Jack Thompson Attacks DoD, ESA, GTA With Utah Bill

eldavojohn writes "Delusional disbarred Miami attorney Jack Thompson claims to have a bill in the state of Utah that targets retailers and entire industries with the Truth in Advertising Law. The best part of his rant: 'Our military appropriately uses violent video games a) to suppress the inhibition to kill of new recruits, and b) to teach killing scenarios. Games have the same effect on civilian teens.' While GamePolitics couldn't find the bill on Utah's state site, they did receive a response from him claiming 'I have a sponsor and a bill, and [the video game] industry is in trouble.' For 2009 bills, there seems to be merely a bill enhancing the Truth in Advertising Law but does not contain any of Thompson's verbiage. Good 'ole Jack — always good for some laughs, but really he needs to give it up one of these days."

Comments

Video games vs Jack

[mgabrys_sf]

Video games never made me want to kill another (real) person. Jack Thompson on the other hand makes me want to kill - someone, possibly named Jack - every time I hear from Mr. Thompson.

Re:Video games vs Jack

[Chabo]

He's made me want to get into racketeering!

Re:Video games vs Jack

[CannonballHead]

Playing devil's advocate... you're probably being somewhat sarcastic/facetious, but you are making a point. Being a proper devil's advocate, I thought I would point out that I don't know that most people believing in the games-cause-violence idea would say that games make people want to commit random acts of murder. Rather, that when tension builds/anger occurs, violence as an action comes more naturally than before the video-game-"conditioning." In other words, the fact that your reaction to J.T. is "kill Jack!" proves that the violent video games did have an effect - that is, they are affecting your reaction to something that displeases you.

Note: I'm not arguing for the position.

Re:Video games vs Jack

[plague3106]

That's the stupidist argument I've ever heard. Building tension / anger has lead to violence long before video games were ever created.

Re:Video games vs Jack

[clarkkent09]

I don't play video games and my reaction is the same: "kill Jack!" I do like to play chess though. And I like to eat potato chips as well. Still can't decide if it's playing chess or eating potato chips that causes me to have that reaction? Hmmm, something to think about (if you are or should be in a mental institution).

Re:Video games vs Jack

[EastCoastSurfer]

You're right, but have video games led to move violence? I think a bigger area to look at would be how do things like the huge popularity in MMA affect today's youth. Are people more likely to fight because they are watching so much realistic violence all the time? Or, are things like violent video games, MMA, etc... simply reflecting our current society where violence appears to be more prevalent than in the past?

Re:Video games vs Jack

[genner]

I don't play video games and my reaction is the same: "kill Jack!" I do like to play chess though. And I like to eat potato chips as well. Still can't decide if it's playing chess or eating potato chips that causes me to have that reaction? Hmmm, something to think about (if you are or should be in a mental institution).

Chess was the murder simulator that introduced kings to killing scenarios and casued the crusades.

Re:Video games vs Jack

[Feanturi]

True story: I had a nightmare once when I was around 8 years old, in which I kept spotting people that were poised to kill me. I knew they meant to kill me because they were an L-shaped move away from wherever I was at the time. I knew they'd be able to jump over any obstacle between us and kill me instantly upon landing, so I kept having to run away thereby changing the positional advantage they had. But I would only wind up encountering someone else also that same relative position away from me, and have to run again. Had I not been exposed to chess, I would not have had to contend with this frightful situation. Clearly chess breeds violent thoughts and needs to be stamped out once and for all!

Re:Video games vs Jack

[pmbasehore]

Or, has the rise of MMORPGs like WoW and the like led to the rise of teenage witchcraft and mythical, fell creatures?

Seems like similar logic to me.

Re:Video games vs Jack

[dogmatixpsych]

Spurious comparison. Witchcraft and mythical creatures are not real (I know some would argue they are but we'll go with the assumption they are not). Violence is real though so your argument is invalid. You can't disprove a logical argument by constructing a similar argument using unreal elements.

Re:Video games vs Jack

[EastCoastSurfer]

It's probably had a hand in teenage obesity.

To think that people are not affected by their environment at all is just as bad as thinking every violent act leads back to a video game.

To use your logic kids with abusive parents should never have any problems later in life if what they experience every day has no long lasting affect on them.

Re:Video games vs Jack

[Cowmonaut]

No, they haven't. Check the DoJ's website if you don't believe me. The more popular video games have gotten, the lower *actual* violence amongst youths has gone down. In 2003-5 it was at a FORTY YEAR LOW, at the supposed "height" of video game violence controversy.

