At 11:36 PM 7/20/03 -0700, John Kozubik wrote:
On Sat, 19 Jul 2003, Steve Schear wrote:
remove a small 1" button pinned to my left lapel. I declined, saying that it was a political statement and that he had no right to censor
passengers' political speech. The button, which was created by
Where do these ridiculous ideas come from ? If I own a piece of private property, like an airplane (or an entire airline) for instance, I can impose whatever senseless and arbitrary conditions on your use of it as I please.
Yes. Except that you entered into a contract to transport a human in exchange for money. No where in the contract was "banned speech" mentioned. Suppose that instead two men were kicked off a flight for holding hands, or a woman & offspring for breast-feeding. That would be a violation of the transportation contract. Because such behavior does not endanger the flight or passengers. (Although all behaviors cannot be enumerated, under a "reasonable" common-law interpretation of the contract, passive speech (vs. say screaming the whole flight) is harmless.) Private property rights, of course. But contract law too.