The People Vs. Common Sense

Thank God... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-10-03 01:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

"Have we made absolutely certain books and movies are not degrading the minds of our children and ... representation of violent and sexual acts are the cause of an increase of depraved sociopaths?"

Thank God there's nothing like that in the Holy Bible!

Re:Thank God... by gowen · 2005-10-03 01:45 · Score: 4, Insightful

And not all books, movies, and video games that revolve around violent themes promote violence. Bible stories are a great example of this.

"As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you. -- Deuteronomy 20:10-14"

It's the religion of peace, don't you know...

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Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Re:Thank God... by ThePilgrim · 2005-10-03 01:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

For its time, this was a very enlightend attitude. It fobade rape and plunder of a city that surrendered, and ensured that the none fighting population of a city that did not where protected. Other parts of the Bible say what can and can not be done with women taken in war, and forcing them to have sex with you was forbidden.

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Wouldn't it be nice if schools got all the money they wanted and the army had to hold jumble sales for guns
Re:Thank God... by arkanes · 2005-10-03 02:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

All of the bad things in the world are attributed to sin.
This is a circular definition which is a classic example of poor reasoning. There are many things that I would consider bad in the Bible which are not attributed to sin, they're performed by "godly" people and in many cases directly by God himself. Its only if you define anything approved by God as good and anything he disapproves of as sinful that "all the bad things" are attributed to sin. Of course, since this is exactly what you do when you adopt a Christian moral code, a Christian studying the Bible will naturally take away a completely different lesson than a non-believer. For example, when God descends from Heaven in person to fight alongside the armies of Israel, slaughtering "everything that breathes" in the various towns that committed the horrible offense of not being Jewish, the Christian will take away the lesson that killing the enemies of the faith is an honorable act of devotion, while the unbeliever may well take away the lesson that Christians worship and bloodthirsty death god and want nothing to do with it.
The Bible does not teach that God helps out honest and good people, at least not on Earth. In fact, God likes to test and challenge his strongest believers, so he does stuff like have them sacrifice their children, or he kills their family (if you're wondering how this is different from how he treats unbelievers, you may have been reading the Bible from a critical rather than a religious perspective. Congratulations!), in an attempt to test the limits of the faith and love they have for Him. Unquestioning submission to divine authority is the primary lesson of the Bible!
Re:Thank God... by CosmeticLobotamy · 2005-10-03 02:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

For its time, this was a very enlightend attitude.

And if I ever find myself a few thousand years in the past, I'll encourage people to read it. But for now, I'm going to ask that people watch the much more enlightened "Sesame Street." All the best parts of the Bible, none of that crazy crap about raping people.
Re:Thank God... by paranode · 2005-10-03 02:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

I mean, you would expect a wise god to have figured this out.
God is only as wise as the people who created him, after all.
Re:Thank God... by hibiki_r · 2005-10-03 03:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

Many countries out there are majoritarily christian, but they don't seem to have the American fixation with the Bible. The main reason for this is that most versions of christianity that can be found outside the US teach that you have to read the Bible understanding its historical context. No modern catholic priest will tell you that Earth was created in seven days or that Moses opened the Red Sea. Those same priests will also tell you about the process through which we ended up with only 4 Gospels, and how the modern Bible was standardized. If even old, conservatite catholic church takes the Bible as an infallible document, why should anyone?

The Bible is a dangerous book, but only for people that take it literally, thinking of it as an infallible source of knowledge. It just happens that America has more than its fair share of ignorants that refuse to understand history.
Re:Thank God... by radtea · 2005-10-03 03:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

Other parts of the Bible say what can and can not be done with women taken in war, and forcing them to have sex with you was forbidden.

False. Forcing them to have sex with you was explicitly permitted, and there were rules governing it:
Deuteronomy 21:11-14 When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.

