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Banning Arcades in Malaysia?
Amon CMB was the first of several to submit a story from The Adrenaline Vault where they talk about
arcades banned in Malaysia. The story is pretty scary, one of the reasons for the ban is that children were willing to steal from their parents to get cash for the games. Think about that next time you get worked up about the government censoring the amount of blood in a game. Seems kinda insignificant relative to some places.
Reality Master dun said:
Actually, certain types of hidden cameras are generally not allowed to be sold to the public, or if they are allowed to be sold at all, require special licensing. Certain types of security cameras (smaller than, say, around an 8mm movie camera) are not allowed to be sold to persons other than "qualified" law enforcement and to licensed private investigators because they are considered "surveillance equipment".
New York State, in particular, has passed several laws on the books banning personal security cameras below a certain size (in an attempt to shut down "spy shops"), and many localities have similar laws.
In a word: Wrongo.
Up until fairly recently, literally all sex outside of the missionary position was illegal in Kentucky (our sodomy law has recently been overturned in KY Supreme Court as unconstitutional, as it was used largely to target the state's homosexual population). In Alabama, not only is everything but the missionary position flatly illegal (yes, people have actually been prosecuted for sodomy for consentual oral sex in Alabama, and yes, there have been convictions even in the past two years) but in fact all sexual activity between unmarried persons is illegal. The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled this legal, by the way.
A rather surprising number of states (often in the Southeast US, but a few other states have similar laws--Utah and Colorado are biggies) have laws that criminalise even consentual anal or oral sex. Most of these laws have not yet been ruled unconstitutional, and by and large, these laws are used to target homosexuals and/or teens "doing it"; they have been used to harass even straight, married couples in some cases, however. (Some good info on what is and isn't illegal is here; while the link deals more with statutory rape laws, it does have info regarding sodomy laws as well).
For that matter, a surprising number of states still have laws against adultery on the books. These are rarely enforced, but are sometimes used in divorce proceedings and the like.
A recent appeal to get Texas' sodomy law overturned has failed--and this was to the US Supreme Court. (Kentucky's sodomy law DID get overturned by the state Supreme Court, but this was because it was found it was used to blatantly harass homosexuals and that the definition of sodomy was overbroad--not on the merits of having a sodomy law in the first place.) Alabama's law, which (as noted previously) literally prohibits all sexual activity besides the missionary position between married adults, has not as of yet been overturned. (Incidentially--Alabama also has a law prohibiting gays from marrying, and (up until it was recently revoked after discovering it was still on the books) also had laws against interracial marriage. Some states still have these laws on the books, even though US Supreme Court decisions have overruled them.
There are court challenges to sodomy laws, but their success in part depends on state challenges and in part also to what happens with US Presidential elections. (If Dubya gets elected, it is likely that any Supreme Court nominees he picks are substantially more likely to rule sodomy statutes that even prohibit consentual anal/oral sex are constitutional.)
In any case, I'd say it would be quite inadvisable to, say, come into a small, rural Alabama town at night, going to Lover's Lane, being of one race and having a partner of another race--even if you ARE married (God help you if you're gay) and go through the entire Kama Sutra in the back of one's car. These are areas where the Kama Sutra is often banned for being considered obscene; doing such is probably a VERY good way to find one's self convicted under Alabama's sodomy laws. (Chances go up even more if your spouse or partner happens to be the same sex.)
(I'll note, as an aside, that Alabama is all but a fundamentalist Christian theocracy nowadays. One of the major judges posts and preaches Christian scripture before trials, has stated flat out that "Hindus and Muslims and pagans" are "not worth protecting". The Governor of the fine state of Alabama flat out stated (when he was warned by authorities that this was stepping over the bounds of the First Amendment's separation of church and state) that if the judge was ordered to leave he'd send in the National Guard to prevent the judge being disbarred. If it weren't for the Supreme Court, they'd be as much of a theocracy as Taliban Afghanistan (and no, I am not making this up--the Southern Baptist Convention [which has become increasingly fundamentalist and coercive to the point that their own seminary may now be defined to be a coercive group--destroyed the world's only college of social works in the process of a fundy purge] and other fundy groups and denominations [most notably the American Family Association, the UnChristian Coalition, Focus on the Family, and the Assemblies of God] have an incredible amount of influence on both the common folk of Alabama and on its legislature--one almost cannot get elected there without the approval of the Religious Reich, especially in more rural areas [read: most of the damn state]).
