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Banning Violent Arcade Games Unconstitutional
zTTTz writes "The US District court ruled that it was not
only unconstitutional to ban
violent video games from public arcades, but also ruled that the city of Indianapolis pay $318,000 in legal fees to the video game industry. This will probably make other cities think twice about trying to censor video game content again." Update 17:45 GMT by J : We covered the Indianapolis story previously in
July 2000,
October 2000, and
March 2001.
Check out
NCAC's open letter,
too. We haven't bothered covering the
recurring
news of
declining real-world violence
(while video games just get more gruesome and explicit), mostly because it's the same story over and over.
I was watching a movie on TBS a few nights ago... They showed a persons heart being ripped out while at the same time bleeping the word "bastard"...
It just seems that people are so worried about being correct these days, that they've forgotten what correct is.
It's refreshing to see a limit placed on the kind of standards for "clean society" that can be imposed on the public.
You could always lock them in the basement. That way they'd never be exposed to any harmful influences and they'd grow up to be fine, upstanding citizens.
--
E_NOSIG
Simple, my trolling friend.
Learn to raise your children to understand what's real from what's not.
Back in pioneer days, the father of the family kept a loaded musket by the doors, and somehow none of the kids picked it up and shot their siblings/friends. Even when the parents were away.
How?
They taught their kids wrong from right, good from bad, imaginary from reality.
I played doom since the day it came out on my 286-12MHZ box. And somehow I still became a rational engineer with a family and no history of violence....
Parenting isn't done by just letting your kids watch TV and play videogames. You gotta make sure they understand that its for fun.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Oh yeah, but its okay for the government to watch your kids 24/7? People who are trumpeting governmental rules as a "win for parenting" need to think twice and consider that parenting is about being a parent, not just knocking someone up/getting knocked up and then letting society and the government raise your kid.
Maybe you could suck it up and actually spend time with your kids, so that they aren't emotionally bankrupt and are able to play pseudo-violent games and see boobs without becoming scarred, twisted depraved killers. Parents need to take some damn responsibilty.
I am all for free speach and free beer but when it comes to public items, you cannot have a porn arcade and expect it to be okay. There are kids in public places, currently alot of the games are really really gorry and young'ens don't need to see that stuff. My two denari.
Didn't I hear someone once say that "the function of parents is to isolate the children from the realities of the world until they're too old to learn to cope with them?"
It bothers me that the very laws of the land underscore the public's acceptance of violent behavior and rejection of sexual behavior.
-Eldurbarn
Instead of banning the games, which violated the rights of the video game manufacturers as well as the arcade owners, they should have pushed for better control over who is exposed to those games. 10-year old kids should not be able to play those games at the arcades without their parent's (or other adult's) consent, just like they cannot go to a rated-R movie by themselves.
It was stupid for Indy to think they could take the quick and easy approach to the problem and just ban them.
I Heart Sorting Networks
"This bill didn't cause any problems, though. It was more of a "look at how much I care about the children" move by a politician. I don't know of any instances that it was ever enforced."
Great. So a politician damaging innocent private business for the sake of scoring re-election points, and costing the taxpayers in the city $300,000(at least) and legal fees counts as not causing any problems. Wanna bet that this idiot gets reelected by a bigger margin, and the evil games companies are spun as the villans? I'm really starting to think that we deserve the politicians we get.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Back in pioneer days, the father of the family kept a loaded musket by the doors, and somehow none of the kids picked it up and shot their siblings/friends. Even when the parents were away.
How?
They taught their kids wrong from right, good from bad, imaginary from reality
I'm afraid that's BS, the difference was there was no mass-media a la CNN et al informing the pioneer's of times when the kids went postal...
J-aims
--
Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
Best Way To Keep You Kids Away From Sex and Violence(tm):
Throw away your television. In fact, throw it away before they are born. Raise your kids without it. It may take a village (thank you, Hillary), but it STARTS at home. If your HOME is a safe environment, the big bad world of violence outside won't hurt them.
Re: Violent content in public places:
Arbitrary age restictions on ANYTHING are stupid. As I said in a previous post, tell your kids they aren't allowed to play violent games. Can't trust them if you aren't watching? Why not? If you can't trust them, why are they at the arcade alone? I hate kids. _I_ am NOT responsible for YOUR children.