You will note that there is no mention anywhere of the woman's consent. Ergo, this is nothing but a permit to rape, so long as you let your rape victim mourn her dead family for a month. And if you didn't enjoy raping her it says you can kick her out of your house, but not sell her into slavery.

Look at it from her point of view: you've over-run her city, killed her family, taken her captive, left her alone for a month and then forced her to have sex with you. Forcing someone to have sex without their consent is rape. Rape by elaborate rules is still rape, and the Bible clearly and unequivocally condones it.

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Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.

think about when you were a kid by tehwebguy · 2005-10-03 01:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

my parents didn't let the government raise me. none of my friends' parents let the government raise them. if my parents deemed an R rated movie or M rated game ok for me, regardless of my age, they let me view/play it. if they deemed a PG-13 move or T rated game NOT ok, they didn't.

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-- lol pwned

Re:think about when you were a kid by sgtrock · 2005-10-03 03:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

This is the second time that I've seen this particular rant. I call BULLSHIT! My family's history shows this just isn't true, no matter how much some people would like to think it is.

My great-grandmother owned and ran a boarding house for miners in northern Minnesota for nearly 40 years. That was a 50 to 60 hour a day job. She also kept an eye on a series of young girls from the Old Country; giving them jobs as maids and helping them to meet and marry the better class of men on the Iron Range. The girls were her nieces, cousins, and daughters of friends of hers who stayed in Serbia. She got so good at it that many other families from other ethnic and cultural backgrounds came to her to act as matchmaker, too. Meanwhile, my grandfather worked 40-50 hours a week in the mines, then for the local school district as the general building supervisor/farmer.

They managed to put all 5 of their surviving kids through college. (4 died as infants or under 12. Not uncommon in the early 1900s. One of malnutrition in Serbia, one of polio, one of influenza, and one I'm not sure of.)

My grandfather was the first Serb in Minnesota to graduate from college. He was a full time teacher and principal, then a Red Cross senior instructor during WWII, then a principal again until illness laid him low around 1947.

My grandmother was a full time teacher during their entire marriage. She and my grandfather raised three kids who all graduated from college, even though they were hampered by being a single income family (with a very, very sick dad) for most of their high school and college years.

My mother was a full time RN and my father was a full time high school teacher. They raised three kids. All three of us went to college and got at least some certification. One of my sisters has a master's, one is close to getting her baccalaureate at the age of 42 with a 4.0 GPA, and then there's me. A geek who has a career as an ivory tower type enterprise architect working for one of the biggest banks in the country.

My second wife and I have 4 kids between us. All 4 kids live with us during the school year. I work full time, she works 25-30 hours/week two preteens and two teenagers. 3 of the 4 are B+ or better, and one is struggling, but maintaining a C-.

So. You have 4 consecutive generations of both parents working full time. Every single generation had two full time parents who also happened to work full time. Not one convict, not one welfare case, and not one deadbeat dad in 4 generations. I'm the unofficial family historian, so I've kept up with what's happening to the other branches of my family. The same holds true for all of them as well, and many if not most of them are either two full time parents. We do have a few single income, single parent families. Those kids are also doing quite well in school.

STOP ASSUMING THAT YOU CAN'T GIVE YOUR KIDS ALL THE LOVE AND DISCIPLINE THAT THEY NEED IF YOU WORK FULL TIME! It's simply NOT TRUE!
Re:think about when you were a kid by Sax+Maniac · 2005-10-03 05:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

I didn't read the grandparent that way.
Just because two parents work does not mean that the kids can't be well-raised. My wife worked in daycare for a while, and saw plenty of the "BMW" couples described above. She also saw plenty of two-job families with no BMWs and well-adjusted kids. The two are not mutually exclusive.
The difference is the first couple doesn't really care about their kids-- they're just fashion accessories. They think they do, but the amount of attention they willingly give them tells the real story. It happens more than you think. Congrats that your family didn't fall into that trap, but there are plenty others that do.

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I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.