-Windigo The Feral (NYAR!)
This stuff is all on the surface, and all aimed mostly at the upper class Thai's, like my wife and her family. However (and I'm not trying to embarrass the Thai government into "cleaning things up" here I'm a Libertarian and I think prostitution ought to be decriminalized), Bangkok is not exactly known as the puritan capitol of Asia.
Incidentally, my wife can't understand why Austin Powers is popular in the United States. My brother tried to show it to her and her cousin, and they whispered to me part way through it "can we stop watching the movie now." Of course, it didn't help when I kept telling them that he was a popular sex symbol in the US and considered the ideal man...
Incidentally, in the United States, we have de facto restriction in a lot of areas of the country over what types of games are allowed in arcades. Games which use plastic guns are particularly targetted, as part of the propaganda campaign against the Second Amendment. Unfortunately, restrictions like these are very bad for arcades in the US, which seems to be a constantly shrinking market.
Basically, the Malaysian government is just more honest than the US government. If the US government wants something banned or censored, they just make the companies pretend they are doing it of their own free will. Of course, the companies wouldn't do it if people didn't threaten legislation, regulation, and litigation against them. The American people let the government get away with this, because we like to preserve the illusion in our country that the Bill of Rights means something and that we are freer than the rest of the world (yeah, life might be better in the US but we are not particularly free, we are just a fairly rich country.)
So, don't worry about the condescension you'll probably hear from /.ers on this, things are bad all over. If they aren't as bad here yet as they are in Malaysia (and they may be) its just a matter of time till they are.
I'm kind of sick of people claiming that people in the US should just shut up about the grim, Puritan Jihad that's going on in this country because other parts of the world are "so much worse." First of all, I happen to know that you make trade offs for living in the US, and that there are good things you give up as well as bad. Mainly, though, I think that the grim, humorless people who are rising to power in this country are a real threat. Both Weimer Germany, before Hitler, and Russia after the Liberal revolution, before Lenin, were temporarily free societies. All it takes to destroy that is a group of grim, humorless fanatics who are willing to use force against the populace to "save them from themselves."
These are the people behind all the Culture War crusades currently going on, and these people are dangerous.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Yes, the US government censorship of violent games seems mild compared to Malaysia's banning of entire arcades. But that doesn't make American censorship right. Just because someone is relatively worse doesn't make the situation in the US good.
Being complacent about US censorship because it's worse somewhere else is a sure-fire way to end up like that somewhere else in a hurry.
That said, comparing US censorship to Malaysian censorship is unfair. The US has a tradition of free speech and Malaysia does not. Malaysia bans all sorts of stuff:
I'm pretty sure they'd ban Slashdot if it were based there.
sig semper tyrannis!
I sure wish they would enact that ordinance here in Detroit. The owners of the building I work in have to periodically pressure wash the sidewalk in front to blast away the accumulated phlegm, urine and vomit. An old guy the other day let loose with a lung oyster and almost hit me with it.
Detroit is by far the NASTIEST city I have ever been in.... maybe caning some of these consumptives would be a good thing....
The thing is.. most of Singapore's laws make *sense*.
$1000 fine for not flushing a public toilet? Sure, that might seem 'draconian'.. but what the fuck is wrong with you? why not just flush the fucking toilet? It's a health risk.
fine for spitting on the sidewalk in public? Sure. It *IS* the primary way TB is spread. And is unsanitary.
Mandatory death sentence for importing illegal drugs? Well.. what's wrong with that? It's clearly made known before you enter the country, and you are given the opportunity to dump whatever you were going to import without fear of reprisal. Bring it in and get caught, they whack you. And so they should.