Re:Video games vs Jack

[need4mospd]

I had a dream sorta like that, except replace "people that were poised to kill me" with "hot supermodels". And there were lots of pillows.

So clearly, chess breeds porn as well.

Re:Video games vs Jack

[CannonballHead]

At the risk of feeding the trolls...

Hmmm. Read some Puritans sometime.

Secondly, Rome built a Colosseum (and other structures, but that's the main one in Rome, of course) purely for entertainment, correct? And there they watched (and enjoyed watching) gladiators and slaves and criminals either killing each other or getting killed by animals, etc. And often very violent, such as putting freshly-killed-animal skins on a person, tying him or her to a post, and unleashing half starved lions. Yup, definitely less "enjoy-violence"-esque than punishing someone with public humiliation by putting them in stocks. Obviously, Puritans were far worse and loved violence far more. Putting someone in stocks and facing public humiliation is worse than death by being tied to a post naked with smelly animal skins and getting torn to shreds by lions in front of tens of thousands of people.

Right.

Witch burnings, I offer no defense, except that I wasn't trying to compare mobs to general society. Did they happen? Unfortunately, yes. Did all Puritans like it? No. Read some accounts of contemporary commentary.

Re:Video games vs Jack

[KDR_11k]

Maybe you read Shakespeare and were influenced by "the first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".

Re:Video games vs Jack

[CannonballHead]

There's a reason that we don't have humans fighting to the death in giant amphitheaters, we've become more civilized.

What's the reason? What is "civilized"?

Considering the fact that some of the most "civilized" people can end up raping and murdering, I fail to see how being civilized has anything to do with it. with regard to the Puritans enjoying violence more so than the Romans, I still find that very dubious, especially if one reads actual Puritan writings.

As to civlization, between 150 and 50 years ago we had things such as eugenics and sterilization, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Stalin, Mussolini, the Vietnam guy (can't remember his name), etc. Civilized, you say? IMO, there is no difference as far as humans are concerned between the 1st century AD and now, except that certain societies, because of various influences, have had different - dare I say it - moral standards and influences, while others have not. Rome's influences (moral, religious, philosophical, etc) were different from America's, at least at the beginning.

However, the entertainment venues of a society often portray what the society is "really" like. "Civilized" often means "nicely clothed" and ignores what the society (or person) really is. So the question still remains, do violent video games reflect society, affect society, or some other option?

Re:Video games vs Jack

[aussie_a]

Hitler didn't play videogames. You can tell because if he had he wouldn't have had time to write Mein Kampf and become elected as president of Germany.

Never

[whisper_jeff]

He will never give up. The reason is simple - every time he goes off on one of his insane ramblings, news sites and services cover it and give his voice an audience. Until people stop caring what he has to say, he'll keep saying things. Unfortunately.

Re:Never

[eldavojohn]

He will never give up. The reason is simple - every time he goes off on one of his insane ramblings, news sites and services cover it and give his voice an audience. Until people stop caring what he has to say, he'll keep saying things. Unfortunately.

As the submitter of this story, I think it's important we keep pointing out his actions because (1) he has lost (2) although I'm not a lawyer I believe it sets precedence for future cases and (3) even the general public can see through to his attacks on our freedom. I believe there are more lawyers masquerading in our legal system as legit when they're really just Jack Thompsons at heart and I hope the public learns about them by observing the obvious cases of dementia. In my opinion a good example is John Ashcroft.

Sometimes Jack Thompson's arguments are so laughably false that I suspect he was installed by gamers, the entertainment industry and liberties advocates as a physical straw man!

Re:Never

[Chabo]

Listen, and understand. That Jack Thompson is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

Re:Never

[Chabo]

I think it was Tycho from Penny Arcade who said something like this, though I can't find the quote:

"I'm glad we have Jack Thompson as the spokesman for the anti-videogames movement, lest we have someone more competent to take his place."

Re:Never

[poot_rootbeer]

The reason is simple - every time he goes off on one of his insane ramblings, news sites and services cover it and give his voice an audience. Until people stop caring what he has to say, he'll keep saying things. Unfortunately.

And how is that working out for him, so far?

Sure, he's been disbarred, he's trashed his livelihood and his reputation, and he has become the laughingstock of both the legal and entertainment industries -- but since someone is still printing his NAME on a WEB SITE, he must be WINNING!

