Divemedic

A member of the 21st Waitress Division (Airborne) threatened to have a disabled man pulled from a plane at gunpoint. His crime? Asking the stewardess to follow the law and make sure his wheelchair was on the Jetway, so he could use it to leave the plane.

What’s next for her? Punch a baby for crying and interrupting her during her seatbelt speech? Kick the crutches out from under a disabled child for taking too long to find a seat?

This is what happens when you give people a little power. They become little petty tyrants. When I was in the military, we used to joke around and say “What is the military gonna do? Take away my birthday? Confiscate my name?” I think that is exactly what we should do. Tell them that they are no longer “flight attendants.” You are now “Stewards” and “Stewardesses.” Keep screwing up, and we will start calling you “waitress” and you can work for tips.

Or we can just tell them that the days of threatening to have people arrested for “not complying with the instructions of a flight crew” are over, because they are now subject to being sued personally for violating the law and people’s civil rights under color of authority.

The Brevard county sheriff paired up with the Brevard Public Schools Chairman to announce a new discipline policy for the county’s schools.

“Not only safe from active shooters, intruders, and other potential threats to our campuses, but also from the clowns who continually disrupt our classrooms and our assemblies with bad behavior, violent acts, and even cellphones, that disrupt class room environments and distract our incredible teachers.”

Look, I am in agreement that there are some kids in school that are out of control. I just don’t like that there are no details of this new policy, and I definitely don’t think that the police are the proper tool for addressing those children. If he is talking about children who are committing big boy crimes, that is one thing, but referring to using police to control a kid who is only disrupting class is another. Read this quote and see what I mean:

“If you are a teacher that is passionate about teaching children and are sick and tired of trying to do it in an environment where you are physically and verbally threatened or subjected to constant childish outbursts, then starting today, your prayers have been answered, because all of us have had enough of this crap as well.

(emphasis added by DM)

In school, childish outbursts are expected. They are CHILDREN, after all. The teachers need to worry about those things, not police. I’m with the Sheriff on things like violence, stealing, and actual crimes. Not on kids simply being kids.

Keep in mind that this is the same school board last year that voted to restrict parents to one minute of speaking time when addressing the school board, and had parents arrested for going over the time limit. The claim was that too many people were speaking for too long, and this was causing school board meetings to last too long.

So excuse me if I don’t trust the school board to say one thing, but use the resulting rules to be petty tyrants.