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Senator Clinton Slams GTA
Joining the ranks of such luminaries as Jack Thompson and Governor Blagojevich, GamesIndustry.biz has the word that Senator Hillary Clinton has joined right wing advocates in decrying the gaming industry as a paragon of loose morals and corrupting influences. From the article: "Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them...This is a silent epidemic of media desensitisation that teaches kids it's OK to diss people because they are a woman, they're a different colour or they're from a different place." Commentary available at The Australian. Update: 03/30 02:22 GMT by T : Thanks to reader mantle_etching, here is a link to the entire speech as delivered, so you can judge its content for yourself.
You think killing prostitutes are bad? Wait until you see soldiers team-killing each other in CounterStrike.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
... but did you ever notice that not a single politician slams Thief?
Trolling is a art,
It is wrong to murder prostitutes after you have sex with them.
Unless they charge more than $50, then its ok.
Imagine that... Senator Clinton, the woman who stood by her morally correct husband while at the top of the US government who supported his second in command's wife's desire to mark "inappropriate" music as such, supporting "proper" moral behavior for the inhabitants of this "free" country.
"Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them," she said in a statement on the issue. "This is a silent epidemic of media desensitisation that teaches kids it's OK to diss people because they are a woman, they're a different colour or they're from a different place."
Hmmm, what about the US Government desensitizing these same children using the same television by killing and torturing real people during wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or announcing that the head of the US Government was getting his cock sucked by a cigar smoking slut who was married to the same woman who is so against immoral behavior being shown to children?
The parents are letting their children play GTA and they are letting them watch the news. It's up to the parents of these children to give them direction in life not Senator Clinton or anyone else.
I'd like someone to sit down the youngsters in our country and try to explain to them how killing or torturing someone in a war that was permitted under false pretenses is morally acceptable but allowing an incapacitated woman to pass away peacefully is not. Or how the President willed a young woman to suck him off and put a cigar in her vagina because he had the power to do so was still allowed to run this "moral" country after he was found guilty of lying?
Let's have our parents teach us the morals they believe not the mixed messages that the US Government is sending.
Please stay out of the personal lives of your constituents. We don't need you tell us how to live our lives to be as "moral" as all of you.
I know of some books that suggest similar things! Kids could read it then do it! Ban all forms of seeing while we are at it!!
If your kid has a problem defining fantasy vs reality, video games are the least of his concern...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
if the government Senator Clinton represents didn't use violence every day to solve it's problems. This is quite a bit bigger problem than the extremely questionable link that video games have with real world violence. I realize that the government wants to maintain a monopoly on violence, but this seems to be taking it a bit too far.
I remember reading about how wonderful alcohol was, while in Jr. High and Highschools. Never Cry Wolf, by Farley Mowat, painted a lovely picture of something called "wolf juice" which was (IIRC) half whiskey and half beer. This book was required reading for some classes. Should I blame Mr. Mowat for how much I spend on ales, porters and stouts these days? I suggest a few million to conduct a meaningful study. If it's approved, I'll see you all down at the bar, first round is on me.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Hilary Clinton... used the word 'diss' in a sentence? Hilary Clinton?!?...
Isn't that one of the signs of the Apocalypse???!?!
Are we sure it wasn't George Clinton?....
Is Hilary Clinton trying to swell the ranks of the Young Republicans? Whatever happened to Democrats sticking up for things like civil liberties? When do I get my Deomocrat party back from the corps and self righteous? Yet another disillusioned Democrat that desperatelhy want a middle of the road party to balance things out in this country of mine.
Im 21 years old, and Im definately not the oldest gamer out there. Someone should remind them that video games aren't just for children anymore.
I was murdering prostitutes WAY before GTA came out.
I'm still waiting for a game that will depict Clinton's white house years.
Leisure Suit Larry don't got shit on Bill!
...about violent games is that parents are buying them for their children, and abdicating the responsibility for moral choice about what their kids see and participate in to complete strangers, ie us game developers.
If they're making an informed choice to say "Ok Jimmy, you can smoke cops and bang that ho!", they can't complain about it. If they're not making that choice and the kid does it anyway, that's their fault too...
Game dev and music blog
but she used Word's grammar checker to prepare her speech...
"...it's OK to diss people because they are a woman"
Dat ho' be trippin', yo!
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
Your husband (the most powerful person in the world at the time) got a blowjob from an ugly intern, he blew his wad on her dress and defouled a fine cigar. And then lied about it on national tv.
What did our children learn from that experience.... Other than women that are with powerful men have to put up with such nonsense.
"...that teaches kids it's OK to diss people..."
I hope that's a misquote.
rm -rf
"Hey Hillary, looky here, I just blew up a tank with the rocket launcher, whooo-eh."
"Shut up Bill, I pandering to parents that don't take the time to raise their own kids here"
-or so you'd think
Those Australian papers always distort the truth. The distinguished Senator from New York clearly said "color."
It doesn't make you kill prostitutes. Just something you are free to do, as in real life. I choose not to in SA, for various reasons.
Also I think with SA they have been more consistent with who is racist/sexist &c. You're character isn't overly either, yet the more dislikable people are, as in films for instance.
