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Oklahoma Politician Wants To Tax Violent Video Games
dotarray writes "According to an Oklahoma politician, video games help cause many problems affecting the youth of today, but they can also help solve those same problems. Representative William Fourkiller, a Democrat, has proposed a 1% tax on every video game sold which has a Teen, Mature or Adults Only rating. He explains that half of the money would go towards helping to get kids playing outside, while the other half would be placed into a bullying prevention fund."
I'm sure throwing money at something will both convince kids to play outside and prevent bullying. Gee, where can I contribute to the "bullying prevention fund?"
"For the children" is one of the basest forms of emotional appeal. The emotional satisfaction justifies it in many people's minds, and to argue against it makes one vulnerable to accusations of not caring about kids.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Look its "for the children"(TM) , we must comply.
Tax all kids in school at 1% of their lunch money and use that money to fight bullying in schools. Can we also get a 1% tax on violent blockbusters and tv shows where half off that goes to the movie studios and half goes to violence prevention?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I suggest a conditional tax.
1% of total politician networth every time they say something stupid. The deficit would turn to a surplus in a week, especially now during campaign season.
Does he not realize that M and AO games are not supposed to be played by children in the first place?
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
So when those kids go outside and get bullied, there will be a support program for them. -sigh-
The best way to teach out kids that bullying is bad is to stop doing it ourselves, and to teach them it's not okay to pick on others for any reason. Mine taught me, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." For me, it stuck. For others, it apparently didn't, or they weren't taught it. Am I perfect at it? No. But I try.
But a government program to teach it? No way. It'll never work. It has to be something every citizen wants, not something that the government tries to force us into. Actually wants, not just says they want.
I'm not against providing nice, safe outdoor play areas for kids. Hopefully away from my apartment windows and doors. I would have loved to have it as a kid, and I'd love to have them away from my apartment now. But attacking an industry to do so is not the way to go about it.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Amazing that I read this just after reading an article about several suicides in a small town in Michigan. It seems the anti-homosexual leadership in the community and school district basically ignored charges of bullying by students.
Funny how I don't remember a computer game that teaches kids how to be hateful bigots. Pretty sure they got that from their parents and their church.
> More bright ideas from you local politician.. Do they all have their head in the sand?
:-)
Yes, but that's not "sand" where they have their head.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are given to politicians every year so they can lie to us about the mess they are making of everything. If half the money given to politicians was given to the poor it could make a significant difference both in the lives of the poor and it would half the bullshit we have to listen to!
And off my lawn!!!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
If video game content is protected by the First Amendment (and current law indicates it is), then a 1% tax based on contents is just as impermissible as a 10000% tax or a straight-up ban.
It's not flamebait if it is the truth. Specifically from the article I am referring to:
"At churches like First Baptist Church of Anoka, parishioners believe that homosexuality is a form of mental illness caused by family dysfunction, childhood trauma and exposure to pornography â" a perversion curable through intensive therapy."
Source: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/one-towns-war-on-gay-teens-20120202#ixzz1lFttG0bh
And it was Minnesota - not Michigan. Had Michigan on the brain from earlier today.
That's because violence will eventually become part of the kids' lives, while sex shouldn't.
Oh crap, is it the other way around?
My little fat Johnny who plays Mario Cart all day long was expelled from school for bullying because he was throwing things at classmates who were around him. I say we should tax ESRB: E (Comic Mischief) also!
...due to a sporting event.
In the United States, sporting events are often associated with violent riots, as well, though with lower death tolls. Europe is well known for its soccer hooligans.
Ever hear of 80 people being killed following a LAN event? Any riots at GenCon or E3?
Didn't think so.
If this guy was sincere, he'd be proposing a 1% tax on sports equipment, sales of licensed sports franchise clothing, etc, and using the money to fund children's hospitals which treat the many crippling (and sometimes fatal) injuries that occur from childhood sports. (Check out the average number of high school students killed in school shootings each year, and the average number of high school students killed in school sports.)
Of course, he's not sincere. "Sincerity" is an alien concept to such as he. He's a vile, contemptible, parasitic piece of verminous scum who exploits fear and ignorance in order to gain power. He is a creature without any personal worth, a loathsome leech who feeds off the misery and pain of others, and grows fat and happy on their suffering. Or, in other words, a politician. Even among that repugnant crew of amoral reprobates, though, people like Fourkiller represent the scrapings of the bottom of a barrel that is, itself, filled with the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel.
Democrats are equivalent to Republicans everywhere, and have been for a long time now.
Palm trees and 8
I suggest we next apply a vice tax to anything related to professional sports. Tickets, merchandise, PPVs, you-name-it. Considering how much bad behavior professional sporting events elicit from fans, it only seems fair.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
If you don't understand the difference between a representative in the Oklahoma state legislature and the president of the United States, please refrain from voting. A coin toss would be better informed.
Kids need to learn how to deal with bullies not have some one intervene all the time. If your kid killed themselves, then YOU were just a bad parent.
