Of course there was a choice. But this all started when you were all SOMEONE SHOULD GO TO JAIL. Who? For what? Should someone from United go to jail for calling the police when they guy refused to leave the seat? Should the policeman go to jail for removing someone who refused to leave his seat? How long should they go to jail?

I agree that United handled it badly. But jesus christ this isn't some sort of civil rights issue. What's the issue exactly? AIRLINES ARE ****TY??? Yeah no ****. MODERN DAY ROSA PARKS

Of course I think United screwed up. But the "doctor" had no more rights to his seat than did anyone else on that flight.

But he also had no less, and the amount of "right" he had was that he ****ing bought a ticket!

Well, one guy has already been suspended. Guess it was obvious that he was justified in the clobbering!

The issue is that if you don't travel first-class or in a private flight you can get bumped for no good reason at any time just because the airline feels like it. Normal people are being treated like criminals because they're being asked to give up something that they purchased a long time ago. And then people are being beaten for no reason. It all adds up to authoritarianism. A marriage of the corporate and police state. That's called fascism and I don't think we just sit here and take it. Also it's very notable that this was a person of color, we don't know it but he very well could have been targeted because he was a person of color.

The passangers who booked their flights, paid for them and met every requisite had every right to those seats. The airline employees didn't havd any of those things including a seat.

I can think of 4 people that doctor should have been prioritized over.

how important of a civil rights issue is airline overbooking?

The image of a person of color being beaten and dragged away while exercising peaceful, nonviolent disobedience is definitely one that has a powerful history in this country. You can't dismiss that.

I have police violence as a pretty relevant and timely civil rights issue!

Keep going hard in the paint over "consumers have no rights"

Blind fealty to our corporate overlords and reflexive excusal of state violence on corporate behalf against labor is a pretty significant social issue and has been for hundreds of years.

So you don't have an issue with removing the passenger, just with how violently he was removed? Honestly I'm not sure how much less violently someone could be removed from an airplane against his will, that was pretty tame...

Except he was already seated on the plane and yes him being a doctor or a dog walker and who needed to get home to do their job Supercede non paying airline employees for a situation the airline could have dealt with in scores of different ways.

You are pretending these airline employees with no seats are just like any other passengers and that is not true at all.

I agree completely. I was just responding to people who seemed to agree with his claim that his reason for remaining on the flight was somehow more important than every other paying passenger's reasons for wanting to stay on that flight.

So Trump spent as much in ten weeks on golfing vacations as Obama did in 2 years (or 104 weeks). Pretty crazy stuff. If this keeps up, and if Trump is prez for eight years, that's over a billion dollars on golfing trips.

Buried fine print under Rule 25 speaks of "denying boarding", but dude already boarded:

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...iage.aspx#sec5

United filed a FALSE POLICE COMPLAINT and idiot officer engaged in a FALSE ARREST.

Lol, at far right extremists WhatAboutDan and SenorTroll shilling for the corporate powers that be to have the right to knock out passengers and drag them off planes when even their own lawyers are not that presumptuous. Strange that our comrade WhatAboutDan spent all his time railing against the "corporatist Democrats" only to take this position. Almost like he reflexively argues against whatever those dang liberals are up to on any given day.

The libertarian always comes home to momma.

https://twitter.com/vwvaupel/status/851478088521265152

You realize that, like, when we arrive at the point that the guy won't be removed except by force, the next step doesn't have to be to use force, right?

That's a good point, the cops should have been all "are you serious with this? Find a better way to fix this" when the airline told them to remove the guy from the plane.

Yes

Yeah, they should've. They don't exist to facilitate optimal personnel distribution for United Airlines.
"We need 4 seats to Lousville"
"Sir this is the police I think you meant to call an airline"

Yeah, the policeman should go to jail. Police brutality. Excessive use of force. It's a thing.

It wasn't police. It was airport security.