I bought it, and it had an 18 label on it. Moral of the story - DON'T LET YOUR KIDS PLAY IT IF THEY'RE NOT INTELLIGENT, FREE THINKING INDIVIDUALS. Jesus!
This may be counter to most of the belief's here, but I think that with games such as GTA there is an underlying issue of responsibility. While I am not blaming the game company for what they have produced, I certainly do think that games such as GTA should not be played by kids. Simply telling parents to not allow their children to play really isn't enough and doesn't get to the core of the issue. What responsibility do game producers have for content that is likely to end up being played by kids? How about the responsibility of parents? And the responibility of your kid's friend's parents? ('cause just because you don't allow it in your house, doesn't mean that Billy doesn't have it.) I think there needs to be more discussion along these points and less finger pointing of who's to blame.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Talk about seeds...it's ok for an 18 y/o to kill real people (and be taught to do it efficiently), but not play a video game?
A modern day witchhunt.
The key part of the sound bite:
"Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them..."
Wow. Sounds like those children have some really crappy parents. My brother would never let his daughter play a game like Grand Theft Auto.
Perhaps, Senator Clinton, this is what comes of trying to get the "village" to raise a child. There are a lot of jerks in any given community who will happily sell violent soft-core pornography to children at $60 retail.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
"She's right and actually has a solution to lessening violence, but we want our video games!"
She's NOT right, and her "solution" solves NOTHING.
Kids don't grow up to become prostitute-murdering psychopaths because they played a videogame that "taught them it was cool." Give children a little bit of credit here.
Ban the bible, lest the citizens learn to stone rapists, murders, and maybe even the politicians to death.
Legally enforcing those ESRB ratings seems like the obvious choice to please both sides.
Hillary Clinton doesn't want an impressionable 15 year old playing GTA. I'm 22, and want to play whatever the hell I please because I'm an adult that's responsible for his own actions.
I know the ESRB rating system has been around for a while, but nobody enforces it. Nobody is preventing a 15 year old kid from buying a copy of GTA, BMX XXX, or any other game that *probably* isn't all that appropriate for younger kids, even if I played similar games at that age myself and have never physically harmed another human being.
The problem is that enforcing this screws the retail chains that carry these titles (in addition to screwing the under-18 market, but since they can't vote, I doubt Hilly cares anyway).
-----
jonathan barket
At 18, kids are being propositioned by prostitutes in American cities. Somehow I think that if they can handle that [and there's no great outcry from the right about that!] they can certainly handle a video game.
Completely out of context.
... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."
Context:
"Headlining an appearance with other Democratic women senators on behalf of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is up for re-election this year, Hillary Clinton told several hundred supporters -- some of whom had ponied up as much as $10,000 to attend -- to expect to lose some of the tax cuts passed by President Bush if Democrats win the White House and control of Congress.
"Many of you are well enough off that
Headlining an appearance with other Democratic women senators on behalf of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is up for re-election this year, Hillary Clinton told several hundred supporters -- some of whom had ponied up as much as $10,000 to attend -- to expect to lose some of the tax cuts passed by President Bush if Democrats win the White House and control of Congress.
In other words, she was speaking to a room full of really wealthy people when she said this. I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with her statement in general.
I just wanted it to be clear that she wasn't saying this to a mixed group of people. She was saying this to a room full of really wealthy people.
My userid is prime!
Except reading does require the ability to read, and some critic sense, which in effect means that a book have less chance nowadays to reach out most kids.
Je n'ai pas d'avenir Je n'ai qu'un destin Celui de n'être qu'un souvenir C'est pour demain
Is the game terrible? Yes Is the game fun? Yes Should the government be telling creative people what they can and can not develop? No This goes hand in hand with freedom of speech. The core issue lies in morality (lack thereof) and parents who just don't care. Let capitolism determine what will be produced.
The Bible doesn't command that anyone except for Jews over the age of 2,000 do any of those things.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Kids don't grow up to become prostitute-murdering psychopaths because they played a videogame that "taught them it was cool."
But my mom said I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up!
Look here
:
The best quotes
"Serious violent crime levels declined since 1993. "
"Firearm-related crime has plummeted since 1993."
The most amusing thing is Doom was released at the peak in 1993. Perhaps people are taking their frustations out in violent video games instead of real life?
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
First off, this game isn't free, it's for profit. It's simply an escallation of a genre of game which probably are the merger of FPS, 1on1 combat and racing with a little RPG sprinkled over it to give it some place to go. What's probably a good exercise is trying to guess what the next iteration will be like.
It really is pretty sorry when you realize you don't mind sitting at a screen and wiping out a bunch of lives. The thing of it is, you never realized yourself becoming less sensitive about life.
When I came out of cancer treatment, something I wouldn't wish on anyone, I experienced a twinge at watching the Deathstar blow apart in Star Wars. You know that thing is full of people, many would not actually have been evil. Yet that's OK because it's fiction and they were serving the Empire, right?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"Senator Hillary Clinton has joined right wing advocates in decrying the gaming industry as a paragon of loose morals and corrupting influences."
Oh, come now! The United States Senate itself is "a paragon of loose morals and corrupting influences!" If Congress spent half of the energy it spends on trying to reform us on reforming itself, we might actually have a respectable national government for once.
