Tag Archives: Right

News

British flight attendant fired for refusing to behave as a Muslim

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UPDATE: Welcome visitors from the Maritime Sentry! A conservative blog without peer. I see they have posted a new Michele Bachmann video, but I can’t see it from work. Can someone watch it and leave a comment about it?

Wow, check out this Washington Times article I just found on OneRedThread. Apparently, female flight attendants on British Midland Airways have got to start acting as if they are Muslims, in order not to offend Muslims. Excuse me? THEY AREN’T MUSLIMS. Why should people be forced by the state to act as though they accept a religion (or no religion), when that’s not what they believe???

This is insanity:

…British Midland Airways is going to absurd and insulting lengths to patronize backward habits of the Middle East by forcing its female flight attendants to dress and behave in a stereotype of subservient Saudi women. When flight attendant Lisa Ashton stood up to the policy, she was fired.

…In addition to wearing the traditional abaya, the policy stated that, “it is expected that female crew members walk behind their male counterparts in public areas such as the airport, no matter what rank.”

…

Miss Ashton’s union representative told her the abaya was considered “an item of uniform” and that refusal to wear it should be treated as “a potential disciplinary matter.” Miss Ashton went to great lengths to avoid coming into conflict with the policy. … When her time finally came to fly to Saudi Arabia, she refused, and was suspended.

… She appealed her case but a labor tribunal accepted BMI’s argument that the airline introduced the requirements “entirely from the need to conform to local customs, practices and law in Saudi Arabia.”

I have an idea. How about everybody has free speech and freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, and the people who get offended by those rights can just grow up. Why is it that on any given day you have some atheist, and/or left-wing activist is complaining that other people have human rights and that the free exercise of these rights should be prevented by the state?

This is exactly the same as the recent case where the Christian nurse was suspended because an atheist complained when the nurse offered to pray for her. Newsflash! Let people act on what they believe! Don’t try to change them so that they believe what you believe, using the power of the state. That’s fascism – the state overriding the values of individuals.

Excerpt:

The incident which led to her suspension took place at the home of a woman patient in Winscombe, North Somerset.

“It was around lunchtime and I had spent about 20 to 25 minutes with her. I had applied dressings to her legs and shortly before I left I said to her: ‘Would you like me to pray for you?’.

“She said ‘No, thank you.’ And I said: ‘OK.’ I only offered to pray for her because I was concerned about her welfare and wanted her to get better.”

However, after the incident on December 15, she was contacted by the trust and asked to explain her actions.

Everyone: stop being offended victims!

News

Why do people favor legal private ownership and concealed carry of handguns?

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The entire practical case for concealed carry is based on a comparison between the number of crimes that can be prevented by brandishing a weapon versus the number of incidents where firearms are misused. Basically, supporters of the 2nd amendment (the right to bear arms) argue that the number of successful defensive handgun uses is high, and the number of accidents is low.

Take a look at this defensive handgun usage story from WSB TV: (H/T John Lott, Michelle Malkin)

COLLEGE PARK, Ga. — A group of college students said they are lucky to be alive and they’re thanking the quick-thinking of one of their own.

Police said a fellow student shot and killed one of two masked me who burst into an apartment.

Channel 2 Action News reporter Tom Jones met with one of the students to talk about the incident.

“Apparently, his intent was to rape and murder us all,” said student Charles Bailey.

Bailey said he thought it was the end of his life and the lives of the 10 people inside his apartment for a birthday party after two masked men with guns burst in through a patio door.

“They just came in and separated the men from the women and said, ‘Give me your wallets and cell phones,’” said George Williams of the College Park Police Department.

Bailey said the gunmen started counting bullets. “The other guy asked how many (bullets) he had. He said he had enough,” said Bailey.

That’s when one student grabbed a gun out of a backpack and shot at the invader who was watching the men. The gunman ran out of the apartment.

The student then ran to the room where the second gunman, identified by police as 23-year-old Calvin Lavant, was holding the women.

“Apparently the guy was getting ready to rape his girlfriend. So he told the girls to get down and he started shooting. The guy jumped out of the window,” said Bailey. . . . . .

If you are a supporter of gun control, how does a story like this fit into your worldview? What if the number of defensive handgun uses was 1 million per year, but the number of accidental incidents was less than a 100? Is that worth looking into, or is this an issue where facts must yield to emotions and intuitions?

RELATED: I found a story recently in Reason magazine in which the writer explains how the  banning of handguns in the UK in 1997 DOUBLED the violent crime rate in the next 4 years. The whole point of the case for permitting the concealed carry of legally owned handguns is that it dramatically reduces violent crime.

Excerpt:

The illusion that the English government had protected its citizens by disarming them seemed credible because few realized the country had an astonishingly low level of armed crime even before guns were restricted. A government study for the years 1890-92, for example, found only three handgun homicides, an average of one a year, in a population of 30 million. In 1904 there were only four armed robberies in London, then the largest city in the world. A hundred years and many gun laws later, the BBC reported that England’s firearms restrictions “seem to have had little impact in the criminal underworld.” Guns are virtually outlawed, and, as the old slogan predicted, only outlaws have guns. Worse, they are increasingly ready to use them.

Nearly five centuries of growing civility ended in 1954. Violent crime has been climbing ever since. Last December, London’s Evening Standard reported that armed crime, with banned handguns the weapon of choice, was “rocketing.” In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent.

Gun crime is just part of an increasingly lawless environment. From 1991 to 1995, crimes against the person in England’s inner cities increased 91 percent. And in the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled. Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York. England’s rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America’s, and 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police. In a United Nations study of crime in 18 developed nations published in July, England and Wales led the Western world’s crime league, with nearly 55 crimes per 100 people.

This sea change in English crime followed a sea change in government policies. Gun regulations have been part of a more general disarmament based on the proposition that people don’t need to protect themselves because society will protect them. It also will protect their neighbors: Police advise those who witness a crime to “walk on by” and let the professionals handle it.

So, given this data regarding legal gun ownership and violent crime rates, what should our policy be?