Ross: You have the freedom to fly, or to stay home
Sep 24, 2021, 5:51 AM
A flight lands at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
At yesterday’s hearing on air rage, members of Congress heard from flight attendant Teddy Andrews – who vividly remembers his worst day at work – the day a passenger refused to mask up:
“Politely I asked, ‘sir, would you please put your mask on? It must be covering both your mouth and nose,'” Andrews recalled. “He looked at me, and I will not repeat the epithet he used. He said, ‘n-word, I don’t have to listen to a d— thing you say. This is a free country.'”
Well it IS a free country, which means the owner of the plane is free to kick you off if you behave like that.
But according to Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, nothing will change until these passengers – many of whom board the plane already drunk – get jail time:
“We believe that when people start to actually face jail time, there’s going to be a lot of sobering up around the country and we will not have these bad actors — who are a few among the millions who travel every day — disrupting the safety and security of everyone else,” Nelson said.
What I want to know is how anybody – even if they’re drunk – can enter an airplane, and as they’re threading their way down the aisle, crushed up against 150 other people and their luggage, they think, “you know, this is just the place to exercise my freedom.”
No! When you enter an airport, you give up your freedom. You shut up, you line up, you get scanned, you shrink your butt to 17 inches, and you sit still for four hours with your belt securely fastened, holding your bladder. Unless you’re on the aisle. You can’t tell bomb jokes. AND you have to wear a mask.
Everybody knows this. If you don’t like it, exercise your freedom to stay home. Or make friends with a billionaire and he might buy you a seat on a space capsule where you can rip off your mask, float for three days, and even empty your bladder whenever you want to!
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