Clinton, Lieberman Propose CDC Investigate Games

Gamespot reports that Senators Clinton and Lieberman have asked the Centers for Disease control to investigate how games impact us poor deluded citizens. From the article: "Even though the legislation--called the Children and Media Research Advancement Act--does not include restrictions, it appears to be intended as a way to justify them. That's because a string of court decisions have been striking down antigaming laws because of a lack of hard evidence that minors are harmed by violence in video games. The original version of the bill earmarked $90 million for the study, but Lieberman press secretary Rob Sawicki said that the committee had approved the measure without any dollar figure and that such a figure would be added later during the appropriations process." Gamasutra has some background on the bill, which was originally proposed in 2003.

Comments

Where do we draw the line for the CDC?

[eldavojohn]

When I first read this article, I thought that the CDC had no right to deciding what is and what is not mentally healthy for raising my children.

As mission statement says:

To promote health and quality of life by preventing and controlling disease, injury, and disability. The CDC seeks to accomplish its mission by working with partners throughout the nation and the world to

• monitor health,
• detect and investigate health problems,
• conduct research to enhance prevention,
• develop and advocate sound public health policies,
• implement prevention strategies,
• promote healthy behaviors,
• foster safe and healthful environments,
• provide leadership and training.

I don't think any of those are really concentrating on developmental mental health of my child. However, after looking at the the CDC page on child development it looks like they do consider themselves watchdogs of how children should be raised to some extent:

The early years of a child's life are crucial for cognitive, social and emotional development. Therefore, it is important that we take every step necessary to ensure that children grow up in environments where their social, emotional and educational needs are met.

Cost to society of less than optimal development are enormous and far-reaching. Children who grow up in environments where their developmental needs are not met are at an increased risk for compromised health and safety, and learning and developmental delays. Failure to invest time and resources during children's early years may have long term effects on the foster care, health care, and education systems. Therefore, it is in the public's interest to ensure that children develop in safe, loving, and secure environments.

It then goes on to provide activity charts for the ranges of years for small children.

Where do we draw the line at what is considered "neglect" by a parent?

Re:Aaugh!

[jonnythan]

From Wikipedia:

"Political positions

Censorship

Lieberman has been criticized by many computer and video game players for his stance on video games; he is a strong supporter of video game censorship. He has also been vocal in the censorship of many controversial musical artists. In the late 1990s Lieberman was vocal in lobbying for censorship against shock rocker Marilyn Manson, calling his group "one of the sickest" he had ever seen. As a senator he inspired the advent of the Entertainment Software Rating Board. The Entertainment Software Association is against governmental regulation of or restriction on video games. Therefore, the organization opposes Lieberman. He has been known many times to denounce the violence contained in video games and has made attempts to regulate sales of violent video games to minors.

On November 29, 2005, Lieberman, together with Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act. The act is intended to protect children from inappropriate content found in video games."

If Only...

[Dr. Eggman]

If only they'd find that it turns out games are good for a child's development like/for...

Biligualism:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/12/ 0733237

Staving off Dementia:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/06/ 1543201

Bridge the gap between law enforcement and youths:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/20/ 031257

Good Values like trust:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/27/ 1851235

Showing that actions have concequences:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/26/ 225240


But unfortunatly, I can't see this study being anything but biased against games. At least it just a political show, designed to make the proponents look more moderate and appear to care about your children.

Same thing every generation of kids

[PCM2]

In the 1950s, comic books were the great evil corrupting our youth. One glance at the covers was enough to tell you that these things were leading to the downfall of Western civilization. They actually held Congressional hearings to decide what to do about the "comic book problem."

The result was that all the comic book publishers banded together and formed a voluntary rating system. In effect, they censored themselves. The new rules said that, since comic books were for kids, no comic books were allowed to include words like "teror," "horror," or "crime" in their titles; comics could not feature werewolves, vampires, or other elements of the supernatural; if any crime was depicted in a comic book, the criminals would have to come to justice for their crimes by the end of the story; and so on. The net effect was that an entire genre of horror and crime comic books went out of business. You know some of those comic books -- for example, Tales from the Crypt. There were many others, however. In its heyday, a comic book called Crime Does Not Pay outsold not just Tales from the Crypt but the entire output of that book's publisher (E.C. Comics) combined. It too went out of business, just months after Tales from the Crypt and the other E.C. horror comics, once the Comics Code took effect.

And so the world was safe. Kids stopped being juvenile delinquents, at least the ones who were able to stay away from that awful rock 'n roll music. It was a halcyon age, a veritable paradise, for the next 30 years or so.

But then in the 1980s, rap music came along, and heavy metal, and they were even worse than rock 'n roll. This aural poison proved to be all but irresistable to kids. So a brave group of moral citizens, led by the wife of future Democratic presidential hopeful Al Gore, banded together to slap labels on rap albums, warning parents about the horrors inside. Again we were safe.

But now the evil rears its ugly head again -- video games! We tried using a ratings system on them, but nobody went out of business (unlike the comic book publishers in the 50s). How long can we as citizens stand for this?? Clearly something must be done if this cycle of moral depravity is ever going to end!

Re:Jesus fucking christ

[InsaneGeek]

I think you seem to have forgotten history about the Clinton administration (I'll have to do a little guilt-by-association to her husband as she wasn't in office for parts, but I think it's reasonable). It's not a voter ploy, she actually believes this crap.

1) COPA http://www.epic.org/free_speech/copa/
2) Pushed the theater owners organization to be aggressive on people under 18 seeing "R" movies: http://www.libertarianrock.com/topics/censorship/t heater_owner_pr_id_check.html
3) Called for regulation of video games http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/07/14/news_61290 40.html
4) Today's stuff
5) Past history with Tipper Gore