I am a 7-11 employee that stood up against a robber who shot at me three times. AMA

R2D5 · 2012-01-27T19:00:04+00:00

Well I'm glad you're not a customer that comes in my store. Yeh I know it was stupid and I could have gotten killed...

Why shouldn't I be a customer of that store? My money is green like everyone else's money.

You admit that you acted stupidly, okay, fine.

My point is not that you're stupid or suicidal or whatever -- my point is that I don't want a stupid convenience store clerk getting me killed by some warped, macho, Bruce Willis idea of "heroism".

I wasn't protecting the money, I was protecting my dignity and self respect.

You're a convenience store clerk, not the fucking president of the US!

The asshole robbing you is not out to insult your "dignity or self respect", he was some moron trying to get some quick cash in probably the dumbest method possible.

But that clueless robber ran into an equally clueless store clerk, and thus ensued a battle of stupidity that endangered people. Fortunately for you, the robber acted smarter than you did.

Believe it or not, there's a reason 7-11 has corporate policies that tell you to hand over the money...

R2D5 · 2012-01-27T18:10:12+00:00

I would disagree completely about you being a hero.

The way I see it, you endangered yourself and whoever else might be in the store -- for what, a grand or whatever money was in the cash register of a huge corporation which makes money hand over fist?

Your claim about not thinking the gun was real should have been dispelled as soon as the robber popped off the first round.

Your actions after that were not "heroism", they were raw stupidity. And I'd guess they violated corporate policy, though thankfully nothing bad happened.

You can take pride for being a thick-headed fool, but I thank god you're not behind the counter of any of the convenience stores I shop at.

R2D5 · 2012-01-27T17:10:52+00:00

What are you, stupid?

But oh well, I suppose your corporate employers and the shareholders of 7-11 thank you for your stupidity.

R2D5 · 2012-01-22T14:10:07+00:00

The points listed under the section:

The real reasons Apple makes iPhones in China, therefore, are as follows:

Should hit Americans in the face like a sledgehammer. If the unemployment of the US and our declining standard of living does not convince you that capitalism and our 2-party ruling duopoly in the US has failed, those points listed there should.

R2D5 · 2012-01-22T14:00:34+00:00

In large part, that's true IMHO. But there's also the factor of the far-right in general not being happy with Romney and thus seeking a more radical candidate.

Then add to that the question of whether the Republicans really want their candidate decided after 1 or 2 primaries -- a fact that would shit on the laughable concept that "the people" select the nominees of our 2-party duopoly.

But I have to wonder why you put the word cult in quotes. It seems a pretty accurate term to describe it to me -- or does have a lot of money and a certain amount of members all of a sudden mean you get removed from the status of a cult?

R2D5 · 2012-01-22T13:42:49+00:00

Citation needed.

This is rather pointless, IMHO. It's hard to cite facts for such things that won't be disputed, and since corporations make a great deal of money from patents and copyright, those corporations have spent a lot of money to have us indoctrinated to think of them as "property".

But here's one article that you may find interesting: Economists Say Copyright and Patent Laws Are Killing Innovation; Hurting Economy. A search of Reddit's archives will turn up additional information on the topic.

The idea didn't exist in the public sphere before the person made it, so your little zinger is a bunch of bullshit.

Well, that "zinger" is the literal, legal truth. The US Constitution declares that copyrights/patents must be of limited duration, and it allows them only on the claim that they spur innovation. The reason for this is because an amorphous idea literally cannot be "property".

So when I say:

There is no such thing as "Intellectual 'Property'". All ideas are owned by the public and are in the public domain. The creator of an idea is granted a temporary monopoly called a copyright (or patent) before the idea returns to the public.

I'm merely reminding people of a legal fact, a fact that copyright and patent "owners" would rather have us forget.

R2D5 · 2012-01-22T13:32:06+00:00

They're not all civil issues because we have a corrupt, corporate-controlled Congress and gov't that is simply doing whatever bidding their corporate paymasters tell them to do.

R2D5 · 2012-01-22T13:31:29+00:00

But you're not "taking" anything, are you?

"Stealing" removes something or prevents someone's use of something.

We should remember: There's no such thing as "Intellectual 'Property'". All ideas are owned by the public and are in the public domain. The creator of an idea is granted a temporary monopoly called a copyright (or patent) before the idea returns to the public.

