Talk:Social issues in the United States

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[edit] POV check request

This article has a heavy socialist POV bias. I urge a re-editing to balance it with a capitalist evaluation of the American situation.Bob

I realize this will start of borderlining as POV. I hope to continue to edit it with more depth and statistics. I think covering social problems in giving societies gives depth to the wikipedia. I think I can help cover US + Germany. Hopefully others will fill in the rest. Help is greatly appreciated especially with research + statistics - Reboot


I'm far from a socialist. No place is perfect. Reboot

The new title "Alleged social problems" is itself POV. Would we call Internet censorship in China "Alleged Internet censorship in China"? No, but this is about the United States, the paragon of democracy, and of course there cannot be any real social problems in such a country, so all of them are alleged by definition.

Sorry, but this is not neutral. Social problems exist in every nation, it is the article itself that needs to neutrally describe the existing data, so the word "alleged" adds no useful information. I invite feedback, but I am inclined to move this back.—Eloquence 11:42, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

I concur. Evercat 11:44, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)
How about Social issues in the United States? Danny

So I've been trying to NPOV this, but it's difficult. One problem is that the article is pretty long on rhetoric and short on statistics---somebody needs to go through the Statistical Abstract of the United States and fill in actual crime rates, incarceration rates, income inequality stats, school district spending numbers, etc., possibly with some comparative numbers internationally since the main pitch of the article seems to be to explain to enlighten Europeans what's wrong with their benighted American cousins. I'm too lazy to do this myself. Populus 16:26, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I admire your work so far. However, I would respectfully suggest that, insofar that one exists, the "main pitch" of the article is to enlighten the ignorant Americans as to what is wrong with their backwater country; we superior Europeans already know what ails the US and are, to varying degrees, trying not to make the same mistakes. -- Viajero 17:37, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Even the subject and title of this article article is so blatantly POV, I'm not sure whether it's really recoverable. I think it's well summed up by the attitude of Viajero above. The fundamental issue is that different POVs cannot even agree on what the problems are, although they may be able to agree on certain facts (symptoms if you believe everything is a problem). Even the subset of facts chosen for this article is POV. For example, it takes the stance that the unequal distribution of wealth is (a) a problem and (b) caused by the unenlightened policies of the racist conservative Americans. It's controversial, I think, to believe that wealth must be distributed equally for society to be perfect, but that's exactly the tack the article takes without even considering other POVs. I could go on, but this article is very fundamentally flawed in it's current construction. — Daniel Quinlan 21:50, Aug 24, 2003 (UTC)

The current title is "Social issues" which is as neutral as it gets, unlike the extremely biased "Alleged social problems". The structure is also reasonable, and the fact that different people cannot agree about something is no reason not to write an NPOV article about it. What I criticize about this article is its lack of empirical documentation, which would make it harder for you to justify edits like changing "well-documented" to "perceived". As long as this data is missing, this is mostly a mix of different opinions, and I will not get much involved either way. I would like to know, however, why you removed the link to Poverty line in the United States, which seems to be on-topic. You also removed the claims that the US do not have a standardized curriculum, and that there are private schools catering to specific groups (which do not exist in all countries, or with much heavier restrictions on what is taught, and may be perceived as a social issue). Why?—Eloquence 22:36, Aug 24, 2003 (UTC)
I didn't intentionally remove the Poverty line in the United States link (I reverted to the least POV version I could find as my starting point), but now that you mention it, including it at all is somewhat POV because the poverty line is just a measuring tool, not a social issue. That being said, I think it could be included with appropriate context. (It's a much lesser example of POV links such as putting a "see also" link for Communism on the US Democratic Party article.) Sure, the US does not have a single standardized curriculum, but I don't see how that's even remotely a social issue. Does all of Europe have the same standardized curriculum? Same goes for private schools. This entire article and the listed perceived issues are highly subjective. It reads more like a socialist critique than anything else. Daniel Quinlan 22:56, Aug 24, 2003 (UTC)
The listed issues will remain subjective until the criticisms are attributed to specific groups and individuals. Articles should avoid this "some people think that" rhetoric which is usually a poor NPOV variant of "I think that". Linking to the poverty line article under "See also" does not imply that it is a social issue. As for the school curriculum, this is problematic insofar as it usually leads to great qualitative disparity within the country (and there is indeed such disparity within the European Union, as recent studies such as the large PISA comparison have shown). I consider this a social issue -- a region that has a common identity, be it the US or Europe, should strive for the best standards possible independent of region. In reality, regional politics often prevail. Just because both Europe and the US have similar problems does not mean that it is not a problem, and there is of course a greater expectation for this kind of standardization within a single country, which the EU is not. And frankly, I find the claim that it reads like a "socialist critique" bizarre. These are standard arguments from the progressive left, only usually they are argued better than they are here.—Eloquence
Maybe should move this to Progressive criticisms of the United States and cite specific critics? Populus 16:23, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Well, the label "progressive" is somewhat POV, and I think that a good article should cover all points of view. Surely nobody would seriously question that there are social issues in the US -- we should give equal time to the different groups and their ideas.—Eloquence

There is no need for a neutrality dispute. The perspective of the article is sociological. These are basic concerns to the discipline of sociology. The article is neutral so long as it avoids policy-advocacy. 172 02:47, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This page is heavily biased, the opening paragraph talks about how it has not introduced the same social justice programs as Western Europe, but comments as if this is bad. Until this page is NPOV to the satisfaction of all contributors, the NPOV dispute notice I added should remain.--naryathegreat 22:57, Jul 6, 2004 (UTC)

Removed the discussion about teenagers being able to afford brand name clothing. This doesn't seem like a social issue worthy of encyclopedic mention. --reboot

Removed section on Poverty because it had very little to do with poverty and more to do with the political issues facing socialists. Reboot

[edit] NPOV

The second paragraph of the introduction is questionable.

Social and political reasons for [the U.S.'s] economic performance are said to include values of self-sufficiency, a conservative electorate, federalism and the effects of the spoils system.

What's meant by "the spoils system"? Wikipedia defines that system in the United states as "the process of appointing officials to the government of the United States of America based on political connections rather than on impersonal measures of merit." I don't see what that has to do with the economy as a whole.
Who says the U.S. has a conservative electorate? In exactly what sense of the word?
And who says that these are reasons for the U.S.'s economic performance? This is uncited opinion. I'm removing the sentence in question until we can find a citeable source to which we can attribute this or a similar explanation. --Mr. Billion 22:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

The spoils system, when pertaining to government, has long ago gone out of fashion. It is still used a lot in corporations, though, and other non-governmental bureaucracies.Stale Fries 03:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More Issues

There's definitely more issues than the ones we have here. We're missing a few, ie. religion and morals. Nissi

RE: Nissi lack or existence of religion isn't a social problem of sociological relevance unless you can prove that lack of religion causes some actual sociological ill (for instance "fraternity culture" might be a problem in universities if you have studies that prove that it leads to alcoholism, criminal behavior, drug use and poor student performance -- however not relevant enough for this article IMHO) Reboot 18:19, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article Restored and time for references

I restored much of the article that had been just summarily deleted. I added a reference section and noted where references are void. I removed the "according to social justice advocates" line of crap. This is a sociological article about issues in the US. All countries have them. The Social issues in Germany article isn't nearly as controversial. Let's try and produced REFERENCED material of sociological importance rather than push some left or right wing agenda please. I'll come for another pass of reference adding and editing. Reboot 18:19, 1 April 2007 (UTC)