It's a political game by theantipop · 2005-10-03 01:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

Blaming TV and movies isn't going to get you votes. Almost all polticians are out to appease the voters, not solve problems. Not only do the television and movie industries have huge lobbies, these are two things nearly every parent enjoys themselves. It's much easier to target video games as an evil when no parent understands what it is all about. And when as a politician you have the opportunity to spin your wheels over something and make it look like you are saving the children, you take it or someone else will.

Re:It's a political game by Kombat · 2005-10-03 01:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

Almost all polticians are out to appease the voters, not solve problems.

Is that the fault of the politicians appeasing their consituents, or the voters who value style over substance? You can't blame the politicians for playing the game. They have to work within the system the people have constructed, or they won't be rewarded with subsequent terms.

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Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.

Thesaurus whore by OnoTadaki · 2005-10-03 01:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

"visualize the poignant tide of human thought", "While endeavoring to bequeath our exclusive equities unto the world, we are often chagrined by remonstrations..." It's sad when someone has to turn to looking up every second word in a thesaurus to sound like they have an intelligent arguement.

Re:Video Games = Child brain rot by Intron · 2005-10-03 01:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. -- Attributed to Socrates by Plato

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Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.

Nicely written how? by analog_line · 2005-10-03 01:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

The entire article is in dire need of an editor. "Nicely written" indeed...for an 15 year old. Myriad spelling mistakes any spellchecker worth a damn should've caught, run on sentences, a writer far too obsessed with his thesaurus, and writing that is obviously intended to sound "important" but ends up sounding "pretentious."

Low hanging fruit... by faloi · 2005-10-03 01:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

In the 80's, it was the PMRC under Tipper Gore that was leading children away from the path of suicide and darkness brought on by music. Easy target, musicians don't tend to contribute as much to political campaigns as Hollywood types. Life was good. Then the "extreme" music of the day became more normal, and all we've got is some warning labels. Aside from Lieberman during the 2000 elections, I don't know of any politicians really speaking out on it these days.

New target possibilities? Lessee... Video games. They're easy. P2P technologies... That has the bonus of getting your Hollywood and corporate buddies to apprieciate you more AND gives you something that doesn't require a lot of money or work on your part. Ain't politics grand?

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"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein

The Real Question... by zev1983 · 2005-10-03 01:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

The real question to ask is if there actually has been an increase of "depraved sociopaths", or if it is meerly percieved to be so because news coverage now picks out these rare incidents wherever and whenever they happen and sensationalize it and parade it around for weeks to get rating. Scaring people enhances news ratings.

State of Michigan by magarity · 2005-10-03 01:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

From TFA:

Allow me to present Michigan SB-0416, the latest attempt by the American government

The Michigan state government is not the same as "the American government" which would be the label for the Federal government. This is a good example of something that individual states *do* have the ability to regulate even if a lot of us think it's silly. All the people in Michigan who don't like it should direct complaints to their state legislator and not blame a vague "American government". All people who *don't* live in Michigan should direct comments to their respective state legislators insisting that our state should not enact similar.

This just in... by ShoobieRat · 2005-10-03 01:51 · Score: 5, Insightful

A new study concludes that parents should parent their ****ing kids!

If you have kids, they're your responsibility, parent them. If you don't want to do that, don't have kids. It's not society's fault if your kid is a mindless twit who's never been brought up correctly.

Stop punishing the rest of us for the faults of dumbasses who can't teach their kids right from wrong. Decent society does not come from rules and restrictions. It comes from doing yer damn job as a parent.

Ignoring the crime rate by ApharmdB · 2005-10-03 01:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

Who is it that has successfully framed this time as an era of high crime? Crime is at a 30 year low.

Just because the media likes to report stories about people doing bad things to other people doesn't mean it is happening more often. Information about far away places is more readily available these days and we are just hearing about it more often because we apparently like to hear about it. They wouldn't report it if it didn't get them higher ratings.

the bible is getting old by Anonymous Coward · 2005-10-03 01:58 · Score: 4, Insightful

Maybe you can explain why christian ethics directly contribute to the problem?

