The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    I Really Want To Go Into The Cockpit (And It's My Right)

    By Michael Maiello on Thu, 02/15/2018 - 5:53pm | Politics

    I'm a good person and not at all crazy or harmful to anybody in any way.  It's just that when I fly, I have my preferences.  Some people like to drink.  Some people nap.  Some read or watch movies or listen to music.  I like to go into the cockpit to talk with the crew.  I've been doing it since I was a kid.  They used to give you little plastic wings to pin to your shirt on American Airlines and TWA. There is nothing more sacred and American than this.

    Ever since 9/11, the cockpit door has been locked and reinforced and now passengers aren't even allowed to congregate outside of this impenetrable barricade, beating on it and bleating "let us in, we just want to see!"  This is, of course, all because a group of twenty people hijacked planes and crashed them into buildings back 17 years ago.  But I would never take over a plane or hurt anybody because I'm a nice person. I've never been accused of anything even remotely hijackery.

    It's not fair that the laws here have been written to cover a few bad apple terrorists. Around the world, more than 8 million people fly every day and more than 3 billion fly every year.  The math actually works out to less tan 3 billion every year and some of those are no doubt repeat flyers but surely you understand my point, which is that if we can't even figure out how many people fly every year because it's unknowable, then there is no point to laws about who can and can't go into the cockpit.

    For me, going into the cockpit is a family tradition, a rite of passage and I consider it my basic right as an American.  Besides, if people are going to hijack planes, they aren't going to stop just because you keep them out of the cockpit.  They'll just hide in the luggage or something.

    I think that the well-meaning fascists who made these laws just have to face up to the fact that the world is a dangerous place and that airplane hijackings that end with those planes being flown into buildings, are simply acts of nature like earthquakes or typhoons and that they cannot ever be completely prevented through legislation, so why try?

    Besides, one thing that can stop a bunch of bad guys from taking over a cockpit is to have a good guy in the cockpit and I'm a heck of a guy.

    Topics: 
    Politics

    Comments

    You make a persuasive case for cockpit entry, but not likely sufficient.

    Even with the TWA wings.

    I would suggest also a pilot hat like below to heighten your bona fides & good faith:


    by NCD on Thu, 02/15/2018 - 8:33pm

    The rest of us would settle for not being treated like cattle, Michael dares to dream of a better world.....where pilots were heeroes and Snoopy won every dogfight....

    Wait a minute, couldn't this sort of lead to the MAGA narrative?surprise


    by artappraiser on Thu, 02/15/2018 - 8:40pm

    My daddy was a pilot for AA, and I touched the controls once or twice when I was a kid, and might have run through the aisle ... and there are documents that prove that nothing bad happened!  Just because other people's kids went into other cockpits and did bad things doesn't mean that somebody else's kid will, too.  My daddy told me to be good, and I sorta was.  If somebody else's daddy didn't tell them or maybe didn't notice if they weren't very good that doesn't mean that the next daddy with the next kid .... wait, what?

    It's up to the good guys, and they're all good daddy's with good kids who grow up to be good passengers who want to go into the cockpit to check out the view.  If there's a daddy's kid out there who doesn't want to land, well, it's obviously mamma's fault.


    by barefooted on Thu, 02/15/2018 - 9:23pm

    "Ever been in a Turkish bath, Jimmy?" that kind of "worked for AA/touched the controls/nothing bad happened"? ;-)


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 02/15/2018 - 10:16pm

    There are way too many favorite lines from this movie, but you came up with one of the top 5!

     

     


    by CVille Dem on Thu, 02/15/2018 - 10:26pm

    Surely, he did.


    by Michael Maiello on Thu, 02/15/2018 - 10:58pm

    Of course locking cockpit doors infringes on your right to hang and chat with the pilots but it's not like there's nothing we can do. Sure you're a nice guy and when I look at your picture at the top of the page in what I can only assume is your normal daily wear who wouldn't think, there's a guy with his head screwed on straight. But not everyone is as nice as you. Some people have mental health issues that might cause them to take control of a cockpit and steer a plane into a building. Instead of locking doors which is inherently unfair to nice guys like you we need to do a better job of identifying people with mental health issues driving them toward flying planes into buildings.

    While it may be possible that there's nothing we can do stop these incidents but look on in helpless confusion there may be something we can do after the fact that might act as a deterrent for future events. We could find some country that we really don't like that had nothing to do with the massacre and invade that country. Since we invaded Iraq not a single plane has been commandeered and flown into an American building. A 100% success rate is a pretty strong recommendation for invasion of countries unconnected to the problem. It's not like there's a shortage of countries we don't like.


    by ocean-kat on Fri, 02/16/2018 - 3:16am

    Protecting the right of the PEOPLE to enter the cockpit is the only way to stop the TOTALITARIAN Air Line Pilots Association from DESTROYING OUR AVIATION HERITAGE!!!!!!!!! Look at LA GUARDIA! And those other shithole airports with their Ubers and their crappy wifis!!! Look at the elites plotting in their fancy AIRPORT LOUNGES!!! And the so-called "flight attendants!" Hell, I'm old enough to remember when stewardesses were pretty white girls in miniskirts. Now what do get? GAYS and TRANSSEXUAL ATHEISTS!!!

    STOP THE DEPRAVITY! WE MUST TAKE OUR COCKPITS BACK!!!!!


    by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 02/16/2018 - 12:55pm

    The national database of licensed pilots is a job killing plan by people who hate America, hate the troops and hate our freedoms...!!!! The air is free everywhere in the world..!!

    Wilbur and Orville Wright would never have flown at Kitty Hawk if the libtard bureaucrats of the government had their way...!!!!

    And don't get me started on FAA rules on filing flight plans, why do they need to know..?


    by NCD on Fri, 02/16/2018 - 1:19pm

    People please, Can we call it the control room, pilot's office, or at least the c-pit? You all know that there are children reading this site. Let's watch our language.

    I'd like to commend NCD for making his point without the use of profanity. It's possible to discuss this issue without using the C___ word.


    by ocean-kat on Fri, 02/16/2018 - 1:35pm

    What's a Cuntpit, and why can't we use it?


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 02/16/2018 - 2:04pm

    Yes, parody is hard these days: Exclusive: Trump privately pushing personal pilot to run FAA @ Axios.com


    by artappraiser on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 2:05am

    Dang!


    by Michael Maiello on Tue, 02/27/2018 - 10:33pm