tone of the piece suggests that he lost. Alansplodge (talk) 15:43, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I have now found this November 2011 article El Chileno: Pacuenses eligieron un rey de la isla (Islanders elected a king of the island) The Google Translate vesion says; "If the claim is lost, the case is now in the hands of the lawyers of Indian Law, an American organization that protects the interests of native peoples, who shall submit it to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of the OAS." Alansplodge (talk) 16:04, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

So I guess the Chileans didn't actually recognize him.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 04:41, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Right to Privacy
I have a question--wouldn't secretly taping what Pamela Smart and Wanetta Gibson (http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2012-05-25/brian-banks-cleared-of-rape-wanetta-gibson-facebook-high-school-football-star) said be a violation of their right to privacy? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that Pamela Smart got convicted and that Brian Banks got exonerated, but it seems like if one would argue for a right to privacy it should have been illegal to secretly tape and record what they said in private. Futurist110 (talk) 20:05, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * There is no explicit right to privacy. Prosecution of any criminal statute is strictly at the discretion of the district attorneys in the jurisdictions involved, and they very often decline to prosecute wiretapping and similar crimes when such privacy violations expose criminal or civil wrongdoing. But, it's a crap shoot. 75.166.207.214 (talk) 20:30, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Wait, what exactly are you describing as a "crap shoot"? Secretly recording someone and hoping not to get prosecuted yourself afterwards? So basically, they could prosecute people for secret records, but decline doing so because these people actually provided and delivered justice? That appears to make sense. I have a friend who is a strict Constitutionalist and a Ron Paul supporter who said that he would have opposed wiretapping Smart and Gibson due to it being a violation of their right to privacy. Futurist110 (talk) 20:55, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's right. Ron Paul doesn't believe there is a constitutional right to privacy, by the way. See Political positions of Ron Paul. And to the extent that there is one, he wants to completely abolish it per Sec. 3(1)(B) of his We the People Act. 75.166.207.214 (talk) 23:19, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The article you link to says Banks recorded the conversation between himself and Gibson. That is quite different to someone else recording it without either of them knowing. The legality of it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but it isn't always illegal. --Tango (talk) 21:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I knew that Banks recorded Gibson, just like a former student of Pamela Smart's recorded her confession. My question was about anyone recording something that someone else said without the other individual's consent when it pertains to justice (a crime or an exoneration). Futurist110 (talk) 22:01, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Am I missing something? While both of these cases involved secret recordings they don't seem comparable to me. In one of them someone falsely convicted of a crime wore a wire to record his accuser exonerating him, something he seems to have decided to do by himself. In this case, the legality of recording probably wasn't much of an issue (at least when it came to the use of the evidence), since it seems fairly problematic for a court to throw out the clearly exonerating evidence simply because it was acquired illegal. However in the other case, the police are the ones who got the party to carry out the secret recording. In such a case, one would expect the police would try to make sure their recording would be admissible (e.g. by acquiring a warranty if necessary) since there was a very real risk of it being thrown out if acquired illegally. Nil Einne (talk) 00:01, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