This finally pokes the so-called "Moral Majority" in the eye and, hopefully, will make them realize that it is the part of the parent to regulate what his/her child is playing. My wife, when we were still just dating, asked me how I can justify my love of violent games when I know I want children and am wary of them being exposed to violence. I answered her very clearly that I am an adult - I know the difference between violence and death in a movie or a video game and violence and death in real life. Playing GTA III or Quake III isn't going to affect my view of the world, though it could affect the view of a five-year-old. Hell, I don't think I would let a kid under 11 or 12 play Shenmue, even, because Ryo is dealing with things that even teenagers are just beginning to understand.
But, that isn't the place of government or another organization to judge - if I feel my child is ready to play a game, see a movie or read a book then it is my judgment to make. We all have to be responsible for our actionsand the actions we take as parents - allowing a city to take said action is allowing the parents to serve inabstentia and with minimal involvement...
I downloaded a bunch of video for linux related code, include xine, libdvdread, and libdvdcss, and, hot damn!, I can now view encrypted DVDs on my Linux box.
I intentionally, and deliberately, cracked the encryption mechanism on the DVD I had purchased as a gift for my wife, so I could play it on our computer while our new DVD player (which suffered a fit of infant mortality) was in the shop for repair. Wary of using Microsoft Windows, because of all the recent security and spyware issues, I chose to make it work under Red Hat Linux 7.2.
It is my understanding that, under current U.S. law, this makes me a terrorist. Because I am a foriegner working here on a valid work visa, I can be held without charge for up to 7 days and tried by a military tribunal for this action. While I would consider such actions against me unconstitutional, it is not for me to interpret U.S. law, but the courts. And this brings up two issues of importance.
First, if attempts are made to arrest me over this, should I resist -- forcefully, if necessary? Should I even consider killing, or trying to kill, anyone who tries to arrest me for these actions which I believe harm no one and are perfectly consitutional? In short, should I take the law into my own hands? I think, at this point, the answer is no: there may be a time for such vigilante justice when large numbers of people believe the law to be wrong, and letting mob rule dictate defacto law, but that time has not yet come: people are not (yet) being arrested by the thousands for watching DVDs under Linux. I think I would neither resit nor assist any arresting officers -- I'd let them carry me away, though.
The second point is should I discard this thin shield of public slashdot anonymity? After all, if I truely believe my actions to be correct, I should have nothing to hide, even as the short-term consequences (i.e. arrest, incarcertation) might be unpleasant. Surely the eventual exposure of the naked media industry emperor justifies public criticism and civil disobedience. If not I, then who? But, a voice has to be heard to have effect, and the attention an imminent public confession of my actions might garner would be a positive thing. I will keep them guessing for a while longer.
Finally, I have not been altogether secret about all this. While not publicly announcing it to the world, I have told plenty of individuals what I am doing, and would have no hesitation in identifying them to the authorities if I am arrested -- after all they disobeyed the law as well, by not turning me in. Their subsequent arrests, or not, would, either way, further draw attention to the lunacy that now pervades a country which was built on that most noble of ideals: liberty.
You could've hired me.
On the topic, however, I usually find myself disagreeing with alot of what I read here, but for once I also see this as a victory. There's no good argument supporting the ban on games that, in terms of movie ratings, are PG at worst for violence.
Some here are worried that children may be influenced by these public displays of violence, but I say that any parent who feels their child is prepared to go out by him/her-self should also feel that their child knows the difference between animated and real violence, and right and wrong.
Any parent who does not feel their child understands these differences, and still allows them to go out on their own, has alot more to worry about than arcade games.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Simple, my trolling friend.
Why is this guy a troll? Because he didn't follow the majority, and actually decided to post as such?
Back in pioneer days, the father of the family kept a loaded musket by the doors, and somehow none of the kids picked it up and shot their siblings/friends.
Look around you. It's not the pioneer days anymore. It's not even the 1950s. Those children lucky enough to even have two parents are still waiting for them both to get home from work. Kids watch a lot more TV today than they did even 10 years ago. Media is becoming pervasive faster than parents can be expected to react. Games, movies, and telivision are much more realistic, special-effects-wise than they ever were.
They taught their kids wrong from right, good from bad, imaginary from reality.
All of which they learned from their own parents, who grew up believing that many of the things we take for granted in media were sick and depraved. Our parents saw a little more adult material growing up than their parents, and we more than our own. What takes place in GTA would have been unthinkable even to market to adults 20 years ago.