That kid that was caned? Why the hell should we put him in juvie and spend all kinds of money rehabilitating him? A good public caning was a swift and cheap punishment. Cruel and unusual? Well.. what purpose did his vandalizing that car or whatever serve? Any useful purpose to society at all? Nope. So he gets caned, and learns a swift lesson.
Chewing gum? I believe the ban is on chewing gum in public; and it was done because the people were spending millions every year (the government was) cleaning up black sticky gum residue off of rail terminals, temples, monuments, etc... and some poeple were sticking it on the doors of the trains and such and delaying train runs. Draconian? perhaps... but it's 'if people can't be responsible, we will do something about it'. At least it's not some insidious corrupt government doing it to enforce their own brand of gum... it was fair and unilateral.
I don't know where the rest of you grew up, but I know of a few people in my high school 10 years ago who didn't obtain their nintendo cartridges legally. (Oxon Hill High School, outside of Washington, DC)
These days, they're having problems with kids stealing other kids Pokemon cards. I'm guessing there's a few kids out there who are lifting a little cash from their parents to get it, too.
And the reason this happens is because unlike Malasia, if you give the kid a good spanking, you get brought up on child abuse charges, or your kid sues you for emotional trauma years later. But if you just let them steal, you're fine, as they're still a juvenile, and they'd just get sent up to Boy's Village for a little while.
Not even a full generation later, and you're not shocked to see some 5 year old mouthing off to his mom. If I did that to my mom, I knew that after we got home, I'd not be sitting so easy for the rest of the day.
Too many kids these say have no real adult supervision-- both parents work, and they're sent off to a daycare or have a babysitter watch after them 'till a parent gets off work. If they're lucky, they have an older brother who will beat them when they do something stupid. [of course, they could also get my brother, who would beat us for no particular reason]
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Think about that next time you get worked up about the government censoring the amount of blood in a game.
Now, don't get me wrong, I believe it is a travesty that there are other countries out there that take away personal freedoms like this. I salute the efforts of organizations such as Amnesty International, who work for freedom in other nations. And, I feel very thankful for the freedom we Yanks have in comparison to some of these other countries. My sadness over their own situation, however will NEVER make me stop fighting to preserve my own rights. While it pales in comparison to the situation in Malaysia, my government telling me what I can and cannot play in my own home is STILL a violation of my rights, and I will continue to fight every single time something like that happenes. Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile.
I would like to note that a few years ago, when I took a trip to the UK, I ended up going into a few arcades there, and the place was about 75% gambling, 25% video games. If you read the article, it says that the ban was mainly focused at the illegal gambling 'arcades', and happened to catch the legitimate arcades as a side effect. I don't agree with this, but I don't think it's all that bad of a thing either. Given that the US has restrictions on gambling as well, I think people should realize that diferent countries are going to deal with different things differently.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
I am sure glad to see that Malaysia has made a /. headline! -sarcasm- Malaysia Boleh! -sarcasm-
/.-ters, don't judge too hastily. It's the knee-jerk reaction that, unfortunately, permeates too many people (including /. people) nowadays.
Anyway, being a Malaysian, I can give a bit of history about this stuff.
Malaysia is a prudish country. To illustrate, let me list out the movies _we_ have banned : Austin Powers, Prince of Egypt, Schindler's list, Saving Private Ryan, countless others.
We also banned kissing scenes in American TV movies : they are always hilariously cut/bleeped off.
We banned Ellen Degeneres' appearance in David Letterman.
etc.. You get the Picture.
BUT...
The banning of Video Arcades, however, is not exactly a BadThing(tm), though. Have you ever seen some of these "video arcades" in Malaysia? They are not Dave and Busters' nice, clean stuff. But they are like gloomy, full of smoke, and lots of unsavoury characters.
Basically, if I have kids (I don't), I won't even let them -near- that place. If my kids want video games, I'll happily buy a Athlon and QuakeIII for him.
So, please
(As a point of history, video arcades were banned for the same reasons some years back. But the licenses were reinstated a few year back.)
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