The needs of the many

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…”

“Or the one.”

Yeah, I’m a geek, so what?

Anyway, we’re already starting to hear the bleats of the lambs lamenting the death of Rigoberto Alpizar.  His wife is saying that he was bipolar and hadn’t taken his meds.  The press is harping on the fact that he didn’t actually have a bomb like he claimed.  It’s only a matter of time before the knee-jerk bleeding hearts start calling for the disarming of the air marshals.

The air marshals did their job.  If the intelligence teams in the Middle East did their job as well, we probably wouldn’t be stuck in the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan.  As a matter of fact, I feel more confident in our national security (as least as it relates to air travel) than I have in four years since 9/11.  

Let’s check the facts here.

• It’s a flight from Colombia (Yellow flag!)


• A clearly agitated man has a backpack (Red flag alert!)


• He runs up and down the aisle claiming to have a bomb (Double Red Flag!!)


• Air marshals identify themselves and pursue the man


• They tell the man to drop the backpack


• The man reaches into the backpack where he claims to have a bomb


• The air marshals drill the guy between five and six times, killing him

So, what’s the problem with the behavior of the marshals?  I don’t see any.  In fact, these guys should be rewarded for bravery and heroism.  After all, IF the guy really had a bomb like he claimed, surely they were risking their lives by confronting him.  Even something as small as a hand grenade could have taken them out at that distance.  They easily could have shrunk into the corner and pretended to be regular passengers and taken cover behind a really fat dude or hidden in the lavatory.  Instead, they confronted the threat, and diffused it with no harm to innocent passengers, civilians, or even property.

Good, good, good.

And this will surely end all of that airport banter about bombs and guns and weapons.  Remember how people used to joke about carrying weapons onto planes, just to piss off the 70-year old Filipino “security” guard?  Um, that’ll stop now that people know that deadly force will be used to ELIMINATE any threat to public security.

Of course, it’s only a matter of time before the ACLU will leap aboard this and try to claim that the man somehow had the right to threaten the lives of the other passengers without being shot multiple times.  The allegation that he was mentally ill should have absolutely no bearing on anything, but somehow he’ll be portrayed as a tragic figure.  Well, as long as bipolar people don’t run around with backpacks and claim to have a bomb, they probably won’t be shot.  

Sigh.

Let me be one of the first to say this, THANK YOU TO ALL OF THE AIR MARSHALS EVERYWHERE!  YOU GUYS ARE ALL HEROES IN MY BOOK!