[davidw]

The sentence was a bit tongue in cheek, something that seems to have completely escaped those piling on with their indignant downvotes, as a way of exercising their frustration with the poor state of US immigration policy. "There, downvoted! Now I've done my part to make the world a better place!".

The US has had problems going back to when it was founded, and slaves - black people, mostly - were counted as 3/5ths of a human being. That's a sight worse than the stupid airport scanners, or many other modern stupidities in my book. There are plenty of other things to dislike about the place, too, that are not recent.

But plenty of things to like, and every other country has plenty of negatives too, if you look closely.

I disagree with plenty of things in the US, but I'm not so fond of sweeping statements.

[0x12]

Fair enough. The reasons why it rubbed me a bit are (1) I know you're an American living abroad, so at least you've seen both sides of the fence, and (2) I used to think much like the OP and today I won't even go to the USA for business any more. They've managed to eradicate a good part of my respect for the country as a whole as well, and one of the main issues is the way new arrivals are treated by immigration.

How the government treats people that are at its mercy is a pretty good indicator for the state of affairs, and in this respect the USA is not looking too good, to put it mildly.

[prodigal_erik]

Slavery was appalling, but nobody was advocating 3/5 as an actual statement about their metaphysical humanity. It was a purely political compromise on the total influence and taxation of the south vs. the north, because they couldn't agree on x + 1/2 y or x + 3/4 y. The proper number for congressional representation should have been zero, not because slaves weren't people but because they weren't permitted to vote.