Romulus, old friend, you usually are spot on in insisting on a factual approch - at least on the religious threads.
Fact of the matter is that this dimwit should have noticed that getting to the plane last Friday was a bit different than it was on 9/10.
There are men in uniform carrying weapons all around. Even the dumbest Georgia Bulldog fan might have asked another dumb Georgia Bulldog fan. "What are these uniformed men carrying weapons here at the busiest airport in America"
The answer is the DGBF weighed the odds. He knew full well what he was doing. I'll wager he was in pre-game mode (moderately tanked) and with impaired judgement made a DGBF conclusion: "I can pull this off. And what a great story to tell the other DGBF's."
DGBF = Dumb Georgia Bulldog Fan.
Their name is Legion
I agree the man was a fool who handled his problem badly. He inconvenienced thousands of people, and millions of dollars in downtime and lost human productivity is directly attributable to his thoughtlessness. So I am not excusing him, nor suggesting that he should get off with nothing more than a stern lecture. If I neglected to make that point clearly in my original post, I'm happy to clarify the record here.
But that does not alter my larger argument that Big Brother's embrace of zero tolerance not only in airports but comprehensively, as a paradigm for control, has been successful because conservatives are so easily convinced that they love their property and tranquility more than freedom.