I played doom since the day it came out on my 286-12MHZ box. And somehow I still became a rational engineer with a family and no history of violence....
So did I, and I seem to be OK too. Will my kids be alright growing up with Quake III Arena or GTA4? Who knows? Not a gamble I'm looking foward to taking. I know for some kids, it didn't work out as well, given the rash of school shootings a year or so ago. Can that be bleamed on video games? Maybe not, but it's hard to believe that constant violence in the media didn't have something to do with something.
Parenting isn't done by just letting your kids watch TV and play videogames.
Of course not, but rare is the household without at least one TV and one computer. Now the family arcade has to be off-limits because of violent games.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
And why is that "constitutional literalist" trying to divert taxpayers dollars to religious groups? I could have sworn there was something in the first amendment to stop that from happening...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
This boggles the mind. Of course I'm very happy that the banning of video games has been declared unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court has very typically put sex in a different category, saying that communities can ban sexual displays and businesses based on 'community standards'.
In my mind, it's not permissable to ban either, but I think it's more appropriate to filter violence than sex. A lot of people don't agree with me, but you'd think that if you can't ban one, then you shouldn't be able to ban the other.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
And I'll have to respectfully disagree with that statement.
1. We're a free society. we have certain freedoms, guaranteed by the constitution. This means we have freedom of expression. A video game is someone's expression.
2. Most of the violence today has nothing to do with video games. It's mostly because of the soft parenting that politicians have promoted in recent years. People don't dicipline their children anymore. They let their children get away with murder (figuratively speaking, but, then again
The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout
However, I ask the rhetorical question for two reasons:
1) Liberty needs to be defended, to the extreme, if necessary, otherwise it is meaningless.
2) One can imagine the law so corrupt that killing police saves lives. What if "the law" required the slaughtering of Jews (yes, I'm striking a nerve on purpose) -- would it be wrong to kill any police "officer" who tried to put that law into practice? I think not.
Clearly, the dilema is that the law stops working, and people take it into their own hands. Often, they soothe their conscious by convincing themselves that they answer a "higher law", but that argument is rather weak, and the defense of criminals everywhere.
Should such extreme action ever be justified in the name of as abstract a concept as liberty? I think so, the question is, "When?" Clearly, I think the answer to date, in this circumstance is, "Not now."
You could've hired me.
Because the parents don't censor content. They're too busy working and behaving immorally with each other, all the time assuming that the government will do their parental jobs for them. The same government provides free inferior-education babysitting most of the year, so why wouldn't it be expected do other parenting jobs as well?
== Paul Rickard, Editor of The Microsoft Boycott Campaign ====
Another battle has been fought over this age old discussion of the effects of violence in games and movies on young children and in my opinion it was a victory for reason and logic.
There is always some new study that comes out that tries to link violence in movies to violence in real life and immediately afterwords there is another study that debunks the first. In my opinion we only need look at history for a reasonable answer.
I think we will all agree that we are far from living in the most violent time in history. The Dark Ages weren't just dark because of lack of innovation but because of the death, violence, and disease that dominated society. And yet as far as I can tell they didn't have movies or arcade games. Someone else here has already used the Hitler example and there are countless others that I could make.
The point is - violence has NOT increased in our society since the advent of movies and games. Even with the recent acts of terrorism here and abroad and the violence in the Middle East we are still living in one of the mostly peaceful times in history. Even the violence that is occuring is based on age old wars. The Middle East has been a hotbed for war for thousands of years.
Some people might say - what about the kids killing other kids in schools. Surely that has increased. There is no doubt that that has increased but did games or movies make those kids kill? I don't think so. They may have given them ideas on HOW to kill their classmates but it didn't encourage them to kill. The problem is much more deeply seeded and blaming movies or games is an absolute cop-out by parents and teachers. In many of these cases parents, friends, teachers, or counselors had an inkling that there was something wrong with the killer children but either didn't know what to do or thought it was just a phase. This is why I believe that parents should be held criminally liable for the actions of their minor children.
I would like to close with my own life story to bore you all. I grew up like many kids playing AD&D in the early 80's. I remember so many news stories about kids killing each other with swords and how it was all AD&D's fault. And yet I never wanted to kill anybody. None of my friends did either. As a matter of fact - the vast majority of people who played AD&D NEVER had seriously contemplated killing somebody. To this day I play many games that might be considered violent by some and yet I can't watch the surgeries on the health channel.
