I refuse to travel to the US because of how much hassle is involved. I don't starting my trips off on a sour note. The UK is headed this way as well, mind you.
Refuse? Refuse? You can fly to the US - some 4000 miles away in 7.5 hrs for the East Coast and 11 hours for the West coast. You then may have a little bit of a wait at immigration (or not as the case may be). I've gone through in 5 minutes and one time it was 45 minutes. Seeing as you state you're in the UK, you also eligible for the VWP which means you can travel to the US whenever you like.
Just consider what it was like to travel before the invention of the airplane, or the steam ship. Please appreciate that you live in a time when travelling the world is very very easy. And please watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk
I'm not in the UK, you just assumed that. I just said the UK is heading the same way. You have to undergo racial profiling, in your own country when applying for a visa for both the US and UK, and then you're subjected to "random" searches and interviews when you land there. This has happened on several occasions to a friend of mine. In fact, soon after 9/11 everyone in his family's US visas were mysteriously cancelled, presumably because his surname is "Hoosein". His sister had to leave the US where she had been working for years and reapply for another visa. She has to do this every year now. Last month, my friend's employer (Sky News) had to supply special documents to the UK government to prove that he was actually who he said he was, and even then they wouldn't give him a visa. We had to get in touch with the local foreign minister to get him a visa. The last time he was in the UK, he was detained for several hours (and nearly arrested without warrant under the Terrorist Act) because he dozed off in front of the Israeli check-in counter. These aren't isolated incidents.
