Man thrown off Plane for Bush T-shirt

[Fotbol]

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- A man was removed from a Qantas flight to London because he would not take off a T-shirt with a picture of President Bush and the slogan "World's 1 terrorist."

Allen Jasson said Monday he was turned away last Friday at a Qantas departure gate in Melbourne.

Jasson said he wore the shirt unchallenged through official security checks, then approached a Qantas staff member at the gate to draw attention to it because he had been asked to remove it before boarding a domestic flight days earlier.

"I raised the issue, but I wanted primarily to thank Qantas for relenting when he told me: 'I'm surprised you got this far, the staff should have stopped you,"' Jasson said.

Qantas Airways in a statement: "Whether made verbally or on a T-shirt, comments with the potential to offend other customers or threaten the security of a Qantas group aircraft will not be tolerated."

Jasson, an Australian who lives in London, said Qantas had offered to put him on another flight if he does not wear the shirt. But he has declined.

"I might forfeit the fare, but I have made up my mind that I would rather stand up for the principle of free speech," he said.

He said he was considering suing the airline, but it was not immediately clear under what law.

[JasperDog94]

Good for the airlines. We may not always agree, but that's going too far.

[BIG BLUE DEFENSIVE END]

Originally posted by JasperDog94
Good for the airlines. We may not always agree, but that's going too far.

If this was America, it would be a totally different story, though.

[Gobbla2001]

man, from the thread title I thought the dude was thrown out while it was in the air...

kinda like the "SUV kills child" headlines

[JasperDog94]

Originally posted by BIG BLUE DEFENSIVE END
If this was America, it would be a totally different story, though. I still think that's going too far. But I'm sure the ACLU would jump to his defense.

[Fotbol]

Originally posted by Gobbla2001
man, from the thread title I thought the dude was thrown out while it was in the air...

kinda like the "SUV kills child" headlines
Gobbla u crazier than hell:D

[BIG BLUE DEFENSIVE END]

Originally posted by JasperDog94
I still think that's going too far. But I'm sure the ACLU would jump to his defense.

At the same time, businesses do reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, so I'm kind of in the middle of the road on this. I can understand where the airline was coming from, but at the same time, it is preventing freedom of speech. Could make for an interesting argument either way, really.

[Gobbla2001]

Originally posted by BIG BLUE DEFENSIVE END
At the same time, businesses do reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, so I'm kind of in the middle of the road on this. I can understand where the airline was coming from, but at the same time, it is preventing freedom of speech. Could make for an interesting argument either way, really.

The deal is that it IS freedom of speech, you are correct... but you are correct again in that it's the airlines business, they may have the right to refuse anyone if they do not comply with their rules etc...

[themsu97]

Freedom of Speech, come on... only if you fit the right profile... the 1st amendment is so out of whack thanks to the ACLU who knows what is going on... business has to right to disallow service to whoever...
I am white, if I say I am proud to be white people would say I am a racist... if I ask to speak about my faith then people say it is against their 1st amendment, which I am still trying to find where Madison wrote about seperation of church and state, it just says there will be no official religion, but if those men were alive today, they would say that the religion is to be Christianity... most of them did not like Judaism either... sorry that is the truth... the dude wanted a response and he got it... people have the right to be offended and they have the right to say whatever, and people will also have the right to be offended... they need to get over themselves

[Gobbla2001]

Originally posted by themsu97
Freedom of Speech, come on... only if you fit the right profile... the 1st amendment is so out of whack thanks to the ACLU who knows what is going on... business has to right to disallow service to whoever...
I am white, if I say I am proud to be white people would say I am a racist... if I ask to speak about my faith then people say it is against their 1st amendment, which I am still trying to find where Madison wrote about seperation of church and state, it just says there will be no official religion, but if those men were alive today, they would say that the religion is to be Christianity... most of them did not like Judaism either... sorry that is the truth... the dude wanted a response and he got it... people have the right to be offended and they have the right to say whatever, and people will also have the right to be offended... they need to get over themselves

damn...

[themsu97]

sorry, I had to vent...
I do not care about Londoners, Aussies or the Dixie Chicks, or what Tim Robbins, Susan Suranden, and the fat Baldwin brothers think... or Tom Cruise for that matter... Hollywood calls us strange because we believe in Christianity but yet they believe that aliens once inhabited the earth and will return...

[Gobbla2001]

Originally posted by themsu97
yet they believe that aliens once inhabited the earth and will return...

WHAT??? You don't believe that???

You're weird:hand:

[Blastoderm55]

Originally posted by themsu97

I am white, if I say I am proud to be white people would say I am a racist... if I ask to speak about my faith then people say it is against their 1st amendment, which I am still trying to find where Madison wrote about seperation of church and state, it just says there will be no official religion, but if those men were alive today, they would say that the religion is to be Christianity...