I play video games to get away from stuff like this, and now some USS wants to take that away from me as well?
I believe Mrs. Clinton needs to play a little GTA. The game does not encourage your to have sex with hookers and kill them, it merely presents the option. And if I recall, the game is rated "mature." If the "children" are playing a "mature game" then it is because their parents either purchased it for them, or were too lazy to prevent them from owning such a game. Shame on you Mrs. Clinton for going after easy political points.
Redistribution of wealth is the whole point of taxation. If you want to end all taxation and government spending, OK, good luck with that. Meanwhile, redistribution of wealth is mostly what government does.
Regardless of the "context", the fact that she even uttered that string of words should scare the hell out of anybody who values their freedom.
Respectfully, Pres. Bush has her beat on that score, and he's already in the White House.
I don't see how playing GTA is any worse than enjoying an episode of The Sopranos.
We are invited to sympathize with Tony Soprano as he:
- Covers up the murder of a stripper by one of his henchmen.
- Kills and decapitates the very same henchman for mistreating an animal he liked.
- Shatters the knee of a gambler who owes him money
- Bankrupts the father of his daughter's best friend
- Cheats on his wife with multiple partners
Why don't people complain about The Sopranos they way they do about GTA?
Because people understand that The Sopranos is intended for adults. GTA and games like it are also intended for adults, but there are a lot of people out there who don't understand that.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
...and which books would those be? Exactly which great works of literature talk about what a great idea it is to have sex with a prostitute and then kill her?
It's a straw-man argument.
Besides, no one's (no one sane, anyway) is suggesting these games be banned. However, their sale should be restricted to those who society has decided are old enough to perceive the difference between fantasy and reality. If a parent or guardian believes their kid is mature enough to handle it, fine. They can buy it for them. We don't allow kids to buy alcohol, cigarettes or porn until we think they're old enough to decide for themselves. Why should games with adult themes be any different?
Frankly, too many parents are totally IGNORANT of what their kids are watching, playing and listening to. So parents should be more informed, who disagrees with this?
MOST kids have a problem discerning the difference between fantasy and reality, at one age or another. I know I did (at least, until about 8 or so). And who among us didn't have a teenage friend who honestly believed professional wrestling was real?
Give me a break.
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
I don't think that the government should try to legislate morality (after all, before you legislate morality, you have the more difficult task of deciding which morality to legislate). But I don't think it is so simple as you put it. The idea is that government has authority in the public sphere, but no authority in the private sphere. This sounds reasonable and may be a great goal, but doesn't work in practice. What happens in public affects people's private lives, and what happens in private affects the public. If Clinton can determine that GTA is damaging to the public welfare of the US, then the government will try to censor it.
I'm not defending censorship or Clinton (or her husband), and I see the irony as clearly as you do. I just don't trust the public/private dichotomy to protect individual rights or civic wellbeing. Rather than just telling government to stay out of our private lives, we need to change the way we think about government and the state. Otherwise, every time it is in the public interest to suspend private rights (e.g. the Patriot Act), individuals will lose out.
Politically, this stance on video games is pretty safe, and you'll note that all she's doing here is saying we should study how bad the problem really is.
She could be doing this knowing full and well that any honest study may come back with the result of "these are no worse than movies and books", with the final result being ( in the worst case ) congress passing laws requiring age restrictions on games. Honestly, I think that's going to far, and they're actually likely to get struck down in court ( IF we can keep GW from packing in another serious social conservative, which isn't looking good ), but in the long run, it might be good for the industry and result in even *more* explicit games. When you have to get a game from behind the counter or from a local non-blockbuster video store or an online source because *mart is too weak to carry it, the gloves are off, you can make that game as nasty as you want.
In the long run, a video game is no different than a movie in a lot of ways, so if there's some lame decency rating system that prevents a minor from buying a really gory, racist, sexist movie, then that same system should be placed on games, in all seriousness and fairness. But it should actually ( I think ) be the same system- it's not right to use stricter standards for games than other video content.
Untimately, though, we have a generally bad situation in America, where people are abdicating their parental responsibilities to the state, and it's not OK. If your kid is playing a graphic game, and you don't want them to, you should be able to prevent them without affecting the rest of society. It's no different than letting them buy a really gory or violent DVD. Don't let them do it, and take it and punish them if they get one. You're the parent, act like it. If you want the state to police your morals, move to Iran, they'll help you out.
Does Senator Clinton advocate banning GTA? Did I miss something in the article?
Put your jump to conclusions mat away, dumbass.
All that means is that she's a Democrat. What else is new? Democrats have always believed that the wealthy should be forced to give up more money in order to help those that are less fortunate. The thinking behind that is that the wealthy can afford to lose relatively more money without suffering, whereas the poor desperately need that money to continue operating in our society. The reason why this is considered a "good thing" is that having a large and ineffective poor population is bad for everyone in the society, even the wealthy. The wealthy still depend on the services of low-income individuals, so it's important to have a stable group of low-income working people in the society.
