Profanity is not the issue

A woman got on an American Airlines flight wearing a shirt which said “If I wanted the government in my womb, I’d fuck a senator.” The pilot and flight crew retaliated by making sure she’d miss her next flight. They could have simply told her to keep the shirt covered, or to turn it inside-out, or even just to cover the profanity with duct tape while on board. But that would have been about protecting the children from profanity, and the pilot and flight crew’s retaliation clearly wasn’t about that.

So what happens when someone boards the plane wearing this:



Pilots have a right to kick passengers off their own planes. Flight crews have a right to insist that passengers not be disruptive. But that should not extend to demanding that passengers conform to their personal or political opinions, or to retaliate against passengers with whom they disagree politically.

Is the profanity the only excuse American Airlines has for their behavior? So what happens when someone boards the plane wearing this:



There used to be a creeping authoritarianism in this country. It’s no longer creeping.