I also remember viewing porn and having adult magazines as far back as 12-13 and yet I am not a sexual deviant. I don't have any less respect for women because of it.
In summary, don't worry about what your kids watch and play. Instead worry about teaching them right from wrong and reality from fiction. Listen to your kids. Find out what troubles them. Talk to their teachers and counselors. Meet their friends' parents. Help them with their homework. Watch their ballgames, recitals, concerts, etc. Be a part of your child's life and all the porn and violence in the world won't make them be deviant or violent.
It mazes me that the US imposes very little censorship on violence (as a rule), yet gets horrifed at the thought of sex appering on TV/video games.
Murder is very rare but is shown happily on prime-time TV. Sex is perfectly normal but is hevily censored. (Even to the extent that a woman cannot breast feed in public in the US!)
I lothe censorship, but I know that I find violence more repulsive than sex!
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
"It really does take a village to raise a child."
Oh really?
That's one of the most idiotic things to come out of the Clinton years. I am NOT responsible for YOUR kid. He/she is YOURS. YOU chose to accept the responsibility. I don't recall you asking me if our little "village" could handle another kid.
And if I am somehow responsible for the care and upbringing (aside from the taxes I already pay for school, etc) of your little rugrat, then what say we talk child support?
Here's what you can expect from me with respect to your kid. If some other kid starts a fight, I'll break it up, someone tries to snatch your kid, he/she is gonna have hell to pay, your kid is lost/scared/needs help, they'll get it cuz its simply the right and proper thing to do. But its still solely your job to raise your kid.
If I run an arcade, I may choose to have an "adult content" section for older teens or adults with stuff I think is a little much for younger kids (or maybe so those people can simply avoid the hassle of dealing with little kids). But it should be my choice, just like its the parent's choice to let their kid into the place, escorted or not.
I'm sure all you parents have checked with the parents of your child's friends to see if there's a gun in the house, did you bother asking about copies of GTA, etc. I don't know about you but I believe there are far more game systems in home than there are arcades, it hard to even find an arcade these days actually, at least around my home.
You chose to raise a kid, now you have to accept the job, keep track of them and what they are doing. While your at it, keep them off my lawn.
Before commenting, please actually *read* the law. The "ban" prohibited kids from playing the games "without parental consent" *exactly* like the poster below thought they should try.
" 10-year old kids should not be able to play those games at the arcades without their parent's (or other adult's) consent, just like they cannot go to a rated-R movie by themselves."
Yup, this is exactly what they were pushing for. The games themselves were *NOT banned*, and even the restriction was intended for *Public Arcades* only.
Instead of the knee-jerk "it's censorship" and "won't somone please think of the First Admendment" reactions that pervade the comments on this story, look a bit deeper.
If you actually have children you understand a bit more about not wanting your 10 year old to glorify in ripping the heart out of a virtual opponent in some game that you'd damn sure not want them playing until they are actually old enough to "give peace a chance", and about the RESPONSIBILITY of raising *balanced* children, IMHO this involves a lot more of spending what little "free time" you have as a working parent with your kids trying to teach them how to think and why glorifying in taking the "Rambo" approach to situations is not an answer ANYTIME in life that prevades pretty much every show on network TV and video game in the U.S.
I'm perfectly in favor of having the NC17 type ratings on Video games enforced. This has *NOTHING* to do with "free speech" and everything to do with helping parents control the crap that American society tries to force on our Kids today.
To those that think that video games *don't* influance kids in any way, all I have to say is..."all your base belong to us"
--Tadghe
Bugs Bunny was right.
"You should have the freedom and the right to take it out without Big Brother intervention."
But that's just it. The whole point of your constitution is that, no matter how much people whine and complain, you CANNOT make laws to prevent stuff like this.
Without big brother intervention? You don't NEED big brother intervention. By getting together and passing a bylaw, YOU become big brother, don't you see that?
The arcade owner is fully free to not carry games he does not approve of morally, as are all the shop owners free to not carry games they don't like, etcetera.
ANd if the mall owner doesn't like the shop owner, he's free not to rent to him again when is lease is up, etcetera.
WHat? Not everyone hates these games? Then why should a vocal minority be able to ban it?
> I do have to give props to Indy for at least trying to do something
> about the situation, their heart was in the right place just not their minds.
