Add “welfare and comfort of fellow passengers” or else people will feel vindicated it’s their absolute right be as obnoxious as they care to be as long as it doesn’t imminently threaten the vehicle (many already act that way). And as far as I go, keep the cabin an absolute dictatorship once the aircraft is underway.
“Now that we are in the air, we will be asking all passengers to write down their PIN, their mother’s maiden name, their social security number, and then eat this cyanide capsule.”
Indeed. The officer used way too much brutal excessive force, and then to drag him across the plane when he was knocked out? Come on.
However, Dao’s decision to start shrieking like a goddamn West Texas cheerleader was a little melodramatic and over the top, although it doesn’t justify him being roughed up.
So the author of the op-ed can’t be bothered to understand what’s actually going on here?
At the point that the owners of the plane (more precisely, the owners’ agents) told him to get off the plane, everything else that happened up to that point is irrelevant. It’s their plane, and they have the right to decide who is and is not allowed on, and when someone they decide is not allowed on is told to leave, that person is obligated to leave no matter what. Otherwise, they’re trespassing.
If there are contractual issues to be resolved, you handle those later, in court, and if some shady shit went down you’ll be awarded damages. Anyone who’s reconciled themselves to being a part of civilized society understands this.
Hell, what the airline CEO said is even irrelevant. People “admit” they’re wrong when they’re not all the time. People wrongly accused of crimes make false confessions to get the torture to stop. Companies admit wrongdoing when they weren’t wrong to try and stop the PR bleeding.
One thing that I haven’t yet seen mentioned is that the officer didn’t raise the aisle armrest. Typically it is down, but there is a latch underneath the armrest which unlocks it so that it can swing up. In the videos where Dao is being dragged down the aisle, you can see that the armrests have hinges on the back. I’m surprised that the officer didn’t raise that to make it easer to get Dao out of the seats. I would guess having to pull him across the lowered armrest made the extraction more violent than it needed to be.
Except it’s not irrelevant, being as such passenger rights are covered both by contract and law. It seems United violated the law, and it’s obvious they violated their contract.
So, they can order you off the plane mid flight? No parachute of course? :dubious::rolleyes:
“* They reveal in their users a fundamental refusal, or inability, to comprehend someone else’s perspective, and a need to fortify their belief in a world in which something bad can happen to another person only if that person has done something to deserve it.”*
And hell, even if they did violate their contract, the person involved isn’t the one empowered to make that decision, on the spot. That’s something that gets resolved in court. In the meantime, you get off the plane because it’s their plane, and if they did something they shouldn’t, you’ll be awarded damages in court.
Of course, I said this all already in the post you quoted, which makes me think you didn’t actually bother to read it.
What utter fucking nonsense.
Bad shit happens to people who don’t deserve it all the time. Trayvon Martin didn’t deserve it. Eric Garner didn’t deserve it. Michael Brown didn’t deserve it.
This isn’t one of those times, though, and it takes an idiot (such as, apparently, the author of this nonsense) to assume that people can’t distinguish between the two.
Well … there’s a new normal now. At least for situations like this one.
People that hold opposing opinions from you aren’t dumb or misinformed – I think there is specific and honest disagreement about what actually is relevant in this matter. You wrote that “everything else that happened up to that point is irrelevant,” whereas others believe that “the only actions of relevance occurred before that point”.
Various experts, pundits, admissions and a public announcement by the DOT.
Various experts, pundits, admissions and a public announcement by the CEO of United.
So again- they can order you off the plane mid flight? No parachute of course?
of course that’s ridiculous. So is them ordering you our of a paid for and contractually yours and legally yours seat. Passengers have rights- **BY LAW. **
All of which gets resolved in court, later on, and may entitle him to damages–it does not entitle him to remain on the plane at that moment, after he’s instructed to get off.
Sure do, because at that time he was wrong-wrong to disobey the captain’s instructions, wrong to resist arrest, wrong to escape custody, and wrong to run back on the plane and try to hide in the back. Of course, that police officer was wrong in roughing him up.
Just because one side does wrong doesn’t make everything the other side does right.
I would have thought a better solution would be to continue bumping the compensation until you get 4 passengers willing to get off the plane. Two free tickets to any destination would have almost certainly been enough for me.