There is no expectation of privacy in a criminal act. μηδείς (talk) 22:36, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Quite true, but that doesn't technically prevent a discretionary prosecution of a surreptitious recording where it's illegal, even when it exposes a crime, because it's an offense against "the people" instead of the recorded criminal. It's just that most prosecutors won't do it. 75.166.207.214 (talk) 23:19, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, the point is only that evidence of a crime cannot be excluded solely on the grounds of its invading privacy. The evidence can be sealed, excluded if it is illegally obtained by the authorities, or be used in a later prosecution on other grounds. μηδείς (talk) 00:07, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Right, but evidence can't be excluded if it is illegally obtained by non-government employees. However I seem to remember that a civilian performing an illegal search for the sole purpose of hoping to turn incriminating evidence over to law enforcement can be considered to be working with law enforcement even if they weren't specifically instructed to perform the illegal search under some circumstances which I forget. I think it has to do with the "wink and a nod" for example if Banks met with a prosecutor who told him over and over that the prosecutor could have nothing to do with helping to record a conversation and obtaining a warrant to do so would be unlikely, or something like that. 75.166.207.214 (talk) 01:59, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. Given the inconvenience for American law enforcement that they can't circumvent Bill of Rights protections for US suspects by use of their deputizing powers or discretionary budgets to hire or appoint agents to do their dirty work for them, one can sympathise with residents of the land of Lincoln and Barack Obama who want to flee to the most nearby commonwealth where one can trade one's freedom for a little more . . . security. μηδείς (talk) 02:48, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * There is an explicit right to privacy realized at the state level. Pennsylvania grants the greatest privacy rights in the country.  See Commonwealth v. Matos.  The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said, unlike our federal right, state protection was, "unshakably linked to a right of privacy in [the] Commonwealth." Other states with hightened privacy laws are Wisconsin, New Jersey, California and Virginia among others.  Under Federal law, the exclusionary rule has to do with punishing illegal law enforcement conduct rather than recognizing the intrinsic harm in invading one's privacy.  In Pennsylvania, for instance, taping a conversation without another's knowledge is a felony.  Pennsylvania has prosecuted police officers who recorded traffic stops.  See Commonwealth v. McIvor.  Pennsylvania was also the source of a lawsuit against Google for a Google Maps car driving up a Pennsylvanian's private road to take pictures of his house for the Streetview feature. Gx872op (talk) 17:04, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Is government debt spending on infrastructure, education, and preventative health care inflationary?
If a government prints money (or borrows) for spending on things which unquestionably pay for themselves at a rate greater than prevalent inflation (or the interest rate on government debt) like infrastructure, education, and preventative health care, does that spending cause inflationary pressure, reduce it, or is it neutral? 75.166.207.214 (talk) 20:28, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * On any reasonable interpretation of what you are saying, "pay for themselves at a rate greater than prevalent inflation . . ." it reduces it, pretty much by that assumption.John Z (talk) 20:37, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not sure I understand the idea that these things "pay for themselves"... most roads do not charge people to drive on them, public education does not charge tuition. They are paid for by taxpayers (ie they don't pay for themselves). Blueboar (talk) 21:02, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That's a narrow, short term, tunnel-visioned accountant's view. Roads pay for themselves by enabling businesses that depend on them to run more efficiently. Public education provides better educated employees for businesses. HiLo48 (talk) 21:39, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * And that's a simplistic command economy view of the economy. A road may pay for itself if it is built economically between two destinations the increased commerce between which generates enough revenue to pay for the cost of the road's building and upkeep.  It is perfectly possible to waste money on a highway boondoggle. μηδείς (talk) 22:32, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, the free market very rarely produces the public infrastructure on which it thrives. There is no avoiding incremental empirically justified elements of a planned economy in the presence of market failure without suffering very low growth rates.75.166.207.214 (talk) 23:58, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Right.John Z (talk) 02:48, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * There are very detailed CBO studies about how much these kinds of spending return to the economy. It's easy because if you don't pay to maintain, say a bridge, it's fairly simple to predict how long it will last and how much more it will cost when it fails. says you get $1.92 for each $1 in nonresidential construction on average. If you pay to put a kid through college, you get back several times as much in net present value tax revenue, even considering dropouts and emigrants. Preventative health care can save hundreds of billions of dollars by catching cancers at stage one instead of stages two or three in the emergency room. They pay for themselves by reducing necessary spending later on. 75.166.207.214 (talk) 02:25, 12 August 2012 (UTC)