A single wealthy person may be willing to give up some of his wealth to help the poor, but alone he is powerless to make a real difference. That is why Democrats generally think that private charity is insufficient, and so taxes must be used. That levels the playing field among all the wealthy. If I were a millionaire, I would be less inclined to donate money to charity if I thought that I was the only one doing it.
Disclaimer: I'm a Libertarian, so I present the above paragraphs for academic discussion only. I'm not saying that this reflects my personal view.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
No. Paying for essential services (military, police, roads, etc.) is the whole point of taxation.
Sorry, but it's the case. I would call myself a Libretarian as I generally tend to support liberal social policies but conservative economic ones. That fits with the general stated goal of thr Libertarians, the idea being that the government should be there to provide for the common good but stay the hell out of our lives as much as possible.
Great, but then they take that to the extreme. It is quite clear that we DO need governmental regulation of a lot of things, and that the government DOES have to be involved in our lives in many ways. We can't just have this total hands off system where things like child labour are legal. Yet, that seems to be what they want to defend.
It's made worse by their choice in politicans. Badnarik is a clown, and did nothing but pull stupid stunts in the last election. I mean he could have actually tried to make an impassioned plea to those disenfranchised with the major parites, and made a real legal attempt to get in on the debates, but instead he just used it to get himself arrested in a stupid publicity stunt (he admitted that's what it was).
I would support the Libertarians is they were a little more moderate. It's possible to want liberal social policies and conservative economic ones without going all the way out to bat-shit loco land. They'd also need to get serious and present a real candidate, one that acts presenential and tries to speak for the country.
As it stands, they are as bad as the big 2.
Perhaps, Senator Clinton, this is what comes of trying to get the "village" to raise a child.
Everyone should just ignore her. This is Hillary Clinton just trying to appear centrist in order to set herself up for a 2008 Presidential run. She's been saying a lot of things lately about "faith" and "morals" due to the "moral values" issue of the last election.
I don't even care if you're Democrat. Just pointing out what is obviously going on, and why she's suddenly speaking out on this. Decide what you want (personally, I'm not sure she'll ever successfully shake her image as an ultra-liberal from upper New York).
Hillary is starting on the groundwork for her 2008 campaign. The first step in running for president is to work a few years ahead establishing a "record" that the media will latch onto and later spew out to the sheeple who vote based on short term memory. In these harrowing times, it's the religious right/moral majority who have the the voting power so it is important to appeal to them and swing some of the fence sitters (those upset with the Bush cabal) over to her side.
Kerry's biggest mistake was not maintaining a high public profile in the years leading up to 2004. Bush didn't either but he had the assistance of daddy's insider machinery to win his office. Notice how McCain and Hillary are frequent guests on Sunday morning talk shows and other photo-ops. This is all part of the next campaign.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
He is a republican, he is not interested in presenting the whole truth and then having a rational discussion about it. He just wants to make sure "Hitlery" as they like to call her never becomes president.
evil is as evil does
A zionist and a free trader. That is pretty rightwing.
Hilary is just another Politically correct, neoliberal, faux-progressive, rightwing Democrat. Bill Clinton was as rightwing as Nixon, probably more so. That rightwing bastard sold our jobs to the globalist corporations overseas.
This Rich Rightwing Bitch wife of his is as powerMAD and as powerHungry as Bill ever was. She is running for Prez in 2008.
Count on it!
Our job is to get a real Progressive nominated in 2008.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Right now the money is being taken from the middle class and given to the rich. Why is that OK with you?
evil is as evil does
It's pretty nice in my party. We aren't beholden to anybody, and we only follow what we believe.
:)
It's called being an Independent.
I learned long ago that political parties are nothing more than organized religions. They're only right some of the time, and they all tell the truth, but only their agreeable versions of it.
Lean Democrat, if that so suits you. But do it because it's what you believe, not what the party believes. Clearly, you are already disillusioned with the Democrats. So don't be one, and wait along for someone to come along you agree with and vote for them based on the issues, not affiliation.
You'd be amazed how difficult this concept is for so many people. "Which party are you?" "None." *blank stare*
of course it takes a village to properly raise a child. do you somehow think that the child's entire world experience is controlled by their parents?
Nonsense.
The village is simply the setting in which the child is raised. The job of the parent is to raise a kid capable of coping with the time he or she will spend wading through the cesspool of humanity's lowest common denominators.
i was absolutely stunned when i was waiting in line to buy my copy of GTA-SA, when a 12-ish year old was getting his mother to buy it for him.
Some exceptional "12-ish year olds" can handle sex and/or violence and understand the difference between entertainment and reality.
This is why a parent can accompany their kids to R-rated movies.
That kid's mom might have simply been a lazy person who was not paying attention to the sort of game she was buying for her kid.
Parents frequently make the same mistake with comic books. I recall once, in the late 80s, standing next to a woman who was thinking of buyng a Batman comic for her kid. I quitly grabbed a copy and flipped it open for her to a page in which Robin bitterly threw a man to his death off a high-rise balcony, and explained to her that the target market for most of the comics she was looking at was young adults. She thanked me and started carefully looking for something a little more suitable for her little urchin.
