She’d looked bemused. Why, I asked? Seemed I was the first person she’d met who’d actually incapacitated someone using plastic tie-wraps. This wasn’t, she quickly added, the sort of thing people normally did. I’d recounted the circumstances in a rather matter-of-fact way. Without fuss, melodrama or embellishment. Merely describing how it was. Something that had been necessary. I’d felt very strongly about this.
She wasn’t questioning why I’d done it. Just the apparent shift in my values that placed this sort of thing on a par with, say, fixing a puncture. What you did to get the job done. But had I shown a little moral flexibility? Crossed a behavioural boundary I might later regret? Found her observation thought provoking.
Details of the incident add little to the narrative. Suffice to say it’s a rarity on the road. Distraction rather than detraction. Simply put, a situation had arisen to which I’d chosen to deal with, well, logically. Applying the rules. In this instance, the doctrine of reasonable force. The usual moral, legal and practical arguments. Carefully, if quickly, considered.
Decision made, dealing with the miscreant was just a process to be followed through. Unexpected response from a Westerner. Art of surprise. Swiftly executed. The offender rendered harmless. To himself or others.
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