A Muslim family flying from Memphis to Toronto was thrown off a Comair flight because a flight attendant was concerned over safety. The family was dressed in traditional Muslim clothing.
The flight attendant became suspicious when the father spent an extended period of time in the bathroom before take off and then she discovered the toilet was broken. She alerted the authorities on that basis and the plane was called back from the runway and the family ejected.
Scott Brockman, Memphis International Airport’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer explained “My understanding is they were dressed in attire that would indicate some Muslim type religion.” I am not sure now many “Muslim type religion[s]” there are but Comair insists that this has nothing to do with the fact that they were wearing traditional Muslim clothing. It appears that if you linger too long in the bathroom (which might have something to do with the fact that the toilet was broken), you are likely to be thrown off a flight with Comair.
The family was allowed on a later flight (and presumably avoided the bathroom).
Comair is a subsidiary of Delta.
Source: WMCTV
Tootie:
John Locke is the Man.
In a truly free society a private company could refuse service to anyone for any reason. So you are looking at the deeper idea of individual rights and the lawful expression of those rights in a private companies refusal to provide service? How do you not go down the path of the southern lunch counter owner refusing to serve blacks? Even though it should be his right to refuse service it is not morally right to do so. The state steps in and compels the man to provide service by force of law which the man should have provided but for the fact he was a racist bigot and none to smart about economics – he failed to realize that blacks were a huge untapped market of potential customers.
Can the same be true for an airline company? Or are you suggesting a rational person would be reducing risk by excluding all snakes from a plane in order to prevent a rattlesnake from boarding? Wouldn’t it be better for the airline to have a trained snake handler to prevent the rattler from boarding? Thereby avoiding the mistake the southern lunch counter owner made by excluding a large number of potential customers.
It would seem to me that in a free society certain airlines would come to the realization that it is more profitable to prevent the rattler from boarding than to induce the king snake and the milk snake to take their business elsewhere. So I guess the real question is do we want the government taking those decisions or do we want free people willing to take objective risks taking those decisions for themselves and their families?
Tootie, “A right is something one cannot live without. Or it is something without which one would live in slavery.”
So you don’t have/need the right to have offspring? Freedom of speech? Privacy? A roof over your head?
I love me some extreme views, but coming from mediocre minds, it can be such a turn-off.
“you had to create a fiction that air travel is a necessity”,
Not at all, I only extrapolated the case of water to the case of air travel.
Hitler Inc shouldn’t be able to ban muslims from buying water and Hitler Air shouldn’t be able to ban Mexicans from flying.
Rights don’t go over the necessities to live, rights go over the necessities for a decent, human life. That’s why they garantuee things that must be of trivial importance to you, like having a kid, speaking one’s mind or growing a brain.
Jericho:
It is immoral to hoard from others that which is essential for life and I do not consider hoarding a right of property. It is not to be protected by law. And I am not even talking about the necessities of life (though, at times, air travel might be a necessity in certain circumstances). But in fact and truth, air travel is not a necessity required for survival of every human (like food is).
Most of humanity has survived and continues to survive without airplane travel. This goes back billions of years if you believe in the evolution myth.
So to reach your silly conclusion you had to create a fiction that air travel is a necessity to be compared with water (which none of us can live without). Since we already know (as I have proven) that most humans can survive without air travel, we know it CANNOT be a right (even an unalienable one).
You have made the same error with electricity. Just ask the Amish!
A right is something one cannot live without. Or it is something without which one would live in slavery. I know of people who HATE to fly and refuse to do so and live in perfect liberty and prosperity. They drive. They take trains. Our founders never had electricity. Do you think they were less free than you? I reckon they were more free than you are today.
Therefore electricity CANNOT be a right either. It is a privilege.
As you have confused private with public, you confuse right with privilege.
Muslims are free to run their own airlines and even blow them up if they wish.
John Locke on right and property:
“He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself.
No body can deny but the nourishment is his.
I ask then, when did they begin to be his? when he digested? or when he eat? or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he picked them up? and it is plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else could. That labour put a distinction between them and common: that added something to them more than nature, the common mother of all, had done; and so they became his private right.
And will any one say, he had no right to those acorns or apples, he thus appropriated, because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his? Was it a robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in common? If such a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him.
We see in commons, which remain so by compact, that it is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in, which begins the property; without which the common is of no use. And the taking of this or that part, does not depend on the express consent of all the commoners.
Thus the grass my horse has bit; the turfs my servant has cut; and the ore I have digged in any place, where I have a right to them in common with others, become my property, without the assignation or consent of any body. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them.”
Tootie,
it’s not my thinking that’s confusing private and public spheres.
But by all means, let’s follow your logic…
Suppose there was a company, Hitler Inc, that would have a monopoly on drinking water, electricity… you name it. You would let that company ban anyone it desires? How’s that for fascism?