On the other hand, it could be that this mom has taken the time to teach her kid morals, ethics, and the difference between fantasy and reality, and while a child enjoying such a game might offend your sensibilies, she might have a more permissive world-view about that sort of thing. Plus, for all you know, the kid was a very young-looking 15 or 16.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Why is it that the instant you sit a politician down with a copy of Grand Theft Auto, the first thing they do is seek out a prostitute, have sex with them, and then murder them for money?
I mean, I had my copy for months before I knew you could do that. (I like to avoid FAQ-style sites until I either really need them or I've finished the game.) Not these politicians, though; wham, within five minutes apparently they've nailed a whore and then run her down.
Missions? Cruising the town and admiring the graphics? Committing a crime and noticing that you actually get caught (unlike many games where it's just oblivious)? OK, I won't try to claim that GTA teaches you anything serious about consequences (though I'd point out the lack of Pay & Sprays in the Real World (TM)), but still, there's more to the game then blowing away women of the night after they service you.
I mean, come on, this is Grand Theft Auto, and that's all you can find to complain about? Yeesh, try a couple of missions or something. What about flying around the city without filing a flight plan and illegally littering on a grand scale by dumping out explicit pornographic fliers which flutter around for the remainder of the game? Just look at all those crimes!
When do I get my Deomocrat party back
Where'd all the real republicans go?
It won't change until you find a way to convince the general public to stop voting people they don't really want up through the primary elections just because they think they can win, and find a way to convince the general public to stop believing fabricated rhetoric from the "news" telling them what to think about a candidate's character.
It's a much bigger problem than just finding a new candidate. It's a systemic problem involving the distribution and control of information, and it has hit both parties.
It's about harm. We recongise that you harm someone, their family, the community, etc by taking their life away. It's also something that can't be undone. Thus it's illegal to do, except under very specific circumstances.
The same is true of most more basic laws. They are about stopping something we recongise as harmful. Not harmful in the moral sense, but in the physical sense. Like theft, if someone deprives you of your property, you are harmed by that since you no longer have that property to use. If it is allowed to happen, society is harmed since people are less inclined to work to legally produce thigns, since they can just take them instead (and risk having them taken).
The difference here is, there's no harm that's ever been shown. I've never seen a study that shows that videogames cause violent behaviour. I've seen some that make a weak case for correlation, but not only are they not well conducted, it is an equally valid hypothesis that more violent people like the games, not that the games make them more violent.
That's why it's legslating morality. People feel that these games are "offensive" and so want to get rid of them. It's not because there is any actual harm caused, nor any proof, even weak, of an indirect causal link to harm being caused, it's just because they don't happen to like them.
While I agree that playing such a videogame wouldn't be a cause of that kind of behavior, I think it's important to keep in mind a powerful social/psychological concept called "validation". People (not just children) have thoughts, and then they decide whether to go with their thoughts partly based on whether they get validation of those thoughts from others. The problem I have with GTA (other than that I can't understand why anyone would consider it entertaining) is that it's a form of validation of these behaviors.
Also, call me a Puritan if you want, but I'd rather live in a society where people find rape and murder distasteful rather than one where they find it amusing. Even if it doesn't actually cause more violence, still on an aesthetic level, I'd rather not be around people who find these things entertaining. I think it's a sign of good character if someone is repelled by ugly things, and hopefully most people consider prostitution and murder ugly.
However, that does not mean I think the government should step in and regulate it, and it does not mean that I think politicians who go on and on about it couldn't possibly be trying to further their own political gain...
That little quote just proves that Hillary is a total retard. What a bunch of "look at me, I'm taking a stand" political mumbo jumbo. Since when is GTA about being mean to women, as she suggested? Unless I am mistaken, don't players of that _video game_ "kill" more male 3D models than female 3D models? I swear, every time Sen. Hillary opens her mouth to speak, she's asking us to eat a big crap sandwich and believe it's a yummy London Broil steak.
BDR Gear
Outdoor gear, MREs, and more!
The problem is senator Clinton assumes that video games and children go hand in hand. This is certainly not the case. She doesn't understand that there are video games (like GTA) that are not designed for children. Adults and video games are not mutually exclusive.
The biggest issue is that most parents think the same way. Most don't bother to investigate what kind of games their chilren are playing. They assume that it's a video game so it must be designed for children.
If the government wants to fix this problem, they need to make stores enforce those ESRB ratings the same way stores and theatres honour the MPAA rating system.
Redistribution of wealth is the whole point of taxation.
Not really. The whole point of taxation is to fund projects where the public gain exceeds the public cost, but the private cost exceeds the private gain. In other words, those things which no individual will do, but which benefit the public. Or, in other words, a hell of a lot less than any government is doing today.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Exactly. I'm pretty sure that the concepts of prostitution and murder predate video games by a few dozen centuries... But then again, Al Gore also invented the internet... so this wouldn't be the first time the Clinton Clan would try to alter history.