Re:Never

[KDR_11k]

If not for wingnuts like good ol' Jack; Lieberman and Rodham-Clinton may have been successful in creating government censorship of games.

Doesn't the credit for preventing that go to the First Amendment and the Supreme Court?

I can't wait until they finally lock him up

[Weaselmancer]

...and give him this guy as a cellmate.

At least they wouldn't run out of stuff to talk about.

So they'd stop selling stuff in Utah

[Reality Master 201]

I'm sure the very thought must have them terrified, Jack.

But it's UTAH..

[Binkleyz]

Who cares?

No offense to the nice nice people in Utah, but one state law, in a very small (population-wise) state, and will have little or no impact on the VG industry. Even IF this bill passes, there is certain to be an immediate EFF or ACLU lawsuit to overturn it.

Utah is the reddest of the "Red States", and I have to imagine that most good Mormon kids aren't playing GTA4 anyway.

Re:But it's UTAH..

[Mercution]

On the contrary... we Mormon kids aren't allows to do anything illegal. So video games are a great outlet.

GTA4 is a great outlet. Except for a crappy story line (in my opinion).

Re:But it's UTAH..

[Anonymous Coward]

why is it that people like you can never accept that someone can have sincere political beliefs that differ from yours?

Re:But it's UTAH..

[dogmatixpsych]

The irony of using the phrase "people like you" in context of your response is pretty funny.

Solution looking for a problem

[Rinisari]

Jack Thompson is always coming up with these solutions, but he has yet to prove a problem.

Jack Thompson?

[JesseL]

I can't believe he hasn't been found in a cheap motel room; dead from autoerotic asphyxiation, wearing a gimp suit and a dildo in his ass.

The dude....

[8127972]

... Really needs to have some hot coffee.

Little known fact, Jack:

[mcgrew]

The word "thompson" in Elbonian means "cough".

Re:Thank god he's still around

[Hatta]

I remember Jack Thompson, but who the hell is Utah Bill?

Re:Just as it happens in movies

[rev_sanchez]

The movie rating system is pretty messed up. I prefer the Joe Bob Briggs method of rating movies from when he was on the movie channel. He'd run down the count of kills (with an emphasis on decapitations or anything out of the ordinary) and breasts and other nudity. We could throw in counts of bad language. The rating would be something like:

up to 542 kills/per game - some with chainsaw
8 breasts and 3 asses
"shit" - 12, "piss" - 1, "fuck" - 17, "cunt" - 0, "cocksucker" - 3, "motherfucker" - 6, "tits" - 2

Then a parent can decide if Timmy is ready to saw a zombie in half or if he needs to hold off on being able to hit a button to yell "motherfucker" at a Nazi for another year or so.

Re:Just as it happens in movies

[kannibal_klown]

I think their problem is that games are treated more like movies, and less like cigarettes and alcohol. And to them that seems like a bad thing.

An easy-going cashier might sell a violent game to some 8-year-old without a care in the world. I've seen it happen with films at the theater, rentals at a BlockBuster, and games at a GameStop.

As with most things, video games shouldn't be a federal matter but a family one. Parents need to take an active role in their kids lives and not just hand over wads of cash or buy something because they want it.

• Parents should be vigilant about what they're buying for their kids: a box with dismembered corpses on the cover might require a millisecond of thought when buying for a 5-year-old.
• Parents should keep track of what their kids are doing with their money. Personally when I was a kid I didn't have access to a lot of disposable income
• etc

I've mentioned it in the past, but my favorite anecdote about this whole thing took place while waiting in line at a GameStop. Some mother was asking the cashier if he thinks she should buy DeadRising for her really young kid. He told her about the ratings and described the game, but she STILL didn't want the responsibility of making the decision herself and kept asking for him to make the decision..

Re:Sex or Violence? Both!

[Shakrai]

I find it interesting that the rants here are about not stopping violent video games, while on the Superbowl Ad thread [slashdot.org] Slashdot users bemoan the fact that ads that are sexually suggestive are censored, while the violent commercials are not

I would posit that the difference between the two is that you have a choice over which video games your kids play. You don't have a choice over which commercials play during the Super Bowl and the Super Bowl is typically regarded as something that the whole family can watch.

Re:Slashdot...

[Fujisawa Sensei]

News for nerds, rantings of crazy people?

Jack has no authority anymore. Until such a time as he actually gets some, please ignore him.

What do you mean "anymore"?

I don't believe that he ever actually had any.

