American Republic Online

With all the trouble airlines are causing their customers these days, there is a push for what is being called a “Passengers’ Bill of Rights.”  A list of rules that airlines would have to follow to provide what the federal government deems is good customer service.  First of all, let’s not sully the name of the actual Bill of Rights with these silly attempts to force companies to behave how we want them to.  We have the ultimate right: that of where our money goes.  If you don’t like the service a company provides, don’t continue to purchase their services, and tell everyone you know.

Second, the federal government is in the business of governing, not determining adequate customer service levels and impose them by fiat.  What next, an outlet mall shoppers bill of rights?  If a store advertises a sale, they have to have everybody’s size in plentiful quantity?
And why must it be at the federal level?  Here’s a short history lesson: the actual Bill of Rights are the first 10 amendments to the Constitution.  Amendment 10 says “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”  In other words. if the Constitution does not explicitly give a power to the Federal government, that power is reserve for the states or the people.  (We do live in a country called the United States of America.)  We’ll leave a discussion on universal health insurance and its presence in the Constitution for another day.  For now, I’ll ask the question, why does everything have to be all or nothing?  Why can’t we have different laws between states?  Think of it this way, we have 50 versions of essentially the same law.  On the surface, that seems crazy.  But consider that there will probably be better versions than others, and states will gravitate to the best ways.  In other words homogeneity will be essentially reached without a single federal law.  But, we will preserve the ability of states to try new ways of approaching government.

So, guess what?  New York has passed its own Passengers’ Bill of Rights.  Will other states follow suit?  Some will, but not all.  Airlines are lobbying hard to keep a federal law from passing.  Think how hard it would be for the airlines to have to lobby all 50 states as well.  If it came to that, they would probably realize that it would be cheaper and easier to just provide better customer service.  And that’s what we want isn’t it, not just another law on the books?