 * All would be inflationary in the short term, and really, with regard to inflation, the short term is everything. In the long term, you're going to see less inflationary pressure as production expands, possibly tipping into a downwards effect; but that's far more empirically difficult to show. - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 21:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Short answer: printing money is inflationary, but growth is deflationary.  However, it is difficult to use government policy to increase the long-term growth rate of a fully developed economy such as that of the USA.  The main thing that government policy can do is to influence whether the growth curve is smooth or bumpy. Looie496 (talk) 21:55, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Is growth actually deflationary, or does it just put downward but nonnegative pressure against inflation? 75.166.207.214 (talk) 23:26, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * If you have growth without an increase in the money supply, you get actual deflation. Looie496 (talk) 23:31, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah, that makes perfect sense now. Of course if the growth is driven by infrastructure etc. fiat spending then it balances without additional taxation. If only.... 75.166.207.214 (talk) 23:43, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The question is clearly concerned with a (normal) government that can print its own money. E.g. the USA, the UK, most countries outside the Eurozone. It is then a mistake to say "taxpayers pay for government spending".  In this, the normal case, government spending provides taxpayers with the money that the government demands from them in taxes, and again, in the context of the somewhat vague assumptions, which may not always hold, this spending must be if anything disinflationary / deflationary. (Aside - In current conditions it is almost certainly the case that spending by "printing money" (= "borrowing" + Quantitative Easing ) would be / is less inflationary than "borrowing". See Gibson's Paradox for some (inadequate) background. )

It is not necessarily true that all would be inflationary in the short or long term, without assumptions. When you talk about inflation, you are talking about interactions of the financial, the flow of money, credit through the economy, and the flow of real goods & services through the economy. This is complicated & there are many things to take account of. E.g. growth without money supply increase being deflationary makes some kind of constant Velocity of money assumption, or constant proportion of private credit money leveraging off of what is being considered the base money supply assumption. For example, suppose that the preventative health care spending is on a vaccine for a disease which kills a substantial portion of people of working age & so damages the nation's productive capacity. Then the spending would be disinflationary or deflationary, especially relative to an extremely foolish country which did not do this "because there wasn't enough money". It is very easy for today's "advanced" economies to increase long-term growth, as they have been run for decades with higher unemployment compared to the Post–World War II economic expansion era, simply by the government employing people on doing useful stuff like the examples given, or by cutting punitively high taxes, particularly economically destructive ones like most sales taxes & social security taxes.

Public spending for decades in many / most "advanced economies" (particularly the USA) has been so low that even the pure wasting of money on highway boondoggles, would have non-inflationary, beneficial effect. In any case, governments "getting" more revenue from a road then it cost to build it is neither necessary nor even usually a good thing. What counts is the effect on the economy as a whole. When economies, governments, high taxes, austerity prevent resources, above all labor, from being fully employed, wasteful government expenditure is productive, and conversely, government thrift & penny-pinching is economically destructive and possibly even inflationary. Take for example the USA since the financial crisis - large deficits - major money printing, e.g. on the inadequate stimulus. But no inflation to speak of, because it is hardly keeping up with the destruction of credit money among other things. The command economy view is correct, because a monetary economy is by its very nature a kind of command economy, as many, like David Graeber or Abba Lerner have emphasized. Of course broad &/or narrowminded, but above all correct, accounting is essential.John Z (talk) 02:48, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Why did the U.S.S.R. not Invade Yugoslavia when Tito left the Soviet Bloc in 1948?
I'm thinking:
 * Harsh terrain (mountains, etc.)