Re:Just as it happens in movies

[hidannik]

Zombies don't count as kills, they're already dead.

Hans

jack was a sanctimonious a%%h#@e

[kraksmoka]

he pursued 2 live crew like they were the devil. deserves what he gets

Video game violence and situation comedies...

[tlambert]

Video game violence and situation comedies are obviously ruining this nation.

This is why we have so many random acts of violence and comedy in the streets.

Wait. I guess kids aren't the mindless copy-drones they're made out to be.

Never mind.

-- Terry

Re:Video game violence and situation comedies...

[orclevegam]

No, but to think that people (not just kids) aren't affected by the stuff they experience in their daily environment is just as short-sighted.

People are affected by everything they experience, daily or otherwise, but how that experience affects them is non-obvious and varies massively from person to person. As such, trying to lay the blame for anything at the feet of one particular source (be it music, game, show, movie, book, or person) is to ignore the real problem. People do things for a variety of highly complex reasons, sometimes physical in nature (chemical imbalance), other times psychological (PTS, indoctrination of various kinds, various abuses [somewhat related to PTS], poor reasoning skills). You cannot legislate away crazy, immoral, illegal, or just plain stupid behavior, there will always be those that do bad things, no matter what they are or aren't exposed to, and what is and isn't illegal, to believe otherwise is to believe a fiction, and those that operate in ignorance of reality do so at their own peril.

Re:Hahahah

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Kick & scream all you want pig, you lose

I think that's a dangerous attitude to take. There are a lot of people out there who don't know any better who will take seriously whoever is shouting loudest. For many years now, that person has been Jack Thompson.

The thing that makes him most dangerous is that there's an element of truth to his arguments. There's a minimal amount in there that makes the things he says plausible to those people who don't/can't educate themselves.

Re:There is no such thing...

[Macthorpe]

Tell that to Hitler.

(Yes, I did just Godwin the whole conversation)

Re:You know, I just had a thought.

[Anonymous Coward]

You could call it the Large Hurbis Collider.

Re:Thompson has a point, be he really is a jerk

[orkysoft]

People used to blame comic books for the moral decay of the youth, now they're glad if they'll even bother to read comics.

Kids play all kinds of violent games, and they (most of them, anyway) know they're not real. Have you ever watched any cartoons? Those are ultra-violent killing instructions! Oh noes!

And of course the pinko liberals forget that before there were comics and rock music, there simply was no violence. At all.

Truth in Advertising?

[MoFoQ]

Maybe ol' JT should disclose that he's not a lawyer.
Now that's truth in Advertising.

Re:Hahahah

[redcaboodle]

Nobody's going to listen to the talking head introduced as "Jack Thompson: Disbarred Lawyer" who wasn't already convinced that video games are evil incarnate.

Except for those who believe he was disbarred to silence him for annoying [important_group].

Re:Hahahah

[cbiltcliffe]

Or those who don't know he was disbarred, and he says "I'm Jack Thompson. I have a XXX law degree." or some other weasel verbiage that makes it sound like he's a lawyer without actually saying he's a lawyer.

Or heck, he could still be introducing himself as a lawyer, too. Wouldn't put it past him.

Re:Hahahah

[cbiltcliffe]

He could get struck by lightning or hit by a bus

...run over by a carjacker, shot by a sniper....

Re:Hahahah

[MartinSchou]

All at once? You'd think his life was a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon!

Re:Hahahah

[jythie]

Looks like he is going with 'recently practicing lawyer.'

Re:Hahahah

[WNight]

Really though, he IS a lawyer in all but technicality. (For what little that's worth.) An insane one maybe, but the government merely took his license to practice, not his lifetime knowledge. As long as he's not offering to take a case for you...

It's not like the government is who I listen to in choosing who has the most accurate technical opinion in any given area. His credibility, IMHO, is right where it was before. (Zero, but for other reasons...)

I misread the headline.

[Steauengeglase]

I was hoping that Jack now had a side kick named, Utah Bill. I imagine them wandering the wilds together. Jack, a country lawyer taking down virtual murderers while Bill constantly has problems from his multiple wives.

Re:Employment?

[bigbigbison]

His money comes from his wife. Apparently she is actually a respected lawyer and a partner in a large law firm.

Re:Hahahah

[Zashi]

AFAIK, state bars are not government institutions. They are a group of Lawyers. It's like lawyer government. By the people for the people. By lawyers for lawyers. Self-regulating and all that.