Posted on 04/25/2017 5:01:17 AM PDT by Kaslin
Unless you've been in a coma, you've seen the video -- about 8 million times -- of what I will delicately call the incident involving United Airlines at O'Hare Airport in Chicago.
You've seen the doctor turned into a bloody mess after airport cops hauled him off the plane because United needed the seats for its own crew members who had to be in Louisville for work -- just like the doctor who said he couldn't leave the plane because he had patients to see in the morning.
And you have come to your own conclusions as to who is at fault. Maybe you think it was United for forcing a passenger off the plane once he was seated. Or maybe it was the police who brutally dragged the man off the plane. Maybe you even think it was the passenger, 69-year-old Dr. David Dao, who refused to give up his seat.
But I'll bet you don't know who the real villain is, the one who, despite the fact that he was nowhere near Chicago, is really responsible for the mayhem at O'Hare.
Here's a hint: He's the president of a major country in North America and his initials are DJT.
No kidding. President Trump is the bad guy. Just ask Frank Guan, who writes for New York magazine.
According to Guan, the whole thing started with "President Trump's January 27 imposition of Executive Order 13769, known generally as the 'Muslim ban,' which resulted in huge protests at airports across the nation, and seemingly emboldened some customs and immigration agents to inflict petty tyranny on helpless people whose skin is not white." Dao is of Asian ancestry.
Never mind that there is no Muslim ban, despite what progressives who despise President Trump may think. The travel ban, which is temporary, affects only six Muslim majority countries -- all of them either failed states or places connected to terrorism. Muslims from every country on earth except for Iran, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia and Syria may still enter the United States.
Never mind that there were no customs or immigration agents involved. And, while we're at it, never mind that if cops are targeting Vietnamese senior citizens -- because their "skin is not white" -- that's news to me. None of that gets in the way of the New York magazine piece. Frank Guan has scrupulously connected the dots and they lead from the White House to O'Hare Airport.
"While Dao was not abused Sunday by Customs and Border Protection or ICE agents," he concedes, "the incident fits a general pattern that has emerged since the presidential election, of increased hostility from law enforcement toward people of color."
Never mind that the law enforcement officer dragging the doctor off the plane was also a "person of color." He was African American.
Still, this is Donald Trump's fault. But he's not the only villain. It's also white racism's fault -- and ultimately, it's America's fault.
Don't take my word for it. Clio Chang has written a piece in the New Republic, another liberal magazine, which reports that Dao's race wasn't always mentioned in news accounts of the incident. Some reports referred to him only as a "passenger" or a "doctor" -- leaving out his ancestry. That bothers Chang, who writes: "The problem with expunging the passenger's race from the discussion is that it plays into this myth of the raceless minority. It presumes that there is little potential for an Asian man to be treated worse on a United flight because of his race than a white man. It suggests that Asians in America have more in common with white people than non-white people.
"The other way to look at it is as part of a pattern of prejudice in this country -- violent and otherwise -- against people of color."
So there you have it: The incident at O'Hare is obviously racist America's fault in general and Donald Trump's fault in particular. (Tell me something I don't know.)
That's the view, anyway, from that comfy liberal elite bubble that too many journalists spend too much time in.
The point I am making here is that, knowing his integrity was suspect I am not going to consider his argument. If I am asked to be on the jury in regard to a debate once I discover one side has no integrity, the debate is over.
I don’t look at it that way.
I read the newsletters I get every month from the NJ Medical Society, and the list of docs who are censored for getting in trouble with controlled substances is legion. It is a problem in the medical community in some cases related to greed, in some because of a slippery slope, in some cases the docs themselves are addicted. The long hours and stresses of the profession take their tole.
It is the job of the State Medical License Board to search through the facts and decide which individuals cannot be trusted again and which can be helped or given probation to overcome their problems. I do not do their job, I do not know all the facts. Certainly as reported this man had issues. He was apparently a compulsive gambler at one time as well.
We don’t know the man, the good he did in his life or any of the real facts. He has a salacious sexual encounter reportedly, how is that relevant? Is that something the airlines should know about all their passengers to decide who merits courtesy.
I have been a physician almost 40 years and I deplore your sanctimonious comments. I keep in the forefront of my minds at all times that each individual is a loved and cherished person and treat them as I would want someone I love treated. My oath is very important to me but I am not a tin G*d sent down to judge without the facts of each case.
Whatever this man’s past, the airline went against its own rules of carriage and by using excessive force to reclaim seats the airline forfeited any right to claim the moral high ground.
You are right of course. I stand corrected. : )
The mis-information that gets thrown around is amazing. I suppose you also think that right is printed on the back of your ticket.
More mis-information.
I suspect you don't have anyone in your family who works for an airline.
As you have been a doctor even a few years longer than I you will attest to the following: over the last decade or so there has been a push to “treat the 5th vital sign” and doctors have been admonished to quit being such sanctimonious pricks when it comes to suffering.