See, I have this CRAZY opinion that people should have basic rights to transportation, I don’t care who owns the company. It is precisely your nonsensical thesis that confuses public spheres for private ones. BUT the same logic applies to any commodity or service, I don’t care if you’re selling fridges to eskimo’s or golden rolexes in Dubai.
You give me an example where it is good and necessary for a company to sell to one person, but ban another and then maybe we can draw a line.
‘But I own it!’, is chinese to me. Nobody owns shit.
Property is theft. I thank you.
@Vyan
>This is the same fail as Juan Williams
No it is not. Williams was only talking about how he feels when he specificly sees people wearing traditional Muslim clothing.
>any potential jihadist who might actually be a danger on
>the flight is NOT GOING TO ADVERTISE themselves”
That was not his point, see above.
empirecookie
Funny, cute, and nice photos.
I like Muslim muslin! And jeans under the Muslim stuff.
Thought the website ignores our legitimate fears. Which is stupid.
Buckeye
It sounds like you travel a lot.
Tootie
I think Comair is a public business. But I’m intrigued with your idea of starting a private charter airline serving Muslims, if there isn’t one already.
Except for FAA regulations I don’t think the government would interfere, other than those laws which all private businesses are subject to – cleanliness, etc. As far as airports, I would think private airports, as well, would be a reasonable solution. This would eliminate landing fees at the larger airports (a limousine fee could also be charged), and in this case you would also save money by not having to serve alcohol during the flights.
Jericho writes:
“For the same reasons we could ban:
– caucasian whites from banks, insurance companies and hedging firms
– catholic priests from schools, playgrounds and streets
– contemporary republicans from holding any public office, buying a gun…”
You have confused the private and public spheres.
You could ban anyone from your bank if you owned it. The Constitution protects your property. Same with insurance companies (though this is tricky because of laws requiring insurance). I guess a government insurance agency would fix that.
Public schools would not be allowed to ban a priest. Nor public playgrounds or public streets. That would be illegal under equal protection.
It is NOT illegal to ban someone from entering into your property whether it is your home or office (which is still your property). (unless of course you live in a fascist country)
See how confused and jumbled your thinking is?
A Republican cannot be banned from holding public office nor from buying a gun. This would be illegal according to the Constitution.
They could be banned from my guns tore though (as it is my private property).
Is any of this sinking in or are you still confused about the public and private spheres?
I assume the airline is a private company? And if so I think every private business reserves the right to toss out anyone (while on the ground, of course) they do not wish to do business with. Ones private business is ones property and unless they are committing an illegal act (like committing fraud) I see no reason why the government needs to be involved.
In fact, if anyone wishes to not do business with me, I’m fine with that. I’ll start my own if I have to.
If Muslims continue to have this problem, what I see is a great opportunity for a Muslim charter airline company.
The problem here is government interference in this industry (including airports).
Blouise
to a republican an enthusiastic crowd is one where somebody gets their head stomped.
Delta is run and staffed by idiots. Memphis airport sounds like it takes its cues from its dominant carrier.
Vyan writes, “any potential jihadist who might actually be a danger on the flight is NOT GOING TO ADVERTISE themselves, they would dress western.” But now that you’ve said that, they’ll start wearing Muslim garb because then no one will suspect them.
culheath 1, October 27, 2010 at 8:08 am
God bless the attendant’s pointy little head. Can Americans get any stupider
The answer is YES…just wait until after the Nov elections
Remember folks, if you’re not afraid, the terrorists win.
The flight attendant should have known that if they were dressed in traditional clothing, that they were scrutinized by the ground crew extensively. Maybe this was an innocent mistake because of the bathroom malfunction, but I am sure that if any of us wore Muslin type clothing, we would really feel unwelcome wherever we went in the US. This society is becoming less free as the news media keeps publicizing these types of issues.
That flight attendant must be related to Juan Williams. Here is some more Muslim garb:
http://muslimswearingthings.tumblr.com/
Bdaman,
Guess it all depends on who you read … ” few hundred Democrats in attendance for the exits” was your guy’s take but three other reports I read said that there were well over 1,000 people in attendance and the crowd was enthusiastic.
The only thing I found that the guy you quoted and the three other reports I read agree on is that Clinton was an hour late.
One of my sources was Fox News “over 1,000 enthusiastic people” … NBC News characterized the over 1,000 people gathered as a “cheering crowd”.
Further, it is being reported out of Maryland: “Democrats are taking advantage of early voting in greater proportion than Republicans, the state elections board reports, suggesting that the party in power is turning out its base more effectively.” (Baltimore Sun)
Elaine I love Marblehead. bdaman The right wing noise machine never lets up. I still think you should get a promotion.