No, it wasn't in the right place. The entire problem with this sort of thing is that what they tried to do cuts counter to the very principles on which the U.S. is founded, and since they're the city government they're more wrong than any private citizen initiative could ever have been. Despite the fact that these games are not appropriate for children, they are trying to force the decision for all kids, even those whose parents allow them to play. In a very real sense, they're trying to legislate morality. There are some cases where morality has external effect (legislating "thou shalt not kill" is legitimate because of the obvious repercussions outside of the individual), but since there's never been a credible study that proves that violent video games cause real-world crime, there's no external effect to legislate. This is the morality for which parents must be responsible, and for which the state must not be allowed to be responsible, because making laws to "protect people from themselves" is paramount to outlawing skydiving because it's dangerous.
Virg
1. We're a free society. we have certain freedoms, guaranteed by the constitution. This means we have freedom of expression. A video game is someone's expression.
...)
This law didn't interfere with the creator's write to make a video game, it prevented minors (who are not, and shouldn't be, granted full Constitutional protections) from using that game. There is a difference. While I personally disagree with the ordinance, you have to recognize that this issue, like most, is not so cut-and-dried as most people here like to think.
2. Most of the violence today has nothing to do with video games. It's mostly because of the soft parenting that politicians have promoted in recent years. People don't dicipline their children anymore. They let their children get away with murder (figuratively speaking, but, then again
How is this politicians' faults? I mean, we blame them for everything under the sun, but what "soft parenting" laws have they created? I feel that people don't discipline their children as much anymore because they're not around to do so. We've created a society where in most families both the parents have to work simply to make ends meet. Children are not monitored suffiently not because of moral failure on someone's part (except maybe the corporations that have created this situation), but because of economic necessity.
I have two points to make regarding this issue:
1) I liken games to movies. We do NOT censor movies, rather, we rate them to aid parents who decide to censor the movie from thier child. One step further, R (and "worse") rated movies require proof of age (theoretically). This also aids the parents because no parent wants to put thier 14yr old on a leash, but they also don't want them to see some of the very disturbing content found in some R movies. Why is it, then, that a very violent game can go unrestricted where kids under 18 are playing? Is a parent to say, "Don't look or play that one game" and expect the kid to obey? Why not just put porn games (which arguably have less of an affect) in the arcade as well?
2) Disclaimer: I've been playing violent video games since I can remember (Wolf3D,Doom, etc.). I have always resolved conflicts with words not violence. This being said, violent media is still proven to have a VERY SERIOUS affect on many children and young teens. My mother is a behaviour specialist in the local school district and through her personal experiences has found most of these studies to be accurate. If I want to express violent and pornographic speech, I have every right to do so, just not in a public place with children around.
Personally, I wouldn't mind the arcade having an "18 and older section" (as silly as it may sound).
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
there's a point at which freedom of speech ends, being where it starts to limit the liberties of other people. for example, you cannot yell "FIRE" in a crowded theatre and claim 'freedom of speech' in your defense. the reason? doing so brings more harm than good.
likewise, you cannot say certain things to instigate others into a fight of sorts...doing so also brings about more harm and is considered "fighting words", or something like that.
so yeah, we got freedom of speech...but it IS limited at some points. we have a right to be outrageously offense, to a point. remember that.
If you pay 45% of your income in taxes, you make enough money so that this doesn't apply to you, and can easily support your child with no need for a second income; the highest federal tax rate is 39.6%, which applies only if you make more than $288,350. If state taxes push that to 45%, you can always move to a state without income tax.
If the politicians would READ the constitution, they would find that gov't ONLY has the power to tax imported / exported goods. The unconstitutional income tax (the amendment was never ratified) is the direct cause of the situation you're concerned with.
The Constitution DOES allow for taxation beyond imported/exported goods, and always has. Section 8 states: The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the income tax levied during the Civil War was legal. Any reasonable person reading it can see that it allows the government to levy taxes. There is some uncertainty as to whether it can apply to directly taxing individuals, which is why the 16th amendment was created. The only people who claim that it wasn't ratified are people who are so incensed at having to turn over money that they construct elaborate fictions to justify not doing so. Point me to one reputable legal scholar who claims the 16th amendment wasn't ratified.
I guess we're moving offtopic though.
Furthermore, children are not "monitored" sufficiently by their parents because at some point in time, responsibility became a foreign concept in this society.