In any case, the fundamental problem here is that in America we like to pretend that this stuff doesn't happen, and that by covering Junior's eyes ears and mouth until he's 18 and he can be kicked out of the house (having done his duty in saving mom and dad some tax debt). Then he'll go to college, study hard, marry a virgin that's happy to raise babies and make his pot roast every night. Unfortunately, the Brady Bunch was only a TV show and the real world is much more complex. Yes there are hookers. Yes there are murderers. It's up to the parents to introduce their kids to these facts in a way that's constructive. If they don't, then it's very possible that - video game or not - their kid will be hit headfirst without guidance with the ideas of sex and murder and they will either steer clear or revel in it.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
So murder is only 'good clean fun' for children when its funded/promoted by the US government: http://www.americasarmy.com/
People over 18 are considered adults for all practical purposes, and should not be told what games they can and cannot play. As a 21 year old, I LOVE the violence in these games as I realize that they are pure fantasy. If I am willing to spend money to purchase this game, Rockstar should be permitted to make it if there's a market.
If children area buying the game when they are underage, then THAT is the problem that needs to be addressed, not whether people should make games like this. Because there is a whole market who is able to handle this "realism" and as part of that market, I don't want to have something I find fun taken away because some moralistic bitch wants to impose her morals on my life.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
what hypocrisy?
i'm a 30 year old man. he's a 12 year old child.
some things are for grwon-ups, others arent.
if i wanted to go to a nudie bar, can i consider it bad form to see a father taking his 12 year old? is that hypocrisy?
... hi bingo
It doesn't even endore it, in fact, it is advertised as a work of fiction, entertainment, not the divine word by which to live your life, as the Bible is.
& location=http%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2FUS%2FwireSt ory%3Fid%3D621347).
So while you contend that the OT doesn't apply to modern people (care to back that up? not saying it can't be, just want to see fi you can) some people may get the wrong idea, and that is what we are worried about with GTA right? That someone might read the sotry and believe they should actually do it.
I mean clearly there are many that think at least some parts of the OT are to be taken literally. Look at all those that cite it as reason why gay couples shouldn't be allowed to marry. Or how about the jurors receantly that cited the eye for an eye part when deciding to sentence a rapist to death (http://go.fark.com/cgi/fark/go.pl?IDLink=1421604
Point is that the Bible is full of authorization to do violence to others. Now perhaps the way you choose to interpret it says that doesn't apply now, that's fine, but it is still there. GTA doesn't command anyone to do anything, it's just a game, yet people seem to object to it based on its content. Why then, isn't there the same objection to the bible (rehtorical question)?
"My brother would never let his daughter play a game like Grand Theft Auto."
I let my 9 year old daughter play it, guess what she did?
She drove around in the taxi giving people rides or the fire truck/ambulence helping people...
When she watched me play it she kept telling me "No don't shoot the people!!! Don't drive on the sidewalk!!! You're not supposed to be the bad guy!!"
Maybe this can be taken as one of the "its a tool and depends on how you use it" arguements?
Not everything is inherently bad or evil...
Isn't GTA rated Mature? This is basically the same as an R rated movie. i don't see what the big deal is. kids shouldn't be allowed to by Mature rated games just as they can't buy R rated movies, after that it's up to their parents and little else.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
Although, I hear the last two presidents have been stoned already.
No, one of them did'nt inhale.
Heh... Henti tapes on the shelves the children's video section? What a sick prank. Sounds like Tyler Durden was working at your local video store.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
[Hillary Clinton] wants a $90 million investigation to be launched
Who are they paying with this money? Do you really need $90million worth of research on this topic? Classrooms are overcrowded, people are going hungry, teachers are underpaid... the deficit is going up...
Isn't there something more important to go after than this? This is EXACTLY what Bush did during the election by making gay marriage the issue of the election instead of the economy...
All she's doing is grandstanding to get elected by the rightwing while calling herself a leftwing democrat.
Yes, thank you, that would the longer way of what I meant with my one word post.
The context was called, and the OP tried to defend it by modifying the argument, and in doing so enclosed the word context in quotes, as if it were a laughable term.
Fact is, the quote was used in reference to taking away cold hard cash and redistributing it, and the original post implied it was in reference to taking away rights (which are obviouslly not redistributable). We can argue, off topically about whether or not that's a good or not, but the point is, that quote from Clinton just doesn't have a bearing in this discussion, there is no way to infer her opinion on the broader topic based on her belief that the rich should be taxed at a higher rate.
But even trying to relate the two wouldn't be necessarily moronic, it would be futile sure... but trying to use the quote, remove the context, then apply it to a new discussion, then get called on it, then say that the idea of context is "regardless" is, in my opinion, moronic.
If I was just trying to flame I would've stayed AC... but I hope the above clarifies.
"Researchers from the University of Oklahoma recently found that two-thirds of school fights were instigated by regular video game players, but in the study of 607 students only four fights were started by children who had never played such games."
The article doesn't say how many of the total number of kids played video games. If 95 % did, then their two-thirds statistic isn't very meaningful.
Also, what if violent video games served as an outlet for aggression, actually helping to prevent violence?
Finally, a correlation doesn't imply causality. Do video games turn people violent, or are violent people attracted to video games? Nick Yee wrote a great article on this. He gave the following example: Suppose you stood by the exit gate of Disneyworld and noticed that many of the people coming out were six years old. Would it be more reasonable to assume that Disneyland transforms people into six-year-olds, or that six-year-olds like going to Disneyland?