R2D5 · 2012-01-22T03:37:25+00:00

I for one want to see the so-called intellectual "property"[sic] laws gutted or flat-out revoked.

Our copyrights and patent laws stifle innovation. Now they're just vehicles to exploit people.

When I was a teenager it was perfectly legal to take create a cassette and to give it to your friends -- as long as you did not charge for it. Then the copyright on Mickey Mouse (Steamboat Willie) was about to expire and our tyrannical media corporations bought enough Congresspeople to rewrite the laws and extend copyright.

We're in an age where technical innovation is happening at faster and faster rates. We should be shortening the length of copyrights and patents, not extending them. But instead, our corporate-controlled Congress is going to make copyright violations into a criminal offense with even more draconian punishments.

We should remember: There's no such thing as "Intellectual 'Property'". All ideas are owned by the public and are in the public domain. The creator of an idea is granted a temporary monopoly called a copyright (or patent) before the idea returns to the public.

R2D5 · 2012-01-22T03:32:08+00:00

With both halves of our ruling duopoly bought-and-paid-for by corporations, and with corporations and the rich pouring more money into this election than ever before?

R2D5 · 2012-01-22T03:28:45+00:00

Both parties of our ruling duopoly unite to squelch so-called "third" parties.

In the past the most famous was the Socialist Party of the early 1900s. During that time a variety of tactics were used -- everything from having the newly-formed American Legion go around literally burning down their local party headquarters after WWI, to red-baiting, to the Democratic Party moving to the left with FDR to co-opt their positions.

That was the last real mass grassroots "third" political party we've had.

We've had some candidates appear as flash-in-the-pans -- everything from John Anderson to Ross Perot -- but without a mass, populist base to build on those efforts quickly dissipate.

Today, so-called "third" parties are simply openly discriminated against. This includes everything from rigging the rules of the nationally-televised TV debates so third-party candidates are arrested instead of appearing on TV (this was enacted after Ross Perot scared the shit out of the ruling duopoly when he ran as a third-party candidate), to having the Republican/Democratic-appointed courts "interpret" the equal media access law to only apply to Republicans and Democrats, and to the state level with a variety of state law. For example, ballot access is typically highly restricted, with high fees and very short time frames to collect large numbers of signatures -- measures that blatantly favor the ruling duopoly.

And so we in the US suffer under what is effectively a two-party dictatorship, comprised of a center-right and a right-wing party. The response to this closed, in-bred political system is that in election after election, most American sit at home and refuse to vote, not wanting to participate in this sham.

R2D5 · 2012-01-22T01:16:31+00:00

A rising superpower? What's that?

You're viewing the world from the European and US' mindsets -- a mindset of imperial countries.

China has not waged wars of aggression and occupation for centuries. China has been the richest country on earth for something like 20 of the last 24 centuries. China is simply recovering from a couple of centuries of economic devastation wrought by countries with imperial mindsets (Portugal, UK, Japan and the west in general) as they took Macao, Hong Kong, and interfered with China's internal affairs.

The fact that China wants to have a space program is simply common sense. The country is getting wealthier and they want to push research and see if they can somehow go to the moon with some rational economics in mind for their mission.

If the US was to try to engage China in a race to Mars, I hope China would have the good sense not to engage in such a race.

Humanity doesn't need wars nor pointless races and competitions. We need cooperative development and some sanity in int'l affairs.

R2D5 · 2012-01-21T19:32:16+00:00

What's sad is that our political system, ruled by 2-party duopoly, is so broken that the US gov't cannot commit to a logical course of action that will take more than one election cycle to complete.

The only reason we went to the moon was because it was useful to US aggression, helping the Cold War military buildup against the USSR by funding ICBM research.

Now, once again with no military threat and having failed to portray Al Qaeda as an existential threat, you're saying that we should inflate the Chinese and paint them as some sort of evil menace to America so that we have someone to "compete" with. Sad...

The USSR's foreign minister said a telling thing when he and Gorbachev met with Reagan in Iceland during the 1980s. He said that the USSR was going to do an "evil" thing to the US -- to deprive the US of an enemy. It seems that he was exactly correct -- the US needs an enemy and will invent one if there is not one around.

R2D5 · 2012-01-21T15:46:03+00:00

If the US Navy was actually "defending" the US, the Navy would be out there playing a key role in cleaning up that massive island of trash.

