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Most Laws Attempting Limits of Violent Videogames Fail
circletimessquare writes "Good news for common sense: the New York Times examines the track record of state laws attempting to put additional limits on violent videogames, and finds that the courts have struck almost all of them down as unconstitutional. Especially notable is this gem of a quote, from Judge Richard A. Posner: 'Violence has always been and remains a central interest of humankind and a recurrent, even obsessive theme of culture both high and low ... It engages the interest of children from an early age, as anyone familiar with the classic fairy tales collected by Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault are aware. To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it.'"
Looks like Judge Posner is thinking of the children.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Now just to confirm that it's no more harmful for a teenager to see a nude human body or have a glass of red wine with parents at dinner time.
It's not as though The Powers That Be don't know and don't care - they most certainly know, but that's not the point. It helps them establish a track record of "thinking of the children", which makes it all the easier to posture on their soapboxes come election time.
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Actually, there is a penalty. The people who proposed the law look like fools. The titles in the newspapers are generally not kind when a law is struck down.
Also, the balance of power between the legislators and the judges requires that there is no penalty. The congressmen represent us : they discuss the issue, do their best to make up their mind and vote. They should not be punished for being wrong. No more than you and I should be punished for voting for the 'wrong' candidate on election day.
There is the possibility the lawmakers pushing these types of limits might try introducing a constitutional amendment if their desires are continually shot down by the courts.
which is a flat-out perfect description of Jack Thompson:
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
No joke, I really wish I could give that guy a hug. Just a simple, ecstatic, no-sexual-intent bear hug. America needs more like him - he seems like the rare justice who might even make sense of the new-fangled internet tube thing.
Though, since he's a justice and it is politics, I guess I'd settle for buying him a beer. Or two beers. Really nice beers, too, maybe one of those eastern European deals with the chocolate and nutmeg in it. Whatever tickled his fancy.
Well fuck Jesus and God, bring on the tranny porn and show images of Jesus getting shit on. Amen brother, and pass the Bible so I can urinate on it!
Now, it's quite possible I'm going to get modded down, but that's fine, as this is a private site. But neither you, the Reverend Billy Graham or even God Almighty have any right in a free country that honors liberty telling me what I can say, or what movies I can watch or what video games I play. You are perfectly free to not partake of it, and keep it out of the hands of your children, but what you aren't free to do is to shove your standards on other people.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Hurrah! I've been saying for years that the obsession with nerf-coating the world was a Bad Thing. The best way for the masses to learn due caution is for a few to serve as a negative example, not to round every corner and pad every edge.
This is true psychologically, too. Sex and violence is part of the human creature. Pretending it's not "for the children", the children who will eventually inherit this mess, does a disservice to us all for exactly the reason stated - they will be unequipped when it's their turn. Nevermind the bozos making these stupid laws - find me one among them who didn't flip through a playboy and play cops and robbers as a child him/herself. These things are desirable, perhaps even required, for a well-balanced adult to form. We all grew up watching GIJoe shoot at everybody and Sam Malone hit on everything in a skirt. We had monkeybars on asphalt, BB guns, steel sliding boards with exposed bolts and pinch points. We never had those ridiculous bike helmets and elbow pads. There were scuffed elbows and scraped knees, maybe even a broken arm or two, but seriously, how many of the kids you went to school with were maimed or killed on the playground?
So go, kids, run and play! Climb trees. Jump from the swingsets. Play dodgeball. Play doctor. Explore the world around you, it belongs to you, too, after all.
Off with their helmets! Lawn darts for everybody! Hip, Hip, Hurrah!
"Hey, the third matrix movie would have been good except for the plot,story, and acting." --AC
Most violent video games out there that people freak out about are extremely tame compared to many horror movies out there, but the outrage seems to be much less tame... Where's your outrage over all the violence on TV and movies?
:)
Like I said, I don't care about Mortal Kombat. Impossible cartoon violence doesn't bother me. As to horror movies, those get rated R. I don't know of a theater that will let a 10-yr old in to see Hostel without a parent. Theaters are pretty good about self regulating. Game Stop is not. TV is also regulated.
What about the internet?
What would stop someone from porting these games to flash and putting them out for free on a website. Nothing really. However, the Internet really is free speech. A video game for sale is not. Free commerce is not guaranteed by the Constitution.
By your same arguments, we should start doing this stuff for television... but hey, you can't.
Uh, we can and we do. Janet Jackson showed a boob during the Super Bowl half time show and CBS got fined for it. The Sopranos was not on ABC, it was on HBO. That's a bit different.
Video games are an important cultural part of our society, and reflect, just like any media or artform, the characteristics of that society.
I could say the same thing about peep-shows, strip clubs, and bars. But I still don't think children should be allowed in these places without a parent! Besides, preventing children from purchasing these games without a parent will not change that.
Children aren't going to be conditioned and trained as mindless killers because they played Postal2, but they ARE going to be unprepared to cope with a lot of things if they're 'shielded' from all these 'godless' 'evils'.
That's up to me as a parent to decide when and how to educate my kids about "godless evils".
Also, have you actually looked up the correlations between children who play violent video games and actual violence? Go do so.
Have you read the correlation between children who go to strip clubs and and those that actually become violent? Are you going to take you seven year old daughter a strip club? Have you read the correlation between children and sexual activity? Are you going to take your little girl to the a swingers club? Of course not! In other words, I don't give a shit what researchers say. I don't think it is a good idea for children to be exposed to adult themes without their parents' knowledge!