Out of the millions and millions of people who played Pac-Man, there may be a minute number of kids who where influenced. The majority, however, did not pursue all night pill popping raves.
But if GTA is pulled from the shelves, that pill popping raver Pac-Man has got to go too. Hell, while we're at it, why not take Command & Conquer as well. We don't want our kids to take control of the country by using battle techniques gathered from that game. And don't get me started on Flight Simulator training terrorists on how to fly commercial airplanes.
I let my 9 year old daughter play it, guess what she did?
My neice is considerably younger than 9.
She drove around in the taxi giving people rides or the fire truck/ambulence helping people...
When she watched me play it she kept telling me "No don't shoot the people!!! Don't drive on the sidewalk!!! You're not supposed to be the bad guy!!"
What a great kid! You must live in a terrific village!
... or maybe your parenting skills played some small role in how she's turning out. Call me crazy, but I think it might have been a factor.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Mod me "troll" if you must, but I'm sick and tired of people rallying blindly behind the First Amend. and defending crap media at all costs.
Just because people have the right to do something doesn't mean it should be done. There's a difference between what's legal and what's responsible. I'll defend people's free speech as much as the next guy, but, come on folks. Regardless of your politics, some of the crap in these games is really beyond the pale. No way in hell I'd want my kids playing GTA
Yeah, yeah, "free speech" and "it's just a game" and all that horseshit aside, the content of these games is a horrible commentary on society. So murdering prostitutes sells? What does that say about our collective values?
The problem here, IMO, (I've been informed that I no longer have the right to refer to my opinions as humble) is that the media (games, TV, movies etc.) is giving us what we want and what we want is appalling crap. It comes down to personal responsibility, folks. This reminds me of the early 90's move towards V-chips in TV's. Handy if you abdicate your parenting responsibility and use the TV as a babysitter, I guess. If more people just monitored (cared?) what their kids play/watch and voted with their dollars by not buying, media would get the message and we would be on our way to a solution.Sen. Clinton etal. may not have the solutions, (and I most certainly don't) but people denying that these games are problematic are at the root of the problem.
Denial ain't just a river.
Insert witty comment *here*. I'm fresh out of wit...
I doubt she said "colour"....
As an American, she'd have said "color" instead.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
According to the article, Clinton notes that the game has content most parents would consider inappropriate for children, and calls for a study to determine whether this kind of content has an effect on children's development.
I consider the alternative, highly reactionary options of either
a) censoring everything in sight (supposedly a part of the left/right wing authoritarian agenda) or
b) insisting that parents only recourse if they don't trust the entertainment industries to support their values is to monitor everything their kids see and do (standard on slashdot)
pretty unhelpful to anyone actually trying to raise a kid.
Clinton isn't even at the point of helping parents be in charge of their kids' cultural heritage (which I think would be a fair role of an elected government), just asking to study whether these things might pose some kind of health risk. Until we get conclusive, scientific evidence that there's nothing to be concerned about, I think that's at least as sensible as monitoring what comes out of our taps or gets put in our food.
I hope this isn't interpreted as flaimbait, but it is a problem. The problem, however, is not videogames it's parenting and parental responsibility. <sweeping generalization>Parents seem afraid to say no to their children</sweeping generalization> today, and that's what's required. Is an eight year old playing violent and demeaning videogames a problem? Sure - but why are they being allowed to play them?
RandomAndInteresting.comdefending the world from stupidity since 1979
Absolutely.
Societies that have insufficient wealth redistribution mechanisms (e.g. Haiti), and simply let the rich use their power to continually concentrate wealth in the hands of a progressively smaller set wind up in the shitter fast. Of course, societies that have excessive wealth redistribution mechanisms (e.g. the old Communist bloc) also suck.
The question is not, should the government take from the rich and give to the poor. The question is, how much, and by what mechanisms?
I haven't ever thrown a controller. I've been playing video games since 1979 and still play regularly on a PlayStation 2 and also my old Atari.
I do find that if I play GTA for very long, I feel a little bit sad. I don't like the game that much because it is too violent for my tastes.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
H.C. is among those mistaken Democrats who think that "triangulation" is a viable strategy for anyone but Bill Clinton in the two presidential elections he won. The DNC has run that same strategy three times in a row now and lost every time. I say let her do that--she's not fooling anyone. No Republican will ever, ever, ever vote for her and Democrats are mighty sick of the same losing message being recycled over and over.
At the same time, if the electorate is really so darn morally conservative nowadays, then why the heck is GTA SA selling so well? Maybe it's because it's one of the best video games ever made and people understand that the violence, etc., is NOT REAL and not any more reflective of what they actually think, feel, and do in the real world than going to see Alien vs Predator is.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
There's a transcript available at gameFAQs which you might find enlightening.
Careful, there's a lot of text there.
Demeaning towards women, cursing, drugs, and racial profiling blacks.
God spoke to me.
Ok, so when it first came out that you could a) have sex with a prostitute to get health back, and b) kill her to get your money back, netting you a health gain for nothing. I had to try it in GTA.
So, I drove up to what looked like a prostitute. Nothing. She wouldn't get in the car. I tried this with a bunch of different women in the game to see if maybe a "prostitute" looked different than I thought. No dice.
