Slashdot Mirror
Australian R18 Games Rating Gets Gov't Support
dotarray writes "Even with the news last week that an Australian Government study found no conclusive link between video games and violence, it's still a little surprising that the federal Labor government has announced today that they support the move for an adult R18+ rating for video games in that country."
Politicians and their voters. This is why democracy without incredibly limited government is always a bad thing because the majority can fuck with the minority in any way they wish without the minority being able to do anything about it, despite there being no harm for the majority if the minority is allowed to do what they wish.
This is why you specifically numerate the powers of your government to prevent things like this from happening and the government overstepping its bounds to protect against fraud and force (the only two legitimate reasons for government) and screwing the people who want to play these games.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Summary was trying to be overly melodramatic and fails.
R18+ was blocked by one man, former Attorney General Michael Atkinson. This was incredibly unpopular. Atkinson was removed from his post (resigned is a nice way of saying you're fired in politics, actual resigning is called retirement) when it was politically convenient for the South Australian Labor party (after a major swing against Labor in Atkinson's electorate).
Now no-one is opposing R18+, not even the tool who want to filter the internet. Green's have sway the senate, they've been pushing for R18+ since this whole mess started.
R18+ is going to be passed now the one stumbling block (Atkinson) has been removed. It didn't require guns, revolution or radical action, it was done via patience and rational action.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Some of these adult games are getting distributed as 15+ and some are banned altogether. By adding the 18+ rating, the demographic being "protected" by these adult games are 15-17.
From TFA: “Children and teenagers shouldn’t be exposed to the gratuitous sex, violence and adult themes that are contained in some computer games."
So the concern is high-school age kids, soon to go off to college and live on their own, are being exposed to sex, violence, adult themes, and basically anything reported on in the news on any given day? Is anyone still of the mindset that these kids haven't already been exposed to this content through other channels?
Bingo. The filter will (ostensibly) block content that has been refused classification, but Conroy and Labor have long been equivocating between "refused classification" and "illegal" and repeatedly imply that they're only really going after child pornography. The lack of an R18+ rating has long been a thorn in their side because "refused classification" for games has always meant "unsuitable for teenagers, but we don't have an adult rating so it's banned for everyone".
It's hard to know what to feel about that - the filter remains a disaster and the primary free speech objections remain (mainly that the blacklist is a government secret), but it's ever so slightly less evil now. Hopefully the limited support for the filter stays that way and any legislation still fails to pass through either house of the hung parliament.
Actually, tyranny of the minority by the majority is prevented not by limiting government but by codifying personal rights and limiting the ways those rights can be altered by majority vote.
See how useful a minimal, non-interventionist government is if people decide to organize an armed lynch mob to kill whatever minority they don't like. Or the proposition 8 thing - voting minorities' rights away sure was the fault of big government.