I'll be letting my kids play whatever games they want. They'll be better, much more intelligent people.
Do you really know what they are playing? I hope so. If you're OK with it, great! I'm glad you have the type of relationship with your kids where you can do that. Do you watch porn with your daughters? If so, good for you. If not, why not? Would you mind me giving your kids a burned copy of Back Door Bitches while they wait at the bus stop? I'm just trying to make the better, much more intelligent people.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
the price of freedom is that it must always be guarded. it is not true that you will fight some decisive battle, win some decisive argument, or enact some decisive law (as you suggest above: "In my dream world, there would be penalties for passing unconstitutional laws") and then presto changeo, forever more you are free without ever having to think of any threats to it
no. all around you, every day, is someone, somwhere, in some form or another, thinking it is a good idea to limit your freedoms. in fact, the worst sort of enemy are those who do this, thinking they are actually helping you (as many of the well-meaning but deluded legislators intend)
so when a little ray of light, like this story of universal failure on the front of limiting violent videogames breaks, then you should celebrate. don't be despondent
you'll need to celebrate. because tomorrow is another day, and tomorrow, some well-meaning but stupid legislator will cry "think of the children!" yet again. and again. and again
and you must go to battle yet again to protect your freedom. it's never easy. it's never over
and that's another important point: the people who pass these laws are not the minions of emperor palpatine, establishing the beachhead for the rise of fascism across the globe. they are in fact mostly well-meaning people, but are just deluded on the facts. you have to know your enemy to defeat him, and to give in to paranoid fantasies about evil operators of the illuminati finessing and manipulating the system in service of some dark agenda: no, you've been watching to many bad hollywood movies. don't attribute to evil that which is obviously the work of stupidity. and even worse, WELL MEANING stupidity. their heart is in the right place, but their mind is it. when we cry "won't somebody think of the children!" it's a simpson's punchline, and we all laugh. but for some people, "won't somebody think of the children!" is an earnest heartfelt honest to goodness cry of desperation and call to arms to fight to protect children
from what? well i'm not going to argue their stupidity here. that's not my point here. my point here is to simply demonstrate to you that the fight is not easy, and it's not a fight against evil. it's a fight against stupidity. and the fight never ends, and the fight is never easy
know the REAL nature of your enemy, roll up your sleeves, and get to work. it's the price you pay for your freedom: constant vigilance. the fight is never easy, the fight is never over
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
AS far as physical violence goes, you have to quit believing what you see in video games and movies and on TV is even plausible. Martial training is a long and painful process that ultimately only gives you an edge, not infallible physical superiority. Its funny how it is really easy and really hard at the same time to severely injure someone. Hitting someone in the face is pretty hard when they're moving.
Now, if were talking about a general overall simulator to make you more aggressive and violent, I think any high school environment can do that.
so what if it feels different? Kids normally commit violent acts with their own hands.
Boxing your siblings in the ears is violence too, does playing GTA make you more likely to beat your brother with a stick? because I watched so many of my friends do just that back when the Colecovision was the best video game technology. You could argue it was because WWF was big back then, but I suspect if you go back before WWF you'd hear the same old stories of violence between kids. (just a guess)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I recently watched 'The Hills Have Eyes', the remake that was realized a few years ago. It was one of the more violent movies that I have seen in the last couple months, and reading this article made me ask myself why should movie studios be able to release a movie depicting a person ripping away flesh from another dead person, and eating it, yet punching a prostitute in the face until she bleeds is a major taboo. I grew up on Friday the 13th movies, tons of zombie movies showing the walking dead devouring the living, sometimes very graphically, but when you throw a little sex (hello, Cinemax is as close to soft-core porn as you can get without pay-per-view) or violence in a game, call the National Guard, our children are at risk! I know there are people who believe that doing something has more of an effect than watching something, and I think to a certain extent that is true, but healthy-minded teenagers (I agree that younger kids shouldn't be exposed to that kind of thing) should have no trouble separating what is real with what is fiction.
My six-year-old daughter asked me recently about what the police do to bad guys that they catch, and what to the bad guys do to get in trouble. Knowing that it wouldn't show her anything too bad, I turned on 'Cops' and let her watch an episode of that. I told her that it seems that is probably more of what police officers have to deal with, but of course there are days where the bad people are "a lot badder". She seemed to understand, and immediately asked if that's why they carry guns. She then made a comment about some of the games that she has seen me play, and asked me if I have ever shot anyone. I replied no, I've never even pointed a gun at anyone. She replied again with "I've seen you shoot people in the games that you play, but I know that's not real, so its a lot different than doing it for real."
As bad as it sounds, she even cheered me one while watching me play Resident Evil 4 on my Wii. (Silent kid, I didn't hear her sneak up behind me) and she also was able to discern what is real and what is not.
People are saying that games with excessive violence shouldn't be able to be sold to minors. As much as I hate censorship and govermental control, I think there is some merit to this. I wouldn't want my daughter when she is 11 or something to be able to go buy some movie like "The Hills Have Eyes" without me knowing, and I'd feel the same way about video games. Until I know for sure that she can handle things, I will continue to prescreen what she watches and what she plays, but as a parent I feel it is MY choice, not the government's.
And they said zombies weren't real!