Originally Posted by
Kewbick
I am not defending United Airlines. The doctor was warned, and then at the point of being dragged, he could have submitted, and walked off the aircraft. He made a decision. Being dragged, in my opinion, is choosing to make a statement. Regardless of his verbal protestations, I think he thought to himself "just how far will these idiots take this?"
Just like Rosa Parks. He made a decision. He will be thought of highly by the travelling public.
He made a decision. What world do you live in? Would you have walked after being warned, or would you sit and choose to be dragged. Just saying..
He made a decision. And he won. With bruises. Personally, I would have walked off the aircraft. I am not that stubborn to risk bodily harm. I do not want to be a martyr. If a police office asks me to get out of my car, I will not say "What the f**k for?" I will get out of my car. That is the kind of world I live in.
You do not know how things played out on the aircraft. Maybe he had no explicit warning, maybe no indication at all that he was about to be physically (and violently) siezed. Moreover, a broken nose, missing teeth and concussion is more than a passenger could reasonably expect even from being physically restrained and removed: I'm sure he did not 'choose' that option.
This passenger had no need to ask why he was being told to leave: he knew he had been arbitrarily selected, through no fault of his own, to be thrown off the flight for reasons of commercial convenience. That's not the same as being stopped by a police patrol.
What the airline and several here on pprune seem not to appreciate is that it is the dismissing, minimising and rationalising of this event that has vastly magnified it. People are shocked that it happened, but are outraged by attempts to justify or mitigate it. If you value 'the rules' and see this event as falling within those rules, or as 'reasonable' given the passenger's conduct, then tread carefully or you'll see those rules promptly torn up by legislation: the view of society will now be that anything that makes this event 'right' is wrong and must not stand unchanged.