Video games are my only issue, you see I take them as indicators of two things:
1. Politicians like to go after anything fun, not just video games. One of the big things about Communist countries is that just about anything fun was outlawed as Western decadence, misery was state mandated and seen as productive. In this country, the Christian Right represents the character of Thomas Gradgrind from Dickens' Hard Times who hated imagination:
Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes: among them
Sissy Jupe.
'Girl number twenty,' said the gentleman, smiling in the calm
strength of knowledge.
Sissy blushed, and stood up.
'So you would carpet your room - or your husband's room, if you
were a grown woman, and had a husband - with representations of
flowers, would you?' said the gentleman. 'Why would you?'
'If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers,' returned the girl.
'And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and
have people walking over them with heavy boots?'
'It wouldn't hurt them, sir. They wouldn't crush and wither, if
you please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very
pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy - '
'Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn't fancy,' cried the gentleman, quite
elated by coming so happily to his point. 'That's it! You are
never to fancy.'
'You are not, Cecilia Jupe,' Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated,
'to do anything of that kind.'
'Fact, fact, fact!' said the gentleman. And 'Fact, fact, fact!'
repeated Thomas Gradgrind.
'You are to be in all things regulated and governed,' said the
gentleman, 'by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of
fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people
to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must discard
the word Fancy altogether. You have nothing to do with it. You
are not to have, in any object of use or ornament, what would be a
contradiction in fact. You don't walk upon flowers in fact; you
cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You don't find
that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your
crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and
butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds
going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented
upon walls. You must use,' said the gentleman, 'for all these
purposes, combinations and modifications (in primary colours) of
mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and
demonstration. This is the new discovery. This is fact. This is
taste.'-- Hard Times, by Charles Dickens
There's no difference between a grim, gray-pajama dictatorship whether the people who run it claim to work for the people or for the Lord. It's still Hell on earth, either way. So, you see, I consider this to be a fight against the forces of evil.
2. The Christian Right has demonstrated, over and over again, that anything which is frivolously entertaining will be hounded and attacked, through legislative means if possible. This, frankly, is social engineering. The same social engineering that Republicans claim only the Left wants to do, as they hypocritically engage in it themselves. Republicans have no problem driving someone out of business if their business doesn't fit into the realm of grim, joyless productivity, and the only way a business can survive this assault is through bribery (protection money!). The reason why Hollywood is not credibly threatened is, of course, because all their bribes are paid up. Of course, these bribes also allow them to engage in social engineering of their own, such as the DMCA.
Now, the Democrats are also social engineers, and more horribly than that, they've caught the Christian Right's "gray-pajama" dictatorship disease (at least the Gore ticket has). But at least they aren't liars, they admit they believe in social engineering..
You people act like the only part of the Bill of Rights anyone ever needs to worry about is the Right to Bear Arms. Well, since I don't own a gun and don't plan to in the near future, that Right is irrelevant to my personal life. Why should I care about such an abstract issue compared to something that is going to have a real, measurable impact on my life? I may never own a gun, but I've bought plenty of games in my 31 years.
Understand, though I am not far away from libertarian Republicans on many issues, I will never vote Republican again in my life, ever. The Republican party is evil as it is currently constituted, and I'll never trust it enough to believe it has changed.
When Henry Hyde proposed a law for the whole country similar to the one in Indiana (except for the fact that it covered more types of media) it was the Democrats in Congress who stood up to them.
The Republican party belongs on History's scrap heap, just like the Whigs.
How about this response for you? You are a piece of reactionary garbage. It is clear from the reading of this ordinance that it will be cost prohibitive for Indianapolis arcades to carry "violent" video games (which are not even clearly defined in the ordinance). Yet, you suggest that the Slashdot editors violated journalistic ethics by posting that this ban was in fact a ban, because they are supposed to swallow the logic of the ordinance "just because you won't legally be able to stock a game and stay in business, doesn't mean its a ban."
I'm glad the Slashdot editors were willing to call this what it is, and you can go to Hell.
I don't think Brin fell for the political act, I think he knows it's a lie and is just cynically perpetuating it in the hopes of swaying a few libertarians.
But then I tend to be cynical when a member of the Big Daddy government group decides to patronize me.
You should though, he's probably dangerous. This time his attempt to propagandize the readership of Slashdot is way off base, as this is an international treaty, but usually it is more subtle. (Not much more subtle, especially if you read his Web site. But usually subtle enough that you don't quite realize the White Supremecist bent of his posts unless you read carefully.)
Besides, the wave of terrorist attacks that hit the country (including Columbine) recently were mostly prompted by White Supremacist rhetoric. I worry about that, because random attacks on non-whites could impact me and my family (my wife is Thai, and I have a cousin whose husband is Korean).
Of course, the best way to handle this would be to say:
1. Yes, there is a problem with our prison system. The fact that rape is a part of the experience is a disgrace.
2. I don't think Catholics, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Atheists or other religions are particularly likely to be spared this particular indignity, despite Baldreson's assertions.
We should clean up our corrupt American government, but it seems to me that it is run by white, protestant males (look at the two presidential candidates.).
The H1-B system is a problem because it prevents full citizenship for visa holders and full participation in the rights of citizenship, not because it allows them into the country.
The prison system is a disgrace, and something ought to be done about it.
I've seen it attributed to Pericles(340 BC), he was an Athenian statesman.
However, you are probably right about the Roman senator, since most Roman senators were classically educated. So, it's possible that a Roman senator once quoted Pericles on this.
