Well, you may not care but that seems to be a major point. As is the fact that the airline had other options than to use violence such as offering passengers more than $800 to leave (which for sure would have been a more cost efficient solution) or to realize that such a situation should have been avoided in the first place.
Having the right to do something does not automatically translate into always being right to exercise that right, especially given the bigger picture. Even the CEO of United Airlines seems to disagree with you now. Also: first offering $800 and if refused categorically, then deciding to exercise your right to initiate a lottery to find 'volunteers' is dumb, either you have the right and exercise it or you hold an impromptu auction but to first offer a bit of money (usually in $50 vouchers each of which is valid as a discount on a single future flight and which can't be combined) and if that doesn't work to resort to violence is not going to go down well.
Given the ways in which this could have played out (I don't think it is a stretch to imagine that other passengers could have come to the defense of the old man) they got lucky.
