My use of the term Nazi is to convey the attitude of totalitarianism and abuse of power. I consider many airline employees, especially since 9/11 have totally abused their power. We place very considerable training requirements and restrictions on those who have legal powers, such as police for example. Unfortunately, since 9/11 we have given similar powers to airline employees and TSA employees. Sadly, many of these people have neither the training, nor in some cases, the intellect to manage such power. This is very similar to what happened in Germany, when the brownshirts were given powers, but were not a disciplined police or military force. They abused their power. I think there is a fair analogy to be drawn.
For example, a flight attendant who had a child removed from an airplane because he kept saying "bye bye plane" and it was getting on her nerves. This intolerant abuse of power is outrageous and I feel that drawing an analogy with nazi attitudes is legitimate criticism and free speech. Similarly, the abuse of power to hold passengers hostage for up 9 hours against their will, often depriving them of access to basic facilities such as water, toilets and medications because it would be inconvenient to the airline to disembark them is a similar abuse of power.
There appears to be a *** for tat war going on, in which people are reporting each other to the moderators, calling for Butch to be banned, and Butch calling for DL to be banned, etc. I have never reported anyone for abusive posts or messages, nor have I ever called for anyone to be banned. At one point, PHX was banned from this board, in part, because of supposed "abusive" postings aimed at me. I wrote to the mods asking for him to be re-instated. Come on guys... this is free speech, why is everyone so sensitive.
I am sorry Mars if you find the word Nazi offensive, but just because you are offended is no reason whatsoever to impede free speech. You have never heard me make a comparison between airline employees and the desire to murder millions. Nazism was a political movement which was also associated with the abuse of power... my comparison is made in that context and I think most reasonably intelligent readers would understand that.
This does not mean that I think some airline employees support the holocaust, are anti-semitic or plan to invade Poland.
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