On your first statement, you'd only be considered a racist if you follwed "I am proud to be white" with a statement such as "because _______ people are disgusting pigs" or something of the sort. If you have to bring down another ethnicity to validate your pride, you are indeed a racist. Note, I'm not making an accusation.

Second. Well, I can't speak for our founding fathers, but I found a few of their quotes.

Thomas Jefferson, third president and author of the Declaration of Independence, said:"I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian." He referred to the Revelation of St. John as "the ravings of a maniac" and wrote:
The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained."
From:
Thomas Jefferson, an Intimate History by Fawn M. Brodie, p. 453 (1974, W.W) Norton and Co. Inc. New York, NY) Quoting a letter by TJ to Alexander Smyth Jan 17, 1825, and Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim by Alf Mapp Jr., pp. 246 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham, MD) quoting letter by TJ to John Adams, July 5, 1814.

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." -- Thomas Jefferson (letter to J. Adams April 11,1823)

James Madison, fourth president and father of the Constitution, was not religious in any conventional sense. "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
From:
The Madisons by Virginia Moore, P. 43 (1979, McGraw-Hill Co. New York, NY) quoting a letter by JM to William Bradford April 1, 1774, and James Madison, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by Joseph Gardner, p. 93, (1974, Newsweek, New York, NY) Quoting Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments by JM, June 1785.

George Washington, the first president of the United States, never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. Washington Championed the cause of freedom from religious intolerance and compulsion. When John Murray (a universalist who denied the existence of hell) was invited to become an army chaplain, the other chaplains petitioned Washington for his dismissal. Instead, Washington gave him the appointment. On his deathbed, Washinton uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance.
From:
George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller Jr., pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127 (1963, Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, TX)

There are other examples here (http://dim.com/~randl/founders.htm). Now, I'm sure there were some who were indeed staunch Christians, and would have loved to select it as a national religion. But keep in mind most of those fleeing England did so due to a national religion. Why would they establish on in their new country? I have no problem with your faith, and I applaud that of many when they are able to follow the faith without the hypocricy that so often comes along with it. I have no problem with your practice of faith, nor should anyone, so long as you show others the same courtesy.

[HAN SING]

Originally posted by themsu97
sorry, I had to vent...
I do not care about Londoners, Aussies or the Dixie Chicks, or what Tim Robbins, Susan Suranden, and the fat Baldwin brothers think... or Tom Cruise for that matter... Hollywood calls us strange because we believe in Christianity but yet they believe that aliens once inhabited the earth and will return... In china, we have name for person like you... SUM TING WONG. what difference it make?

[themsu97]

funny, how these same men wanted a Preacher of Christian Faith to lead them every day in their guidance of writing the Constitution... the Preacher was even paid... George always asked for Divine Guidance... Madison, well he was Madison... but Jefferson was also a different fellow... he hated being rich... jefferson hated just about everything... I have books on all the Founding Fathers back at the house because the men who wrote that document are very interesting fellows...

[BTEXDAD]

Originally posted by themsu97
funny, how these same men wanted a Preacher of Christian Faith to lead them every day in their guidance of writing the Constitution... the Preacher was even paid... George always asked for Divine Guidance... Madison, well he was Madison... but Jefferson was also a different fellow... he hated being rich... jefferson hated just about everything... I have books on all the Founding Fathers back at the house because the men who wrote that document are very interesting fellows...

I guess I had thought years ago that all the men who signed constitution believed it with all their heart, but an interesting thing to me is that these politicians in colonial days (as well as 1800's and 1900's) argued and disagreed every bit as much as the democrats and republicans do now. Just didn't have CNN and Fox news to publicize it as much.

I've said before on downlow that two presidents whose approval rating was as low as George W's is right now were Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman. Lincoln was hated by the end of the civil war, and was assassinated by a man who hated him. Now he's considered one of the greatest presidents ever.
His legacy and reputation actually skyrocketed after he was assassinated, kind of like Martin Luther King. MLK would have been nothing more than an early day Jesse Jackson otherwise. He accomplished more in death than he ever would have in living to a ripe old age.
Harry Truman had miniscule approval ratings after he took over for the deceased FDR. American people wanted out of world war II.
Truman's approval ratings shot up when he started dropping nuclear bombs on Japan. :thinking: now that's a thought.

Sorry don't know why i got into those last paragraphs.
Appreciate your posts, themsu97.

[BIG BLUE DEFENSIVE END]

I'm going to avoid this political discussion for once.

