A Nation of Sheep

Has America become a nation of sheep? A country in which people blindly follow along even when they know what they are told is wrong?

Sadly, I believe the answer is 'yes.' 

Recently, a woman was flying on United Airlines from Houston to New York with her two kids and 10-month-old French bulldog puppy. She had reportedly paid the $200 fee that allowed her to bring her dog into the plane's cabin, as long as he remained in his airline-approved carrier under the seat in front of her. At some point during the flight, a flight attendant told her to put the carrier into an overhead locker. These lockers are designed for luggage, not for any living thing that needs oxygen to breathe. The woman did as she was told. Both she and other passengers reported that the dog barked for a while and then became silent.

When the plane landed and the woman opened the door to the overhead locker, her puppy was dead. Of course the puppy was dead! There is no air circulation in those overhead lockers, which are meant to hold coats and carry-on luggage, not living animals! Did it not occur to her and to other passengers nearby that animals need oxygen to breathe, and that there is no oxygen in those overhead bins? And what about the flight attendant? 

I fly a lot both domestically and internationally. I know that passengers are told that they must obey crew member instructions as well as "lighted signs and placards." But doing NOTHING as an innocent animal is put into a cabinet designed to hold coats and luggage is just not right. I don't care what the flight attendant's orders were. 

Are we as a nation so devoid of critical  thinking skills that we just blindly follow orders even when we know they are wrong? Or are we as a nation so stupid that we don't even know when something is wrong?

I am a law-abiding senior citizen. I follow and obey laws. I vote and I pay my taxes on time (after a lot of grumbling). I am a good citizen and a good person. But I also have a conscience. I like to believe that I would not have been one of those passengers who just sat down and let a puppy suffocate in a dark overhead bin.

Couldn't the carrier with the puppy inside have been put under a different seat if it was, in fact, blocking the aisle? Did anybody look for alternatives to condemning the puppy to death by suffocation?


I'm angry at the puppy's owner who failed to protect her dog. I'm angry at the flight attendant who should have known that an overhead bin is not a place for any creature that needs to breathe. I'm angry at the other passengers who did nothing. And I'm angry at United Airlines' utter disregard for life, both human and non-human. 

And I'm tired of everybody commenting that they would have taken their dog and kids and marched right off that airplane. Did they not read that this sad event happened while the plane was IN FLIGHT at what, 35,000 feet? 

Heads need to roll at United, starting at the top. From dragging a passenger out of a seat for which he had paid, to stuffing a living animal into an overhead bin, to shipping a dog to Korea rather than to Kansas, United continues to show that it has a very serious culture problem and that  the airline, its management and its employees just don't get it.

We as a nation need to take a hard look at ourselves and at what we have become. We need to speak up when we see something that just isn't right. We need to speak up when we see a puppy being stuffed into an airless overhead bin on an airplane. We need to speak up when a woman buying groceries is verbally assaulted and told to "go back to" wherever she was born. We need to challenge acts of racism wherever they occur. We need to speak up when a Muslim woman is verbally accosted while shopping. We need to speak up when a Hispanic man going about his business is verbally assaulted and told to "go back to Mexico." 

We need to speak up when elected officials from the president down verbally assault the disabled, the immigrants, women and representatives of the news media who dare to publish or air stories that don't praise the exalted leader as he thinks he should be praised.

I am not advocating violence and unlawful activities. I am saying that we as Americans need to use our critical thinking skills and stand up for those who are unable to stand up for themselves. We need to step outside our self-centered little cocoons and see the world around us. We are at risk of losing some of our most fundamental freedoms. Our silence in the face of these attacks only enables those who are attacking us.