Congress Sets Sights on Videogames

boarder8925 writes "According to CNET, Congress has set its sights on 'the purported problem of violent and sexually explicit video games.... A U.S. House of Representatives committee on consumer protection says it will hold a hearing on the topic later this month, with a focus on 'informing parents and protecting children' from the alleged dangers of those types of games.' " The article goes on to describe seven bills under consideration that either attach fines to the sales of Mature titles to children, or study "the effect of electronic media on youths." Five of them are sponsored by Democrats.

Comments

Re:Get your nose out of my kids a..es!

[Osty]

And to take it a step further, what about the David Koresh types whose idea of raising children includes teenage sex with elders?

That would be statutory rape, and illegal. The government should intervene on the legal issue of rape, not on the issue of how the children are raised.

but what about parents hitting their kids with a belt? Spanking them?

Are you saying spanking is good or bad? Spanking is part of responsible child-rearing, and unless the kid is hospitalized or otherwise abused (spanking, and even hitting with a belt IMHO (the leather strap part, not the buckle), is not abuse) the government should stay the fuck out.

What about the mental torture involved in telling a child it will go to hell?

Now that's just weird. Does telling a kid that he will go to hell actually curb bad behavior? I'd think a good whippin' would be more effective.

Worse still, some ideas pose a danger to society. At the moment, it appears that the world may be hurtling toward a global holy war between Christianity and Islam, one that could conceivably kill every person on the planet. Is it worth allowing children to be indoctorinated to interpret the Bible literally, knowing that it likely increases the odds of that outcome?

The state doesn't get to make that decision. Religion and government should be separate. While I'm of the belief that you should raise children with an open minding, teaching them about other religions beyond your own (for example, how many Christians do you think really understand that Islam's Allah is the exact same God as the Christian god and Jewish Yahweh?), I shouldn't be allowed to force that on others. If you want to raise your kids to be good little Muslim-hating Christians, that's you're right. You're going to hell for it (see above :), but hey, that's your decision.

Now, the government can educate. They can teach parents how to parent effectively. They can teach diverse opinions in schools (if they give all religions equal coverage, then it's not government getting into religion -- it's government teaching history). They can teach people to respect those who are different from them, whether by race, religion, skin color, sexuality, or whatever. They can pass laws to punish hate crimes and then strictly enforce them. But they can't dictate morals or how you choose to raise your children.

It's become taboo to talk about things like this, and I think it's partially because it's very uncomfortable to do so. I don't like the idea of the government telling people what (or what not) to believe any more than you do. I don't want to believe that allowing people to believe the things they want is so dangerous. And I'm aware that it's just as likely that the views mandated by a government could just as easily be the wrong ones. But ignoring the problem won't make it go away.

Sadly, this kind of frank, open conversation will never happen in the media. Where it will happen is on university campuses across the nation. Keep the government out of it. Let the universities teach what they want to teach. No, that semester class on the history of Islam from its origin to today is not going to breed terrorists. People should be allowed to learn or not learn as they choose, though not learning may have dire consequences (ie, you don't learn about Islam, so you think of them as infidels. Your strict Christian background causes you to hate them, so you go out and set fire to a mosque. Now you've committed arson and a hate crime, and you'll get to enjoy the next few decades in a 75 square foot jail cell with your new roommate Bubba). If people choose to stay willfully ignorant, then that's sad but it's nothing I can or should stop.

I