I understand. I’m not doubting that. What I’m saying is that I don’t need to justify anything. The people who have control over spending the money or not need to justify it. And since that is a very small set of people I don’t feel it is fair to ask how “we “ justify it.
But even in a hypothetical where the government sent out a snap poll saying “Sup citizen. 5 fellas lost in a sub. Need $140m for rescue attempt. Send yay or nay.” I would have responded with “nay”. So even in that hypothetical I wouldn’t feel I need to justify why we should spend money to rescue these people. (By the by, this hypothetical sounds crazy, but we could totally have this kind of direct say in matters. We have the tech for it.)