Look, I totally disapprove of air rage and I think those convicted of same should be sentenced to a lifetime of Amtrak. But the airlines have ABSOLUTELY exacerbated the air rage problem by putting ordinary people in extraordinarily stressful conditions.

Ask any psychologist, or wartime torturer. To break people down, you:

** Imprison them in a very small physical area.

** Forbid them to move.

** Encroach upon their personal space.

** Lie or misinform them about what is going to happen to them, or else withhold all such information.

** Change "rules" arbitrarily and without apparent rationale; refuse to explain why.

** Meet complaints with pre-emptive anger and unreason; make people feel their predicament is their own fault.

I took a psych course or two back in college, and we learned that there's no surer way to induce clinical anxiety, depression, or -- possibly -- unpredictable violent behavior than to deprive subjects of (real or imagined) control over their fate, withhold information, violate their physical space, and change the "rules" of their environment arbitrarily and without warning. That's a standing definition of Economy class travel today.