 * It's a waste of money
 * Risk of Western intervention
 * Risk of an intense insurgency, especially in the Catholic and Muslim areas of Yugoslavia

Were there any other factors? Futurist110 (talk) 20:59, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * According to Informbiro_period, the reasons are unclear, although Khrushchev thought that if Yugoslavia had actually bordered the Soviet Union, Stalin would have invaded. 69.62.243.48 (talk) 21:31, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That's interesting, but then again the Warsaw Pact states were Soviet puppets, so in essence they were like Soviet territory from a military and strategic perspective. Futurist110 (talk) 21:59, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The Warsaw Pact was much later, though (mid-1950s). And they were never regarded as true Soviet territory — they were just puppets meant to stand in the way of an invasion from the West, or to host military and weapons. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:17, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Even before the Warsaw Pact was officially created, the Eastern European countries that would later be in it were still Soviet puppets. I said that they were like Soviet territory from a military and strategic perspective, and I stand by that, considering that the U.S.S.R. could have put as much troops and weapons in those countries as it would have liked to. Futurist110 (talk) 22:37, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * They were still largely occupied by Soviet troops prior to the Warsaw pact. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 20:40, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * There's a famous scrap of paper that is meant to have been was passed from Churchill to Stalin, and implicitly approved by Stalin, during one of the Big Three conferences proposing to give the USSR 90%/10% influence in Bulgaria Rumania, the West 90/10 influence in Greece, and splitting Yugoslavia 50/50. (I can check some more details later, if they're not readily to another editor's hand.)  This was in fact roughly the balance that did prevail in the end, as Yugoslavia did not join NATO or ally herself with the West but went on to co-found the Non-Aligned Movement. —— Shakescene (talk) 22:35, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I've found the reference: it's in Volume 6 (Triumph and Tragedy, 1953) of Churchill's History of the Second World War, near the beginning of Book One, Chapter 15, "October in Moscow". This refers to a visit by Churchill and Eden to Stalin and Molotov in October 1944, without FDR but joined by the U.S. Ambassador, Averell Harriman. Churchill writes,"...I said 'Let us settle about our affairs in the Balkans. Your armies are in Rumania and Bulgaria. We have interests, missions, and agents there. Don't let us get at cross-purposes in small ways. So far as Britain and Russia are concerned, how would it do for you to have ninety per cent predominance in Rumania for us to have ninety per cent of the say in Greece, and go fifty-fifty about Yugoslavia?' While this was being translated I wrote out on a half-sheet of paper: [a more detailed proposed allocation of influence in Rumania (90-10), Greece (10-90), Yugoslavia (50-50), Hungary (50-50) and Bulgaria (75-25)]. I pushed this across to Stalin, who had by then heard the translation. There was a slight pause. Then he took his blue pencil and made a large tick upon it, and passed it back to us....   Of course we had long and anxiously considered our point, and were only dealing with immediate war-time arrangements. All larger questions werer reserved on both sides for what we then hoped would be a peace table when the war was won." [ quoted in many places, e.g. here ] —— Shakescene (talk) 07:09, 12 August 2012 (UTC)


 * As I learned it—as part of a class in the final semester before I earned my bachelor's degree—the "large blue tick" in question was Stalin's striking-through of the Bulgaria (75-25) part, and penciling in "Bulgaria (90-10)" before he signed, initialed, and returned the scrap of paper to Churchill. Pine (talk) 10:55, 12 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The US assessment at the time was that the Yugoslav ability to wage a guerilla campaign (proven during WWII) made it a hard nut to crack for the USSR, who also had many entanglements elsewhere (Berlin Blockade, for example, and, a few years later, Korea). During the period, the US also made public and private overtures towards supporting Tito directly through both economic and military means. Apparently Stalin did try to build up the military in the states around Yugoslavia (e.g. Hungary) with potential future designs on the place, but he died too early to enact these plans. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:17, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The U.S.S.R. did not fight directly in Korea, though. Also, I think that if Stalin had designs on Yugoslavia he would have invaded in 1949-1950 after the U.S.S.R. built some nukes, since that way the U.S. and the West would probably avoid intervening directly. Futurist110 (talk) 22:25, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, a number of Soviet "advisers" did actually fight (and die) in Korea (but everyone pretended they didn't, for simplicity's sake), but either way, it's clear that Stalin did worry quite a lot about it, and considered it a major entanglement of resources, money, and risk. Don't overestimate the importance of the USSR getting the bomb: the USSR did not have any reliable means of hitting the US with nuclear weapons until after Stalin's death; they had exactly one nuclear weapon in 1949, which they detonated. By the time of Stalin's death in 1953 they had 120 nukes, nothing to scoff at, but this was against the US's 1,400 nukes kept on bombers on foreign bases within reach of the USSR. The USSR did not feel that it was in a state of nuclear parity until the development of ICBMs (1957 is much more important strategically than 1949), with the exception of fighting wars in Europe itself. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:38, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Even a couple nukes and an effective delivery system might have been enough to prevent the U.S. and West from directly intervening in Yugoslavia in the event of a Soviet invasion, though. This is similar as to how George W. Bush never made any noises about attacking North Korea due to them already having several nukes. Futurist110 (talk) 22:42, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It's possible, but it was a gamble. But remember that fear of American counteraction was likely one of many factors here. Separately (I don't know if Stalin considered this), the US at that point in time likely would have been willing to sacrifice one of the European capitals if it meant the USSR was no longer a long-term threat. The US strategists correctly judged that they had a large atomic advantage over the USSR, but that this would steadily erode over time. There were many who argued for preemptive war. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:32, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That's rather facile: no American president ever made noises about attacking NK. The position of the South Koreans was what was relevant.  The US could have taken them out had there been a good reason to do so and no good reason not to. μηδείς (talk) 23:55, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Mr.98 is right. Preparations were under way for a multiple army invasion, but these proceeded slowly for predictable reasons:
 * The Soviet Union did not trust the first echelon on military forces attacking, the fraternal socialist countries militaries were formed from a significant body of right wingers—and 1948-1953 was the height of an internal party purge period where the Soviet and Soviet-style societies were persecuting those who had waged the class struggle in their home countries during the second war.
 * The expected losses were quite high—from an economic perspective. The Soviet Union went through a recessionary phase from 1949-1952 associated with breakdowns in the supply chain.  Additionally, of course, Korea was considered a viable investment of time and energy to liberate the working class and demonstrate to imperialism that the Soviet sphere wouldn't be swayed by the US's failures.  Korea sucked up a great deal of economic capacity, the Soviet Union's capacity was extremely limited, and the Soviet Union was surviving, to a significant extent, by dislocating soviet-style societies' economies.
 * In the later period prior to Stalin's death the whole "nationalism communism" thing didn't spread to Italy, or France, or Great Britain ideologically; and, the so called "national communists" had been successfully purged in the soviet-style societies. Why proceed when there is no threat?  Then Stalin died. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:04, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

American Army uniform colors
During the American Civil War, Union soldiers wore blue uniforms. During World War II, they wore green or olive drab. During World War I, the doughboys apparently wore tan or khaki. When did the colors change? Was it gradual, or all at once, and why? 69.62.243.48 (talk) 21:27, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * In a word, camouflage. The ACW and other period conflicts that saw widespread use of the rifle drove military tactics away from massed formations and toward personal concealment. &mdash; Lomn 22:07, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I remember hearing that there was a marked advantage in the grey uniforms of the South. This was probably from Ken Burns' documentary. The French wore red in WWI, which was a distinct disadvantaged based on a poor theory of the supposed benefits of increased morale over camouflage.  There is currently a huge scandal with the US military's now-cancelled $5 billion pixilated Universal Camouflage Pattern. http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=pixelated+uniform&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 μηδείς (talk) 22:26, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The American Civil War is often claimed to be a turning point in modern warfare, but the facts sometimes speak against this. The US Army actually replaced blue with khaki in the field in 1898, more than 30 years after the end of the ACW. The British Army had adopted khaki field service dress for overseas use in the previous year, although the British Indian Army had been experimenting with khaki uniforms since the 1860s. At the start of WWI, the only major power not to have adopted drab uniforms was France, (although only their trousers and caps were red, tunics and greatcoats were dark blue), and they were replaced with "horizon blue" uniforms within a few months and khaki in the 1920s. The US Army in WWII used a variety of designs and colours introduced from 1937 onwards. So yes, gradual change, but the US was only one of the leaders of world military fashion. Alansplodge (talk) 23:38, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I think that claim has more to do than just uniforms. And the gray uniforms had the advantage because of their lighter color, and since they were made out of cotton and not wool like northern unis.   Hot Stop   04:51, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, maybe, but " widespread use of the rifle drove military tactics away from massed formations" is not entirely true. The Prussian Army used infantry attack in massed columns and cavalry brigade charges with devastating effect in the Franco-Prussian War in the following decade; and their successors, The Imperial German Army, surely the most technologically advanced army in the world at the start of the 20th century, was still attacking in close-order in 1915.
