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The Law as a Parent
RosethornKB writes "KillerBetties.com has an editorial about the continuing attempts by the legal system to pass laws regulating the sale of video games. From the article: "The latest is one coming out of Illinois. Governor Blagojevich is proposing legislation and his explanation says, among other things: "Parenting is hard work, and the state has a compelling interest in helping parents raise their children to be upstanding men and women." How does passing laws to restrict the sale of violent games and put tight restrictions on the industry's labeling systems help parents raise their children?""
I keep hearing about how bad the rating system is for games. But have you ever tried to figure out the rating for a movie? It's usually really really small, on the back of the box at the bottom. It doesn't tell you anything about mature content on it. I find that the only good descriptions for movie content usually comes from the video stores themselves. Stores like Rogers Videos usually has a very extensive description of questionable content. So how come we never hear the movie industry getting slammed for their rating system?
I don't care that there's a rating system, but I think it is highly innefficient to make the parent come with the kid EVERY TIME they want a mature game. The parent should be able to sign a form and get a license for the kid that he/she can show at the game store, making it clear that he has parent permission to buy whatever he wants.
It's not like the law would stop a parent from buying the game for their child if they approve of the sale. Smith says the child cannot buy the game, unless Jones gets the game for the child Smith's decision counts.
Now imagine we have Mr. Miller who doesn't want his child to get the game. Now, both children go to the store and want to get the game. Both get denied. But Jones's child goes to his daddy, daddy coomes with him and buys the game. Jones is happy. Miller's child could try to ge his daddy do that for him but all he'd get is a speech on why violent games are bad for him. Jones is happy, Miller is happy and Smith is happy.
Without the law, both children go to the store, get the game, come home and start playing. Jones sees his kid doing nothing wrong and is happy but Miller comes home, realizes his child is playing a game he does not approve of and gets angry. Of course he cannot return the game because it's opened already and the child was already exposed to its content.
Bad parenting you say? A part of good parenting is to give your child freedoms to make them learn about independance and responsibility. Of course, you could teach your child these games are bad but seriously, who's the child going to listen to, his dad or his peers who al claim he must have that new, cool, ultra-mature game?
Besides, it's impossible to watch your child 24/7 and it shouldn't be that dangerous to leave your child alone for a few hours.
Besides, how is it good parenting when, instead of going with your child and making a case-to-case decision, you tell the law "No! I don't want to have to go with my child! Don't introduce those laws"?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
To be fair, Joe Lieberman has been pretty complimentary of the videogame rating system. In fact, he is probably one of the best allies that videogames have in Washington, especially because he's really taken the time to get educated on it, so he doesn't just spit out media platitudes about games. Because he's basically claimed games as "his issue" it keeps less informed senators and congressmen away from the issue. This isn't to say that he doesn't continue to criticize games and the game industry to some degree, but I'd much rather have Joe Lieberman focused on this than some other senators.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.