That is not the point...

If one thinks we should ban violent media to protect children, then we should ban the bible. The hypocrasy of those who would ban games and "unworthy" books while allowing "worthy" books is the point.

Additionally, the bible has been causally related, more often and more demonstrably, to more killings than every video game on the market combined. From the crusades to psychopaths, the bible is often used as justification for violent acts...

Media hysteria by redelm · 2005-10-03 02:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

The deep irony is that no-one would _dare_ censor "the news". Yet it is precisely this hysterical sensationalism that I'm most reluctant my kids watch. Simpsons & South Park may be caustic and tasteless, but are hardly as damaging. Network news is not, and I need to have long discussions with my kids afterwards to undo the damage.

Frankly, I do not blame the media owner or employees. Both are too inept. They just chase ratings. The fault lies with human nature, or at least the many people who are overcautious or like being scared.

Re:Two wrongs do not make a right by exi1ed0ne · 2005-10-03 02:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's not society's job to determine what's detrimental to the well being of minors - it's the parents. Laws and regulations will never make a dent in behavior. However, it does make for a nice bank account ballance for the lawyers.

Laws and regulations just shift responsability from the one's that have the most direct impact in a child's life (the parents) to "society". For some reason everyone thinks it's better whan it is "our" problem.

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Pessimists.net - as if life wasn't depressing enough.

Idiot. by torstenvl · 2005-10-03 02:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

From the phrase "Allow me to present Michigan SB-0416, the latest attempt by the American government..." I was turned off by the lack of journalistic professionalism.

Rhetoric is for propaganda, not news. Get your facts straight before you start "reporting." Oh, and uh... look up Federalism while you're at it.

Re:the bible-bashing is getting old... by Evil+Grinn · 2005-10-03 02:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think the parent's point was that often the people who fight against violent games etc which supposedly make children/adults violent are the same people who say America has lost it's 'good old fashioned Christian values'.

But this is false. Some of the anti-violence crowd, it is true, are indeed the same old "family values" people who've been boycotting Disney since the 1990's over gay rights issues.

There are two completely different groups of people trying to take away your violent games. They may currently be allied against you, but eventually they will turn on each other, as they are still natural enemies.

The other ones are plain old socialists and hippies and other liberals. Violent games are bad because they go against the peace-and-love worldview. These people who want to remove violence from culture and ban guns and ban even remotely violent sports like (American) football... the guns and the football is where they part company with the right wingers.

You see the same two groups opposing porn. One hates it because it's a sin, the other hates it because it's sexist. Never forget or fail to note which one you are arguing against at any particular time.

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where there's fish, there's cats

When we kill then, we're good and holy. by khasim · 2005-10-03 03:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

When they kill us, they're sinning heathens.

The critical point is ... don't define the action as "good" or "bad" ... define the actors.

A "good" man is NOT one who does not kill.

A "good" man is one who believes in "god" and kills according to his belief as to whom "god" wants killed (as long as the rest of the winning society believes the same).

A "psychotic" man is one who believes in "god" and kills according to his belief as to whom "god" wants killed (but the rest of the winning society does not believe the same).

A "bad" man is one who refuses to kill as "god" dictates OR who kills the "good" people because he is fighting for the wrong "god".

Witness wars and executions for real world examples of the above.

Re:Very nicely written... NOT by briareus · 2005-10-03 05:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

Thankfully, the pretentious writing slacks off after the first two paragraphs or so. It would be nice if people would bother to learn that:

1. Media is the plural form of medium.
2. Effect and affect are not interchangeable.
3. Use spell check! How hard is this?
4. ...and cut it out with the pretentious writing. You're not fooling anyone when your writing is chock-full of grammatical and spelling errors -- even if you try to throw in a fistful of PSAT words.

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