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Yet Another Violent Games Ban
Gamespot reports on a proposed Tennessee bill banning extremely violent games. From the article: "The bill defines the phrase 'extremely violent video game' as 'a video game in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being," with a number of clauses specifying that a game would have to be patently offensive to prevailing community standards, among other things, to be considered extremely violent.'"
Guess this means these guys can't peddle their wares in the volunteer state anymore. Pity.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Yes . . . Pac man . . . alert Gabe!;)
Seriously, this points out the fundamental dichotomy that exists between our "violence is bad" cultural notions and our quickness to go to war, whatever the good or bad reasons might be (and I'm not making a stand on that today).
The point about 'America's Army' is a good one, because this explains the 'Sibyl' in our national consciousness . . . we use so many psychological tactics to resolve these little cognitive dissonances, but are we sufficiently aware of it?
I have yet to see a link proven between so called violent video games and real life violence, personally my WoW sessions do nothing to make me want to go out and gank a wandering priest;)
-[joke removed for your safety]-
What about when the player can choose whether or not to be highly violent? For example, a Star Wars game where you can go to the Light or Dark side, and could have a pivotal moment involving "helplessness of the victim". The game does not encourage the player to be excessively violent, but gives them the option to be.
It's already happened -- rape is an extremely common theme in hentai games, and more often than not, the main character is the one who does it. Although such games are predominantly made in Japan, they can be legally imported into North America, and plenty of kids download pirated versions. I used to know a guy in junior high who apparently (according to a friend of mine who claimed to have seen the games) had a quite impressive collection.
There are reviews of some of 'em on Something Awful in case you're curious... they're pretty amusing actually, though certainly NSFW.
From a purely logical point of view, you are correct but most people aren't very logical. If it takes me saying that if this law passes, the next step is going to be to ban movies to someone who doesn't play video games but enjoys violent movies in order to get them on board and to take some action - I'll do it. Logically, it doesn't help my argument but oftentimes with people, it will. It's all a matter of knowing your audience.
Sounds like the typical reaction to one or two isolated cases of game-induced violence.
When will people realize that kids don't need to be protected? When I was younger, it was normal to go around playing with (toy) guns, and most parents let their kids run around wherever they wished. Now parents lock their kids away, and they aren't allowed to be kids. Kids need to be desensitzied to things at an early age so that they don't turn out soft. Video game violence isn't going to hurt anyone other than the extremely stupid or mentally handicapped kids who can't separate reality from fantasy.
I have an idea for a new law. Lets call this the "three strikes, now stop fucking with the constitution rule".
The way this bill would work is that any politician that votes for three bills that are later deemed unconstitutional by the courts and are prevented from coming into effect is kicked out of office. Any politician that blatantly fails to do their duty to uphold the constitution of the US three times in a row should have their ass thrown from office. End of story. They have violated the trust of the people far too many times and failed to uphold their oath to the constitution.
This is a non-story. This stupid bill, even if it is passed will be promptly struck down by the courts. What pisses me off is that I keep having to read about these stupid bills being passed and struck down. Someone needs to smack some sense into these dumb fuckers heads.
I had heard that certain passges of the Bible can not be read in public in some states due to their Hate Crimes laws. I can't back it up, though. I didn't find anything right off the bat.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I would also guess that the rare, deranged people who commit violent acts based on what they see in games and movies are just that: rare and deranged. These people wouldn't magically be happy, healthy, well adjusted people if there were no violent imagery in the media. Violence predates violence in the media by a couple hundred thousand years (or 5000 years, depending on who you ask). The only credence I give to the "the video game made me do it" claim is that the particular violence the person commits may be influenced by what they saw. An example of which was the kids who cut off their parents' heads after seeing something like that on The Sopranos. They might have only beat their parents to death instead of decapitating them if they hadn't seen that episode.