 * BTW, not all confederates wore grey. Alansplodge (talk) 09:54, 12 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Alansplodge -- the U.S. civil war anticipated WW1 in several ways, and if European military strategists had thought through its implications seriously, there might have been fewer assumptions that initial speed of mobilization would determine everything, that the fighting would "be over by Christmas", etc. AnonMoos (talk) 21:31, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * This is true. But it is also true that some traditional tactics were still battle winners for some years to come, and that modern US commentators tend over-emphasise the influence the ACW had on world military thinking. In this case, the move to drab uniforms was not a product of the ACW but of various colonial conflicts in the 1890s, even for the US Army. Alansplodge (talk) 23:30, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The Franco-Prussian war in which World War I and II both had their roots was a short war, and was probably why WWI was expected to be short.--2002:1FC8:BC36:0:0:0:1FC8:BC36 (talk) 20:45, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes - the Germans were more likely to apply the lessons of that conflict than those of an earlier war fought by volunteer armies on another continent. I don't think anyone can accuse the Germans of not analysing previous wars - they published great mountains of military treatises before WWI. With hindsight, it's easy to see that they drew the wrong conclusions from the past, a fault that we're not immune to today. Alansplodge (talk) 01:51, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Pashtun Awakening vs. Sunni Awakening
How come there wasn't a Pashtun Awakening in Afghanistan (yet) like there was a Sunni Awakening in Iraq in 2005-2008? I'm thinking:


 * The Taliban did not really change the life of rural Pashtuns that much when they were in power. Most rural Pashtuns opposed their women and lived pre-industrial lives even before the Taliban came into power. In contrast, the ideology of al-Qaeda heavily contrasted and conflicted with that of urban Iraqi Sunnis.
 * The Sunnis in Iraq were afraid of a genocide should the U.S. leave prematurely, and thus were willing to work with the U.S. and the Shiites in order to fight al-Qaeda. In contrast, Pashtuns have no such worry in Afghanistan.
 * The Taliban in Afghanistan is a native movement (and thus more powerful and influential), in contrast to al-Qaeda in Iraq, which was a foreign movement.

Are there any other factors that I'm missing? Futurist110 (talk) 22:35, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The primary political powers in Afghanistan are the tribal warlords, who are loyal to clans instead of larger ethnic or religious groups. That will probably remain the case until education, health care, and family planning infrastructure is very substantially increased and opium is replaced with legal crops. Sadly foreign occupation makes slow to negative progress on these issues. My opinion is that NATO, the EU, Russia, China and India should prop up the Red Crescent with UN troops to address infrastructure first, but there's no political will for that. And they should reconstitute the Green Crescent first, because the Red Crescent is widely thought to be a NATO collaborator on the ground in Afghanistan. 75.166.207.214 (talk) 23:36, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * So you want to put in general UN troops as well as NATO, identify Red Crescent with occupying troops, and prop up a terrorist organization to achieve that? Not going to happen, dreadful idea, and no thanks to more jihadists is my opinion of al that. What is needed from an occupying force to effect change is force respect and concern, there's the force okay and a bit of concern but respect has been rather lacking till quite recently and it is hard to fix things when one starts off wrong. I'm quite hopeful they will reject the Taliban soon anyway there and in Pakistan but their only models are US forces and Sharia law. Dmcq (talk) 08:51, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * No, I want NATO out, and UN troops in, protecting decent aid workers associated with an organization which isn't useless because it has a NATO collaborator reputation, which is the main reason respect is lacking from the populace. Respect has to be mutual or it's nonexistent in short order. I want that paid for by NATO, the EU and all the rich neighbors, because it's worth it to them to eradicate opium, but the troops should be from the UN and the Red/Green Crescent workers from the neighboring Muslim regions. The Taliban gives the warlords leverage against the central puppet regime, so they aren't going anywhere until there's enough widespread infrastructure that civil society can gain a foothold over the clans. What generates more jihadists: occupying troops from Christian superpowers, or aid workers propped up by the UN long enough to give civil society a foothold? I'm not suggesting sending in the tiny minority terrorist collaborator element that got the old Green Crescent in trouble. The occupying powers have to accelerate the natural development of society, not just impose a new one from whole cloth. If they keep trying the latter, they won't do better than any of Afghanistan's other attempted occupiers. 