Further Unsettling Thoughts on the Black Friday Trampling Death at Wal-Mart

Jon Swift and our co-bloggers have already weighed in.

At Barking Rabbits, Zeppo considers the incident.

The mob mentality is a really funny thing. You see it at political rallies and old Universal horror films where the townsfolk are whipped up into a frenzy and storm the castle with pitchforks and torches. But shopping? This is especially indefensible when you stop to think that the same items are going to be available for the next month. Yes, you might save a few bucks, but is that really worth all this?....

Oh, Zeppo.  Can you say "$600 plasma screen TV's"?  How about "Doorbuster Specials"?

But Zeppo is on to the broader implications and they are disturbing indeed.

I guess I am of the opinion that an event like this is really a peek inside the psyche of our society. It isn’t just a one-off “damn, who would have ever thought that?” kind of event. It is a demonstration of our base, primitive nature. If our society devolves, at some time in the future, to the point that food and water are scarce commodities, I will be very scared. Add angry men with abundant attitudes and guns to the mix and the situation described above, and it won’t be pretty.

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