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Judge Blocks Louisiana Violent Games Law
kukyfrope writes "A Baton Rouge federal judge has today issued a temporary injunction against Louisiana's violent games law that Governor Kathleen Blanco just signed last week. According to local newspaper The Advocate, U.S. District Judge James Brady issued the injunction just hours after the Entertainment Software Association and Entertainment Merchants Association filed the lawsuit in Louisiana. "How would a person assess whether a particular video game appeals to a minor's 'morbid interest in violence'? And what constitutes a 'patently offensive' depiction of violence? Persons of ordinary intelligence are forced to guess at the meaning and scope of the act," said New Orleans attorney James A. Brown"
I think he may be referring to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellate_jurisdictio n
You can tell I'm an aries because of my ram.
While I could see this coming as soon as I read the law itself (and I'm a layman), there's Another Law in the same stat that is receiving full support of the game industry.
The difference with this law is that it only targets sexual content - and thus is allowed to use the "Millar" test. The one that is blocked uses vague/ambiguous definitions that could (in theory) be used to ban the game of Chess.
The federal judicial system enforces the Constitution. Its their job to step in when a state law violates it. This law is patently against the first ammendment, and as such it is the duty of the federal system to block it. This is the system working like its supposed to. If it didn't, the constitution wouldn't be worth the paper its printed on, and we'd still have states where women couldn't vote and Jim Crow laws are the norm.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
We are notorious for money wasting projects, corruption (see Edwin Edwards, Huey P. Long, and his brother Earl K), and really bad legislators. This legislative session we've passed a law that changes the state flag (and requires them to be replaced on state buildings), forces the sale of ethanol within a few years (because our Agricultural Secretary runs the state with an iron fist), and increases state spending from $19 billion to $27 billion a year!!! Seriously, I think we would fare better as a federal protectorate.
Ratification of the Civil Rights Amendments was extorted in most cases from the Southern state governments as the 'cost of readmittance' to the Union; they didn't 'ratify' them in any more significant a sense than a cashier 'gives' a robber money. In other words, the act is technically true as described, but emptied of all willful meaning.
Now, don't get me wrong, the 14th Amendment was one hot and happenin' piece of constitutional amending, enabling the protection of the rights of Corporations the country round (and later on, even some black people!) I just think that one ought to be honest about just how it became part of the Constitution. We should not fool ourselves into believing that it was in any way 'voluntary'.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
Most of the rights in the bill of rights have been incorporated to restict the states too, via the 14th amendment. If you have a problem with that, take it up with whatever late 19th century or early 20th century court made that decision, not the federal system now.
Jury nullification is seen by many legal scholars as a very necessary democratic check on the legal process, and many just outcomes throughout the 200 year-long history of the United States depended precisely on some citizens asserting this right. See Clay S. Conrad's Jury Nullification: The Evolution of a Doctrine (Carolina Academic Press, 2000) for a history. Your notion that only judges should decide is not in keeping with the actual facts.
If, as a lawyer, you argue to a jury that they should exercise jury nullification, you may be found in contempt.
You are not even allowed to tell the jury what the penalty will be for a conviction.
That's how a 17 year old in Georgia can be found guilty of "aggravated child molestation" after having consensual oral sex with a 15 year old... and get sentenced to a mandatory minimum 10 year sentence with no allowance for probation and no chance of parole.
Fundies anywhere are pretty shit-tastic. However, the 98% of the rest of the populace down here are good folks in a beautiful and unique part of the country.
I (hopefully obviously) was kidding when referencing the Yankees as folks we dislike. The idiotic stereotypes perpetuated by otherwise intelligent people get old, though. I mean, anyone can have a good laugh at their own quirks, but I think people actually _believe_ this kind of farcical nonsense about the South.
Poor taste in voting aside, this is a great place. There are just as many extremely nice, intelligent, and wonderful people here as anywhere else. There are also just as many fuck-tards. Ours are often fundie "Christians." Your local fuck-tard results may vary.
There's plenty of ignorance, stupidity, and plain indecency to falsely color any given part of the US if you choose to see it. I myself would not live anywhere else.
(I bothered to log in now since this is less off-the-cuff.)
Sharpies don't just sniff themselves.