75.166.207.214 (talk) 09:28, 12 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Um, is this really the right place for a political discourse?Pine (talk) 10:57, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * No, it isn't. Futurist110 (talk) 04:48, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You asked what factors you were missing. There is plenty of evidence that gross mismanagement and de facto incompetence are just such factors. If you have evidence to the contrary, I would love to read it. My question in response to Dmcq (What generates more jihadists: occupying troops from Christian superpowers, or aid workers propped up by the UN long enough to give civil society a foothold?) stands. 75.166.207.214 (talk) 07:52, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Luckily the Red Crescent would reject any offer of such military assistance under their principle of neutrality. I think you misunderstand about the effect of occupying troops. Force itself is not something that turns people against them, the problem is that they have to work to high standards and treat people with respect as fellow human beings. This does not mean any fawning, but it does mean not having things like Abu Ghraib. People will eventually work in their own best interests so basically they have to be shown something that is demonstrably better and force does help to some respect in that regard, people like a winner. Dmcq (talk) 23:35, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Luckily the Red Crescent accepts support from UN troops but not NATO troops, which is one of several reasons why NATO occupation, and NATO, is so stupid. Do you have an opinion on the affect of Christian occupying forces from primarily Christian superpowers? The clan dynamic is much different than in countries like Iraq with a central government and civil society infrastructure already in place. Somalia is similar. 75.166.207.214 (talk) 05:07, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry yes I'd just discounted the UN going in at all and was just thinking of NATO, I still think there's no future in that idea. There is no particular problem with having a Christian power occupying the country that I can see as far as effecting change is concerned. I don't think you quite understand that just supplying aid will not change their hearts and minds. Force can change hearts and minds but it needs to be applied properly, and unfortunately having started off the wrong way makes it difficult to fix. I think they have fixed that side sufficiently now but it will take some time after leaving for it all to come out okay. As to the UN do you really think the Taliban would accept them any more than NATO? They destroy girls schools. They are not going to have the UN do anything more than NATO is already doing. The UN needs general support before it can work in a country - it is not really there to impose force and it would not come in without Taliban support. The Taliban will disappear eventually anyway but what would really help in getting rid of them quickly is to convince people in Pakistan that supporting them is very much against their best interests. Dmcq (talk) 20:45, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That just seems like irresponsibly wishful thinking to me. The Taliban remains strong and retains the ability to destroy schools (boys' and girls') and hospitals because they are able to leverage the tribal revulsion to being occupied by Christian superpowers. Until there is evidence that switching to UN support won't make things better, I don't see any reason to doubt it. 75.166.207.214 (talk) 03:37, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I just think you are being too impatient. Things like that normally take about twenty or even thirty years. People don't change overnight even when under extreme duress. Of course the Taliban will be around for another ten years at least but I am pretty certain they have no future as people have seen there is something better and there is enough force and will to stop them taking over. Dmcq (talk) 10:27, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

In regards to my question, I don't think that the U.S. made a concerted effort to reach out to Pashtuns in the early years of the war in the same way that it did with the Sunnis in Iraq, though I'm not 100% sure if I'm correct on this. Futurist110 (talk) 04:37, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Pashtuns are governed primarily by tribal warlords just like the vast majority of Afghanistan. There is no way to reach out to them without liaisons in most every village, which is impractical from both security and manpower standpoints. 75.166.207.214 (talk) 08:01, 13 August 2012 (UTC)