[themsu97]

you are correct BTex... Andrew Johnson is villified for his reconstruction plan, which of course was Lincoln's... Lincoln is known as the Great Emancipator even though he only freed slaves in the Confederacy, not those in the US (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland)
history does kind things to people and trust me when I tell you I have done tons of research on this...

[luvhoops34]

The airline refusing to let the man board the flight with the t-shirt is totally within their rights. We may not understand or think it's silly. Yes, the man has the right to wear the t-shirt, but not in or on a place of business that finds it offensive.

If you have trouble understanding the premise then remember this: It's just like 3ADL. Things are said in posts that the monitors don't like for one reason or another and a thread is closed or disappears. We may not like it or understand it, but it is their right to close it. :D

[BTEXDAD]

Originally posted by BIG BLUE DEFENSIVE END
I'm going to avoid this political discussion for once.

thanks, blue. How's things going with you otherwise?

[pirate4state]

Originally posted by BIG BLUE DEFENSIVE END
I'm going to avoid this political discussion for once.

:eek: Thanks. :)

[luvhoops34]

Originally posted by BIG BLUE DEFENSIVE END
I'm going to avoid this political discussion for once.


Thanks bunches! I'll second, third and fourth that!!! :D :D :D

[Pudlugger]

Originally posted by BIG BLUE DEFENSIVE END
At the same time, businesses do reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, so I'm kind of in the middle of the road on this. I can understand where the airline was coming from, but at the same time, it is preventing freedom of speech. Could make for an interesting argument either way, really.

This clearly falls under the "yelling fire in a theater" prior restraint ruling on First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. Think about it for a minute: you have a guy wearing this shirt that is clearly offensive to a large segment of the population on board an airliner 8 miles above the Pacific Ocean. Add to that the service of considerable alcoholic beverages and you have the potential for a brawl. A brawl on an airplane could be very dangerous itself, but what if it was meant to cause a distraction of the crew and therefore allow other terrorists on board to seize the plane. Good work on the part of Quantas in not allowing this guy on board. Same reason they don't allow loud obviously drunk people on board for that matter.

[BIG BLUE DEFENSIVE END]

Originally posted by BTEXDAD
thanks, blue. How's things going with you otherwise?

Going pretty good, and yourself?

[carter08]

Originally posted by themsu97
says there will be no official religion, but if those men were alive today, they would say that the religion is to be Christianity...

Our nation was founded on tyhe beliefs of Deism

[carter08]

About the airline thing and t-shirt

The truth hurts

[bandera7]

well I am actually quite proud of Quantas. Yes, you have freedom of speech. But when people say that, it is like they are saying only they have it. I have noticed that many times, somebody will say something very stupid, and someone will say Shut Up, and they will claim freedom of speech. Well, the person saying Shut up had freedom of speech also. My point is, you can have freedom of speech all you want, but if you truly believe in something, be ready for the repercussions. Things that are a big deal dont come without argument. What am I saying, NOTHING comes without argument. So speak your mind all you want, but expect people to be upset about it.

[SintonFan]

Originally posted by Fotbol
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- A man was removed from a Qantas flight to London because he would not take off a T-shirt with a picture of President Bush and the slogan "World's 1 terrorist."

Allen Jasson said Monday he was turned away last Friday at a Qantas departure gate in Melbourne.

Jasson said he wore the shirt unchallenged through official security checks, then approached a Qantas staff member at the gate to draw attention to it because he had been asked to remove it before boarding a domestic flight days earlier.

"I raised the issue, but I wanted primarily to thank Qantas for relenting when he told me: 'I'm surprised you got this far, the staff should have stopped you,"' Jasson said.

Qantas Airways in a statement: "Whether made verbally or on a T-shirt, comments with the potential to offend other customers or threaten the security of a Qantas group aircraft will not be tolerated."

Jasson, an Australian who lives in London, said Qantas had offered to put him on another flight if he does not wear the shirt. But he has declined.

"I might forfeit the fare, but I have made up my mind that I would rather stand up for the principle of free speech," he said.

He said he was considering suing the airline, but it was not immediately clear under what law.
.
The Aussies have always been our allies regardless of who is in office. We could learn a thing or two from them.(I haven't read the bulk of the responses here so if mine was repeated, sorry :))

[SintonFan]

Originally posted by carter08
About the airline thing and t-shirt

The truth hurts
.
How old are you '08?:p

[BuffyMars]

Totally off subject, but I think people forget Jefferson was a Unitarian.

[SintonFan]

rofl

[BTEXDAD]

Originally posted by BIG BLUE DEFENSIVE END
Going pretty good, and yourself?

Great. Getting ready to go watch the daughter play some softball in North TX in a few weeks.
I won't follow high school softball as much as in the past, but if you have any info on the Rockdale team and their district in the future, keep me informed.