Black Friday - a.k.a. Dark Side Day - Lesson In Greed

Well the collective need for low price objects (crap) has led to the trampling of a Wal-Mart employee somewhere in Long Island, New York. A 34 year old man lost his life so shoppers could grab those - oh so - important trinkets. It is Wal-Mart's fault and the fault of a greedy crowd gone rabid with shopping frenzy. This christmas related nonsense can be harmful to your health. Just one more reason I'm an atheist. My thoughts go out to the family of that Wal-Mart employee.

Hear, hear.

It's at this time we could all use a reminder on Wil Wheaton's primary rule of life:

Greed - yes
Rabid - yes
Ridiculous - yes
Frenzied - yes
Walmart - should have had more security
Crappy trinkets - yes
Tragic - Most definitely

Christmas's fault - Not on your life

LOL!! Very true!

The people in line were NOT there for religious reasons, trust me.

The closest that God had anything to do was an occasional "God damn it get outta my way!" or a "Jesus Christ!"

Trying to blame or connect Christianity/Jesus is like blaming the Orville and Wilbur Wright
for a commercial jetliner crashing.

Loosely connected at best.

I don't think Kesh was blaming Christmas, in fact he said specifically it was Wal-Mart and greedy shoppers' faults.

Ok, I think he may have re-edited but we were speaking about the topic of his post (during PCMN) and he said it was Christmas's fault (at PCMN and AI thought here too).

Regardless and even more important is the fact that I have a can of Gold Star for you and I haven't eaten it...

yet

I don't want this thread to get out of hand. We shouldn't be attacking each other (and I'm obviously not). I thought my response was pretty mild...and funny like Kev said

Hi Scott, glad to see you posting again.

The thread kinda spilled over into PCMN lastnight where we discussed it at greater length rather civilly.

As a person who has his own religious beliefs it gets tiresome to hear that the religious beliefs I hold are nothing more
than some fantastical self-delusional mythological belief cause it's wet wired into my brain.

I get used to that "constant reminder" but I see a Wal-Mart associate trampled to death cause they (inner city customers) might have that fleeting chance of
being able to purchase items that their unfortunate income prohibits them from enjoying, and it's blamed on the religious aspects
of a holiday. I feel the need to stand up and point out that MAN has this one pinned squarely on their shoulders.

I realize that we have a varied belief system, Catholics to Atheists and I respect all beliefs or non beliefs regardless if they are in line with mine or not.

I just hope that my beliefs will be treated with as much respect and sincerity.

Would it be wrong of me to mention that the "inner city" folk I'm familiar with have big-screen TVs, X-Box 360s, huge DVD and CD collections, spinners on their cars, and wear really expensive sports-wear, aren't employed or are employed at minimum wage-jobs and still manage to have all this stuff... Oh, am I profiling? Sorry.

Yes, I know there are some people who truly do go to these sales because of what Mike-El said. And it's sad and sickening that someone DIED because someone wanted a good deal on a dustbuster.

I just wanted to rant a bit.

I don't know about the customers, but the Wal-Mart wasn't what I'd call "inner city", to be honest.

Does anyone NOT see this sort of thing happening at the East Side location? Apart, obviously, from the fact it HASN'T happened yet ...

Unlikely, but I guess after what happened in Long Island anything's possible. If the crowd were THAT BIG (we don't have the dense population of anywhere in New York), and the crowd THAT FRENZIED, and appropriate security measures not taken...

It's more likely something would happen in the line, or out on the lot. That morning while I was at work we had a couple of calls of people driving recklessly and speeding through the Best Buy parking lot that morning. We often get calls of people fighting in the lines (we didn't this year though). Stupid Stuff like that.

Now you mention it, I had a friend who got hit by a car in the Wal **** parking lot. This wasn't during the Xmas season [EDIT: I have been corrected. This was apparently last Xmas. However he did have a close call AFTER last Xmas, and I think that's what I was thinking of.] or even within the past year, but he was walking through one of the empty handicap spaces, the ones at a perpindicular angle to the rest so handicappers can just pull in, and he noticed an old guy waiting to pull in, so he started hurrying up. Then this stupid bee eye tee see aych pulls around the old guy and parks there, hitting my friend in the leg. He slammed his fist down on her hood and her response was "You shouldn't have been walking there.

He stood right in front of her car and directed the old guy around her into the space. He was a moron in not getting her licence plate and possibly insurance info. Also, possibly calling the po-pos

Stacky, did you just use the term "handicappers?"

(face palm)

Off to job helping the handicappers...

Jammies

Think of it as an amalgamation of Handicap Drivers -> Handicappers

I don't see what the big price deal was. If morons had been watching, most of the stuff on sale Black Friday has been close to that price for a month and will get cheaper as CHRISTMAS gets closer and stores try to save their arses. The problem is not the holiday or the sale, but the direction to the bottom society has taken concerning others. Most people don't give a s*** about anyone outside of what they want and if someone gets trampled to death in the process, then so be it, he should have moved out of the way faster. These are Roman days my friends and as person who wrote many a thesis on the collapse of Rome as a history major, we are mirroring their moral and societal decay very closely and will soon find the barbarians beating down our gates (they are already).