

How Many Americans Have a Passport? The Percentages, State by State - trustfundbaby
http://blog.cgpgrey.com/how-many-americans-have-a-passport-the-percentages-state-by-state/

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cezary
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our
people need it sorely on these accounts." -Mark Twain

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dmm
Living in the US, it's easy to travel quite a bit without needing a passport.

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cezary
I live in the US, but there's a difference between traveling within the
borders of your country and traveling abroad and experiencing new cultures.

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anamax
If you think that the US is a single culture, you need to get out more.

Yes, the coastal cities appear to have the same culture, but there's a lot
more to the US.

And, even in the coastal cities, there are multiple cultures.

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cezary
If visiting another city or state is culturally awakening to you, maybe you're
the one that needs to get out more.

The difference between countries is always greater than that between cities.
LA to NYC is not the same as NYC to London. Even then you're still speaking
the same language. How would you deal with a language barrier? Different
religions? Different laws? You'll never get the perspective of an immigrant in
the US, but you would being a foreigner in another country.

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anamax
> If visiting another city or state is culturally awakening to you, maybe
> you're the one that needs to get out more.

I'll be happy to compare passports. Let's start with how many months you have
lived outside the US. (I've have three months in Europe, plus trips. I also
have trips to the Philippines, Fiji, Equador, and others.)

And, since you're claiming that the US is culturally uniform, where in the US
have you lived? If the SF bay area, what parts of Oakland, SJ and PA have you
experienced? (No, getting ribs at Everett and Jones doesn't count.)

I've lived in both EPA and black Oakland, in addition to "fly over country".
I've even done farm labor (and my father did it as a migrant).

> Even then you're still speaking the same language.

Interestingly enough, I referred to places in the US where English is not the
dominant language.

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cezary
Not sure how time spent across borders really matters, but I'm foreign born
and have spent years outside the US. I'm currently in Chicago and have driven
to Florida, New York, Colorado, Nevada and have gone north and south of the
border. I frequently visit relatives that live in rural parts of Iowa and
Indiana.

My point still stands, you won't find as large a cultural gap as you would
traveling to another country.

> Interestingly enough, I referred to places in the US where English is not
> the dominant language.

Of course you'll find small populations of foreign speaking people in the US,
just as you would in any country but you're missing the point. You can't
compare going to Chinatown with actually going to China, that's ridiculous.

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r00fus
Seems like this correlates well with the red/blue spectrum of voting
preferences. I'd be nice to see those two data sets visualized together.

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timclark
Just remember that correlation is not causation!

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seiji
This was making the rounds a few days ago:
[http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/08/passport-
ownership-p.ht...](http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/08/passport-
ownership-p.html) (Passport ownership prevents diabetes)