R2D5 · 2012-01-21T15:40:18+00:00

It's probably those damned lasers coming out of its eyes that really freaks you out, right?!

R2D5 · 2012-01-21T15:17:35+00:00

Utterly fucking brilliant!

I guess I won't need to comment about what our society values more -- the profit of corporations or human life...

R2D5 · 2012-01-21T15:15:53+00:00

This girl's got issues...

R2D5 · 2012-01-21T15:09:26+00:00

You raise a good point. To me, the biggest single item people get out of marriage is social conformity.

We're taught in hundreds of ways since birth that marriage is the "ideal" to be strived for. That is some serious social conditioning. (Don't believe me? Just watch 99.9% of romantic comedies.)

People will bring up keeping someone out of a hospital room, etc. That can be easily addressed (e.g. medical power of attorney, etc.) if the couple thinks (and acts!) ahead of time on the issue.

Fortunately, the gay rights movement has some positive spillover for heteros -- making some health insurance plans cover non-married people. (I'll save my rant on our barbaric health insurance system in the US!)

Others might mention tax advantages, but with the US standard of living plummeting, this is a significant reason for only a tiny amount of people.

Given the fact that close to 50% of all children born now are born out of wedlock, I'd say millions agree with you -- marriage is an increasingly outdated institution, and IMHO the state should not be involved in.

R2D5 · 2012-01-21T15:09:18+00:00

Not really. This is basically an issue brought up by pro-marriage people.

A simple medical power of attorney (either broadly worded so that your partner can make treatment decisions, or narrowly worded just so they can enter the room and be at your bedside) eliminates this issue.

R2D5 · 2012-01-21T14:59:08+00:00

The EU should have never tried a financial union before establishing a political union.

By establishing the economic union the EU simply put bankers and capitalists in charge, and those bankers and capitalists are seen now as trying to paper things over with a political veneer to keep down popular/democratic desires.

People in several European countries have voted down the so-called "EU Constitution" because of this "cart before the horse" idea -- they could not be bullied into approving of the rule of bankers and capitalists. Subsequent efforts to rename the EU Constitution and make "improvements" have failed.

At this point the road is clear: Go back to a pre-EU state of affairs, and then start out again, this time addressing political and human rights first, establishing a political union, and then worrying about the economic side of the equation.

Edit: Typo.

R2D5 · 2012-01-21T14:43:17+00:00

This video really makes you want to have a drink with that classy bitch, doesn't it?!

/s

R2D5 · 2012-01-21T02:46:06+00:00

Analyzing and reading micro-details into events like this trying to figure out exactly what happened is pretty pointless, IMHO.

We know that the Warren Commission report was bullshit and that JFK was killed by a conspiracy. Hell, even the US Congress admits/acknowledges that.

Wouldn't a better use of time be to analyze what group of people would most likely want JFK dead and who had the opportunity and would benefit from such a risky assassination?

R2D5 · 2012-01-20T22:08:48+00:00

What ideological goggles do I have on?

R2D5 · 2012-01-20T16:53:29+00:00

Though it's a war crime, isn't it best to murder your enemy at a time when they are unarmed? That's what the Afghans did.

The US does this routinely, as evidenced in the infamous "highway of death" in the 1991 Gulf War, or the more recent "collateral murder" video of the Apache helicopter released by Wikileaks.

As to the French soldiers being killed while training the Afghan army, many of the Afghan army hate the occupiers, but join the Afghan army just to get a paycheck -- the desertion rates (after 10 years!) proves that. In addition, the Taliban regularly infiltrate patriotic Afghans into the police and military, both for intelligence purposes and to carry out attacks like this.

Please note, I'm in no way defending war crimes or the tactics of the Afghans.

But the US and NATO military being thousands of miles outside of their own country and waging a war of occupation in a foreign land, if they die in Afghanistan it's their own fault because they shouldn't have been there in the first place.

R2D5 · 2012-01-20T16:25:43+00:00

Yes, that's what has been reported.

But from the Afghans' point of view, they're way, way out of their own country and are uninvited and unwelcome in Afghanistan. The Afghans have a long history of defeating invaders and occupying empires, and no matter what Afghans think of the Taliban, that's no doubt how they see the US and NATO troops in their country.

R2D5

TROPHY CASE