I hear this a lot, but haven't seen any proof. From time immemorial people have complained about decreasing moral standards, and if this were true by this point we'd be living in sewers. Was there suddenly spontaneous moral decay? What caused it?
If we had never tried to legislate away stupidity, outlaw recreation or mandate education, parents would necessarily be more involved in their children's lives.
These laws didn't just spring spontaneously into existence. They were created in response to specific problems. You really want to improve things? Force the television networks to cut their programming schedule down to a few educational and news shows a day. Cut the workday down to a sane amount. Offer more vacation time to parents. Stop treating education as a robot factory, and cut down class size to a fraction of what it is. Make it illegal to advertise any product to children. Create a society that isn't a constant assault on a child's psyche. I know that we can't legislate all this, but let's at least try, and if that means we have a few municipalities trying to cut down on the virtual gore little Johnny sees, well at least they're trying, and I'm not going to demonize them for doing it like everyone else on this forum.
As it is, the consequences of "failure" have been diminishing with time due to paternalistic laws and increases in welfare / bankruptcy / whatever.
So what do you propose? We resurrect the idea of debtor's prison?
Obviously, the /. community agree's that violent games do not cause kids to kill people. However, I don't think that enough emphasis has been placed on the parents. So far, I think that a lot of the parents are to blame (as well as the kids) in the shootings in the schools. These parents subject these kids to meaningless activities in order to live thru them, or they don't pay enough attention to them, or they don't teach them from right and wrong. Parents in society today are getting worse and worse. Just look at all of the recent new cartoons on Fox. They are all there to mock horrible parents and satire on how the world runs.
Nowadays, parents use drugs and medicine rather than real parenting to get their kids to do things. Parents have relied so heavily on drugs like Ritalin and Prozac (for example) rather than to teach their kids good values and whats real and what is not.
The kids who do activites like this (kill people) also need to get a grip (along with a shot in the arm, if you get my drift) about what society is really like. A kid needs real help if a plasma rifle in a game wants to make him kill someone.
I am glad to see that a decision like this was made by the courts. Its finally time that they wake up and smell the coffee.
-Vic
I don't want people playing 'parent' for me. I am not a parent yet, but I'm worried that the day I become one I'll have choices already made for me. "Well, this content is offensive to my oversly sensitive nature, we better prevent kids from seeing it."
I'd like to use Harry Potter as an example. When I first heard about Harry Potter, some group was trying to prevent children from being exposed to it for unsubstantiated reasons. One quote that comes to mind is "Harry Potter desensitizes children for the coming of the anti-christ", or some baloney. The reason I use the term 'unsubstantiated' is that I've read the first book and have seen the movie, and I've yet to find any religious implications at all, certainly nothing that has offended my sensibilites. Perhaps it is the later books that supposedly contain this offensive content, but frankly I don't really care. The parents groups were so overreactive that I just don't trust their judgement after I looked into it. Gathering a mob to burn books is not the sensibility I want to instill in my children.
My 8 year old sister really enjoyed the movie, and I bet it is not too long before she is picking up the novels and reading them. They are pretty advanced reading for a kid her age, but I think the interest the movie sparked may cause her to really enjoy reading. Given that I see no conflict in the novel or in the movie and our beliefs, I think it's perfectly okay for her to go off and enjoy Harry Potter in it's various forms.
If the over-reactive parents groups had their way, Harry Potter would never have been available to me or my sister to enjoy. I don't appreciate this at all. I do appreciate being informed. Something as simple as "be careful of Harry Potter because we believe some values expressed in it may be impressionable on your child." is perfectly acceptable to me. But to deny me the right to say "I think it is okay for my children to be exposed to this" is to deny me fundamental rights granted to me by the constitution.
Just because you don't want YOUR child to play a particular video game, doesn't mean that you are righteous when you deny MY child that priveledge.
"Derp de derp."
That figures... The news media (TV in particular) is largely liberal, and believes in govt. as our protector.
Well, I would sorta agree with you. I think that news media are largely liberal. But I think that there is a large conservative element out there that champions this exact same issue. The concept of "Family Values" is a conservative one, and government censorship, be it a ban on flag burning, keeping evolution from being taught in schools, or what have you, is not an unknown idea among conservatives.
I think the violent video games issue is neither exclusively liberal or conservative. This is probably an issue that has crossover appeal.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.