1) Politicians don't often win elections by reminding people that they have a share of the responsibility when something bad happens.
2) Teaching kids to expect someone to always intervene and to never rely on themselves is probably an awesome introductory lesson to always expecting the government to intervene and save them when they get older. Of course to do that, the government is going to need more money/power...
Such a tax is flatly unconstitutional. If they can tax at 1%, what's to prevent them from taxing at 100%? Or 100,000,000%? The power to tax is the power to destroy [wikipedia.org], and there's no way this will survive a constitutional challenge.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
if we begin to teach kids
1 how to get along (with the related lessons on how a boy should treat a girl and vise versa)
2 how to END fights quickly (and the related ones on not starting fights)
and
3 stopped this whole "both parties are guilty" thing with fights
4 BANNED parents from suing the school over anything short of actual negligent actions (no suing the school for bad grades or because My Little Angel got an owie)
then we would have a lot less of a problem
(a 5th grade bully would stop if a girl in 1st grade put her foot through his knee because she couldn't run clear)
The problem is teaching kids how to deal with School Yard Bullies also teaches them how to deal with Government Bullies
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
while the other half would be placed into a bullying prevention fund.
aka, slush fund
A politician is a politician. If you're using the terms democrat and republican, then they've already tricked you.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
Did it ever occur to you that maybe D.A.R.E. is a subversive organization intended to show children the hypocrisy of the current status quo? Makes the Yes Men look like punters.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Does a state sales tax on books likewise violate the First Amendment as applied to the several states by the Fourteenth? If so, then how do so many states get away with requiring Barnes & Noble to collect and remit sales tax? If not, then what's the difference between what this state representative proposes and a sales tax?
...so long as they tax violent movies and television first.
I think they should tax violent people first. Why should the law abiding pony up to pay for the unruly?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
If X exists, there are Democrats who wish to tax X.
It's a corollary to the porn rule that if X exists there is porn of X on the Internet.
Sock Puppets: damn_registrars=pudge_confirmer=jimmy_slimmy=raiigunner=cml4524=a_klavan=red4men=ronpaulisanidiot
Not as batshit insane as it sounds at first glance, or compared to many other activities of our current breed of career politicians.
For one, it's a reasonable number that makes it probable he is serious and it's not a hidden "drive the prices up to make it unprofitable if we can't outlaw it" agenda.
Two, the cause is reasonable. Yes, it's a "for the children" cause, but definitely not the worst. I don't know how exactly he plans to get kids outside with money, short of paying them, but I don't think anyone would disagree that a healthy amount of physical outdoor activity is a good thing.
I'm not exactly convinced, yet - but compared to the usual utter nonsense we are used to, it sounds fairly reasonable and measured.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
It's a problem with poor coping skills and conflict resolution abilities.
Fatherless children and nanny-state court systems that issue jail time to 12 year olds for school yard brawls are the problem...Money wasted.
We need parents that teach personal strength. And we need to let kids practice resolving their own problems. It sounds barbaric...but we've all known some kids that beat the living crap out of eachother, then became total bros after the fight.
Actually that quote is mis-quoted. The ONLY sentence that is accurate is: "It must proclaim the truth that the child is the most valuable possession a people can have." The rest is paraphrased and made up.
http://sydwalker.info/blog/2008/12/08/having-fun-falsifying-history/
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf#Chapter_2_-_The_State
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Mein_Kampf
Politicians love to treat symptoms rather than causes. Finding the root cause for our social ills is too much work and usually results in an answer too complicated to make into a political slogan.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Actually, under well-established Supreme Court precedent, the use of fecal matter for speech would likely be analyzed under an intermediate scrutiny O'Brien standard, applicable to cases of mixed speech and action.
The government restriction on fecal matter would need (1) to be enacted pursuant to governmental authority (constitutional if Congress), (2) to further an important or substantial government interest (3) that is unrelated to the suppression of free expression, and (4) must prohibit no more than is essential to further that interest.
That's actually easier than it sounds, because almost anything can be a substantial government interest and I think the "essential" language here is actually meant pretty loosely--more loosely than the strict scrutiny "least restrictive means" requirement, for example.
The Supreme Court noted, I believe in Johnson, that a ban on fires would ban the burning of flags, but a ban on flag-burning would fail the O'brien test because it would be aimed at the suppression of free expression. Similarly, a ban on fecal matter for public health reasons would be permissible, whereas a ban on fecal matter because it is offensive would normally be constitutionally invalid.
In addition, the Secondary effects test of Renton could be used to consider the suppression of fecal matter. A restriction might be permissible because it would arguably be aimed at the secondary effects of fecal matter, which would trigger the (Arguably) slightly easier Time, Place, and Manner test for permissible restrictions on speech.
Finally, there is the "Speech and Debate Clause," which adds another wrinkle when trying to restrict Congressional speech. So one would have to be clear about what kind of Santorum was regulated.
*blinks*
Okay. That's it. I'm never taking an internet posting to its logical conclusion again.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!