I learned from an intern while in Medical School just how serious a business of prescribing narcotics was. One of the things I learned in my decade of striving to become a neurosurgeon was that there are better alternatives than narcotics for chronic pain so I have NEVER prescribed narcotics for chronic pain. I have always advised others to do likewise and cautioned others about succumbing to the “fantasy of the moment” and risk their careers.
It was a mistake to push opioids for chronic pain but the mistake is in the past and we must pay for it. We will enjoy the irony as the same politicians that urged us to be “more compassionate” direct their old law firms to sue us for “creating addicts”.
In regard to use of opiates for chronic pain please read Penfiled WIlder’s Review of Simpson’s “Pain and the Neurosurgeon, a Forty Year’s Experience”. I read this book 30 years ago. Wilder succinctly sums up what has been for me a guiding principle that has kept me from doing harm.
I notice that we would have agreed much more readily in the “Bundy” matter. That is what’s so important to keep in mind with Freepers. Many of the situations we discuss are nuanced and we of necessity simplify the situations in our discussions. In that way we can appear to disagree when fuller discussion would expose our underlying agreement on the “big” picture.
The prescription of substances that can be abused and are controlled is a very difficult area. A physician desires to be above reproach, to do the right thing for his/her patients, protect them from future difficulties while relieving them from present pain and promote activity so they will heal.
But no one can know another person’s true level of pain, nor their motivations. Many patients become addicted during a short course of therapy, others self addict and attempt to use the naive doc as a dispensary or source for merchandise. I agree completely with your thoughts on narcotics for chronic pain.
I can only hope that the pharmacologists will develop drugs that are more targeted and with less abuse potential because there will always be patients who are under-medicated and suffering as well as patients who become addicted during proper regimes of post-op medication until better drugs are available. So much relates to the individual patient which is why we still practice the art of medicine.
My wife and I always get a chuckle out of the pharmacy industry’s hope of “finding a non addictive pain killer”. Better luck capturing a live unicorn.
I think it may have been Thomas Szaz who wrote an article in the late 60s suggesting that it would be preferable to have all drugs available without prescription. His point was that these drugs all have terrible side effects that would limit their abuse if these side effects were their only deterrent but that their illegality provided some perceived sociological benefit that negated their all to real liabilities.
Over the years I have come to see the wisdom of this position. We allow just anybody to walk into a hardware store and buy wrenches to work on their own cars (and all to frequently we have to have the car towed to somebody who actually knows what the hell they are doing). Should we prevent this so no one ever need have their car towed? One can say “foolish analogy” but I distinctly remember watching a neighbor drop a transmission on his chest...
About disagreements: this is why I love FreeRepublic. Make your argument, defend it, and either learn or teach. Most cases it is just poor communication that produced falsely perceived differences of opinion. Here we can get to that point most of the time without devolving into the name calling we see everywhere else on the internet that prevents folks from realizing their differences are semantic or trivial.
Thomas Szaz was an interesting man, a very original thinker. He set many a cat loose among the pigeons. He caused people to question their assumptions, a good thing which can lead to enlightenment even if not always agreement.
But he hasn't really got an argument, has he? The point of contention is whether the airline and the security people were ham-handed in the way they handled the situation, not whether he deserved the treatment he got.
Really? Somehow I had quickly concluded any businessman would instantly realize photos of bloody customers being dragged from their property would not be good for business...
No doubt he would. But whether his employees and agents would realize it too is an open question.
Explain how they do not have the right to remove you? They own the plane. You have a contract to fly with them that is all. They can keep you off or remove you for any reason or none at all. It may breach their contract with you but there is no law that compels the airline to fly you against their will.
Yes, will explain soon when I get a better connection.
He could be a crack dealer, it has no bearing on the fact that he bought a ticket and was tossed off the plane without his consent so they could give his seat to an airline employee who “needed” to be somewhere. That’s unAmerican, what they should do if they “need” the seat is to offer enough money that someone is guaranteed to take it, not drag out a paying customer.
I would have more sympathy for his case if he had claimed to be a crack dealer.
The guy sounds like garbage (a fag?) but that’s besides the point.
The airlines used the lawful force allowed them and called the professions to remove him. On all airline tickets is the printed fine print that states everything that he was asked is within the airlines preview. Now the professionals who removed him harmed him but his lack of cooperation in a cramped difficult condition led to him hitting his head. He refusal to honor his part of the airline agreement for ticketing is the undoing of his case. It was not the airlines but whatever the security folks were they called. This was not a case where the police pulled a guy from a vehicle and slammed his head on the hood of the car or their own kneecaps - but rather the case of a detainee refusing to do anything other than kick and scream like a pampered baby. Your so called doctor will probably end up on the airlines travel ban list.
Good try. Actually the airlines did not have the right according to their own published conditions of carriage which align with the Federal statutes.
The people they called had no right to even come on the plane, they were only authorized to be in the security checkpoint areas. That is why they have been suspended.
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