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NPR reports
Passengers on a United Express flight from Chicago to Louisville, Ky., were horrified when a man was forcibly removed--violently wrenched from his seat and physically dragged down the aisle. [...] Videos of the scene have prompted calls to boycott United Airlines.
[...] The Chicago Department of Aviation [...] says the actions of the security officers were "not condoned by the Department" and that one individual has been placed on leave pending a review.
[...] Passengers had already boarded on Sunday evening [April 10] at O'Hare International Airport when United asked for volunteers to take another flight the next day to make room for four United staff members who needed seats.
The airline offered $400 and a free hotel, passenger Audra D. Bridges told the Louisville Courier-Journal. When no one volunteered, the offer was doubled to $800. When there were still no bites, the airline selected four passengers to leave the flight--including the man in the video and his wife.
"They told him he had been selected randomly to be taken off the flight", Bridges said.
[...] The man said he was a doctor and that he "needed to work at the hospital the next day", passenger Jayse D. Anspach said.
[...] Both Bridges and Anspach posted videos of three security officers, who appear to be wearing the uniforms of Chicago aviation police, wrenching the man out of his seat, prompting wails. His face appeared to strike an armrest. Then they dragged his limp body down the aisle.
Footage shows the man was bleeding from the mouth as they dragged him away. His glasses were askew and his shirt was riding up over his belly.
"It looked like he was knocked out, because he went limp and quiet and they dragged him out of the plane like a rag doll", Anspach wrote.
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(Score: 2) by youngatheart on Thursday April 13 2017, @05:44AM
When something goes wrong, you have to find a way to deal with it. Sometimes you can find a way to turn a problem into a solution. Other times, you try to surf the crap wave and end up swimming in it if you're lucky and drowning in it if you aren't.
Did you ever hear the story of the missing nail [wikipedia.org]? Something that seems insignificant at first turns into a catastrophe due to just the right, or maybe wrong, circumstances. This is a real life version of that story.
I don't know how far back I should examine the circumstances. No matter how far back I consider the issue, I wonder if I shouldn't go back further. Maybe this story starts at the big bang*, but ain't nobody got time for that! So, what's the minimum number of steps back to take? I don't know. I'm inclined to start with the foundation of the United States. I'm not kidding.** A few will realize the starting point is too recent, but most won't want to read even that far. United States citizens have a heavy heritage of both freedom and rights. It's wonderful in many ways but in others... We have a right to expect special treatment regardless of circumstance. Many societies, maybe most, wouldn't assume someone has the right to defy authority, but Americans do.
Consider this story, an American, aware of his rights, aware of his responsibilities, decides to stand up for himself against an unfair situation.
It's one story.
Consider the other story. In a society of law; in a society where the protection of innocents from terror is sacrosanct; in a situation where there is no question about the right of the authority to exercise their authority; one person seeks to topple the rule of law, the right of authority, the good of the many for the selfishness of the one; one selfish man decides he is more important than everyone else.
It's another story. Lets return to the first.
A man works hard and uses his hard earned rewards to purchase the right to serve his patients without losing his right to travel. He buys a ticket to fly, gets his seat, and has every reasonable expectation to be able to fulfill his obligation to his patients after his flight back. Yet someone decides his choices and dedication don't matter. His rights and obligations don't matter in comparison to a corporation's desire to serve its own needs. He decides that he will not give in to the tyranny. He will stick to his principles. He will NOT be moved.
Back to the other story.
A company does its best to serve the needs of its customers. It has the ability to move most people where they need to go, most of the time, but every ticket is sold with the written and clear understanding that they must do what is best of the many, not necessarily the few. In the event that they have to do what is best for the many at the expense of the few; they give the few fair compensation, backed up by law, backed up by industry standard. If something should go terribly wrong, so wrong that physical force is required, then they turn ask police to use the physical force required, never resorting to physical force themselves when lawful authority is available. Eventually it happens. Some obstinate individual refuses to acknowledge the rules, refuses to acknowledge the limits of the opportunity you've tried to grant them, refuses to acknowledge the authority granted you by law and by polite society. In that instance, you have exhausted all reasonable other alternatives so you call upon lawful authority to exercise the authority you're entitled to and use physical force to exert your rights.
Which story is true? Both. Which is right? Both. Which is the one that deserves your support? I don't know.
This is two reasonable viewpoints coming into conflict. There is no simple solution. If you give individuals rights based on expectations regardless of what they bother to learn, then you reward stupidity. If you give corporations the right to do whatever they can get away with, then you open the possibility that corporations will take advantage of the ignorance and laziness of the common man in order to abuse him for your own reward.
I cannot do this conflict of ideas justice in less than a novel or two***, but it troubles me to cut it so short, long as it may seem. In the interest of brevity*** I will sum it up thusly: No man should ignore the terms of the opportunity extended him on the basis of ignorance. No company should ignore the humanity of its customers and their inherent nobility. Both the company and man failed in this story. It was a failure on both sides and a tragedy that has no winner in the end.
* - is the universe deterministic? What tiny differences would have been necessary to have allowed this situation to start but have had it ended differently?
** - Okay, maybe I am.
*** - This is not it, despite appearances.