Curious what your take is on other unwritten but obviously common sense rules of flying are? If you put your feet on someone else's armrest simply because your legs need to be comfortable and the FA asks you to remove your feet do you ask to see it in writing? If you don't want to abide by FAs requests perhaps you should fly private. Stop making Americans look bad.
Which Americans? North, south or central?
Nobody should get to put their feet on someone else's chair unless they paid for it. Good try. But you'll need a better analogy to support your argument. Weak. The debate over recline is that you paid for your reclining seat. You should be able to recline it at any point outside of takeoff and landing. Would you accept an FA request to lift your seat back because the flyer behind you is 6'10" and your seat back is cutting circulation to their legs or should that flyer have booked premium class?
Actually had I known that this would be enforced, I would have just booked business class seats.