That said, am I the only one who doesn't have these long security waits? I typically show up at the airport ~1h before boarding is to begin, and am often at my gate 50min before boarding begins.
I typically fly out of SFO, and I do admit, several journeys ago, I was actually IN LINE at security for 30 minutes which seemed absurdly painful and I was actually starting to sweat being late for boarding. Of course, at SFO they had TONS of extra machinery, they just didn't bother staffing it.
As much as I HATE taking off my watch, fitbit, ring, car keys, wallet, belt, shoes, phone, then the scramble to take my laptop out of my bag as soon as I get room on the table (it becomes a high pressure situation to do the laptop thing as by the time you get to the table you have roughly 8 seconds before you're holding people up!).. the actual lines are quite tolerable.
I typically fly SFO, SEA, SAN, SJC, and fly cross country at least once or twice a year. I just got back from Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Munich airports, and again, no problems. I've fairly recently been to Auckland, Queenstown, Reykjavik, Heathrow, Florence, Paris as well.
There's no doubt most other countries do a better job than the US; the automated machinery for dealing with your possessions to be xrayed (they hold your bin until it's empty and then automatically return it to the beginning of the line!) and the switching between 10-15 security lines so that you're never behind more than a few people was a revelation.
But the actual time in security is rarely all that bad inside or outside the US.