I talk to a friend of mine. He clarified. Now, here's what you have to do.
A) Beat up your car (prostitutes apparently won't get into cars that look too nice).
B) *Find* a prostitute (which isn't as easy as it sounds, as many tartily dressed women in the game aren't, in fact, hookers)
C) Drive to a secluded area (not any alley will do...it has to be off the beaten path)
When this happens, the car will rock back and forth. If you move the camera around and look in the car, you do in fact see that the two people are doing NOTHING but sitting there. During this time, your health will go up slightly.
After the prostitute gets out of the car, you can kill her, run her over, whatever. She will drop money.
It is also noted, that MOST pedestrians will drop money when killed, so I never bothered to check that if I just ran her over before anything, would she drop the cash.
Now...why did I walk through this? Because, IT'S A REAL P.I.T.A. TO DO! It takes WAY too long to get your health back this way! There are free health boosts sitting around at any hospital!
So, can you *DO* this in the game? Yes, yes you can. Is it CLEAR that it's REWARDED to do this? No! It's a freakin' WASTE OF TIME, that was clearly put in there as a detail. I don't even THINK the killing of the prostitute is connected, as I said...I believe you can get token amounts of cash from MOST pedestrians you kill, as well as deal with the possible risk from cops for such a petty amount of money ($200 at most...which is PENNIES after you play for about 5 minutes).
And yet, TOO MANY POLITICIANS have parroted the "teaching/rewarding you for sleeping with and killing prostitutes" line. Yet NONE of them clearly understand it for what it is...an aside, a bit of color...a way to immerse you in the world...if you can even figure it out how to do it!
This random demonizing of games has gone so far that the following quote was from the Chicago Tribune about the impending state law to restrict sales to minors:
(I found a copy of the article on GameCritics)
"They're watching police officers getting their heads blown off. They're defecating on people," she said. "They get extra points for sleeping with prostitutes."
Once again the reference again to getting "extra points for sleeping with prostitutes." The lack of clarity on "points" shows that this person has NO clue about what they are talking.
(I also want this person to SHOW me the game where "They're defecating on people.")
When will games/music/movies stop being the scapegoat for bad parenting? Does this just happen every time something new and scary comes along?
"And so I ask you this one question: Have you ever tried simply turning off the TV, sitting down with your children, and hitting them?"
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
A few years ago, when I was in high school, I was talking with my principal about school violence. She was talking about how in the past, before the whole "zero-tolerance" stuff came about, kids would get in fights and beat the crap out of each other. Then, dudes A and B that had fought earlier in the day, would be joking and talking with each other after school.
I think that getting agression out of people is a good thing, and maybe sparring/sports/video games help kids do that. I think that this link is at least as plausable as one that says videogames turn innocent Timmy into a murdering psychopath.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
Hillary believes it's ok for a teenage girl to have the right to have an abortion without parental consent, but she can't play a video game with simulated sex and violence.
Vote for Pedro
I don't see how any sane person could derive from a videogame that it's okay to, well, break the law. "Well, the guy on the videogame did it, so I can do it without consequence." Seriously. Additionally, this is the message that I am getting from all of these GTA bashers: "Oh, we can't blame the parents. That will make them feel bad. Let's pick on the videogame industry." Who's acting like the child here?
INACTIVE ACCOUNT
Absolutely goddamn right. The very fact that someone wants to be president is, in my opinion, proof that they are the last person you want to give the job to. I would, in fact, extend this to cover most of those nutcases in the house and senate as well.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I think Pierre Trudeau who said something to the effect to never trust someone who wants to be your leader. I think that it was before Lester Pearson asked him to run for the Liberals in Montreal in the 1960s.
I make a reasonable middle-class wage by going to work and not spamming blogs with scams.
When the hell are people going to figure out that games do not dictate the behavior of the people playing them except in extraordinary circumstances (i.e. The player is ALREADY CRAZY)?
If Grand Theft Auto teaches you how to behave towards people, you don't belong in society to begin with. You have problems that aren't going to be fixed by merely not playing video games.
Our [The U.S.] culture is simply too goddamned repressed. Look at Japan. Granted, they don't have any guns, but you can also see pretty much ANYTHING on TV. And the print media? Christ... You ever seen some of the manga that a kid in Japan is likely to come in contact with over the course of the day?
And guess what? It's an island nation the size of California, with half the population of the U.S. (A population that is FAR from evenly distributed.) If that was America... We would've all gone batshit and destroyed the entire species by now.
It's not the games. It's not television. It's an entire culture of emotionally retarded and repressed (regardless of age) children. The sooner we figure that out, the sooner we can do something about it. Though I doubt that'll ever happen, because these dolts would much rather let the country self destruct so they can go after the SYMPTOMS and ignore the underlying cause.
I'm American. I'm white. I've come to terms with the fact that my culture is pathetically repressed, and make due. I pretty much do nothing but play video games and watch anime. And I have yet to kill people for the hell of it. (Or even for totally legitimate reasons, for that matter.)
This is just my 2 yen, and I'm still pretty groggy from getting up. But tell me I'm wrong. Now, I have to go review the latest omfgwtfbbq murdergame. GOOD DAY TO YOU!
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*