I feel guilty for splurging on a new computer or buying that $50 whizbang game. Because that option on a new car, that neato new game, is somebody else electricity bill, somebody else's food on the table, somebody else's health care they can't afford.
Look, this doesn't make any sense to me, and it has nothing to do with being pro-or-anti Welfare State. Somebody had to build that car, somebody had to work in the factory that produced that game (someone had to write the code for it too...). When you buy the car, it's the guys at the auto plant, who worked hard to build the car, whose healthcare, electric bill, and food that is being paid for. These are usually people with families.
If no one bought any new cars (as they didn't in the 70's, when people decided Japanese and German quality were better than American made junk) whole families ended up destitute.
So, I just don't understand the attitude here at all. Most people would rather work at an honest job than accept charity, and it often seems to me that the whole purpose of government personel is to make you feel about two inches tall when you go for their services. (At least charities are mostly staffed by people who believe in what they are doing, not hostile, cynical bureacrats.)
Of course, it wouldn't matter if I wanted a new car or not, I can't afford one right now. But it seems to me that working people are getting shafted at both ends. By corporations, who do whatever it takes to get salaries down, and by rich liberals, who would rather help the work-shy than the guy running a cash register at K-Mart (which I did for a while... no picnic, believe me!)
Ok, so, here we have David Brin's book, turned into a Hollywood movie, proudly displayed on Amazon as having "Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)."
What amazes me is that such a man can make money from a system designed to make sure Jack Valenti can have yet another ivory back scratcher, and yet he can sneer at the inheritence tax that is one of the things responsible for the transfer of property from living people to the undead. By undead, of course, I mean the neither living nor dead corporate persons who represent the real threat to things like social mobility in this country.
You see, when grandpa croaks and leaves the family business to his kids, the business is an asset, not liquid cash. That means, in order to pay off the government, the grandkids have to sell of the business, farm or whatever. Like as not, they'll sell it to OmniGlobalMegaCorp, which is a person which can own things in its own name. Now, what about OmniGlobalMegaCorp? A big company like that must pay a lot of taxes, right?
Hmmm, apparently, not only doesn't OmniGlobalMegaCorp pay inheritance taxes, he/she/it doesn't pay much in taxes at all. No wonder the family farm is going under, to be replaced by FrankenFood, Inc.
As to the Supreme Court, Clinton appointed one good judge (Ruth Bader Ginsberg) and one reactionary (Stephen G. Breyer), as evidenced by the case which redefined Free Expression in this country:
This case firmly established the authority of local government to regulate any speech it finds offensive, as long as it can suggest that the speech will cause the "secondary effects" of a crime. This effectively guts the First Amendment, all that keeps anything from being censored now is massive popular outcry and the whims of lower court judges.
John Paul Stevens, the other pro-First Amendment judge, was appointed by Ford. Souter, who is _sort_ of pro-First Amendment, was appointed by Bush, Sr.
As far as I'm concerned, if a supposed liberal, like Clinton, can appoint one bad judge, then a social reactionary, like Gore can appoint 3. As to abortion, I fully expect that the same reactionaries who allow "reasonable limits" on the First Amendment will allow similar restrictions on any other proposed right, as soon as the right case gets before them.
If you want to change politics in this country, you have to vote for the person you think is the best person for the job. That person is neither of the two major party candidates.
Cycles didn't kill the video game industry...
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(Pre-AOL)Time/Warner and Ray "The Czar" Kassar did:
(See link.)
Re:Didn't "they" say a lot of the same stuff...
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...a few decades ago about comic books? You know, comic books are bad, they are frivolous junk food for the mind, they are bad for the imagination and make kids stupid. Comic books were wildly popular and the "adults" couldn't understand the attraction.
Well, comic books failed to wreck the youth of this country. But they also didn't, in simulated Katz-speak, "usher in a new paradigm of creative interactivity and illustrative expression that trashes all the stale old educational and institutional models." They wound up with their niche in popular culture.
You're thinking of the United States.
In the United States, of course comic books are irrelevant. Almost all culture is irrelevant in the United States, but comic books, in particular, never recovered from the crusade waged against them in the United States in the 1950's.
The situation is considerably different in Asia.
Oh, I'm probably going to hear some American say next, "Oh, I've seen manga, they are just as stupid as American comics... and I wouldn't call porno a big advance." Americans know nothing about the role of comics in Asia or about the kind and variety of comic books they have in Asia, they only see the ones that get imported and translated for the American market. (Which is a very narrow market, kept in its pathetic ghetto.)
In Asia, comics are a vital, vibrant form of entertainment with a great deal of mass appeal. (And this goes beyond just Japan, to places like Thailand, for instance.) In America, they are teenage power fantasies, for the most part. (Heck, computer games have already gone beyond that, remember when Deep Blue beat Kasparov?)
Yeah, I did the same thing when I was working in the Software, Etc. at US Highway North # A, Springfield, NJ 07081 . Of course, this case was different than yours, this was back when the Super Nintendo was the big system, right before Mortal Kombat came out.
Well, anyway, this woman comes into the store with a big chip on her shoulder because her son wants a SNES. This woman's attitude was pure hostility, she said, "I don't want any of this violent garbage," and pointed to a copy of Sonic Blast Man which had apparently offended her eye. (I wouldn't have categorized that one as particularly violent... but then, who knows what is violent under the "offended mom" standard?)
Basically, she was upset because she believed all video games were evil, but her son was feeling peer pressure to get a console. Well, I knew what I had to do. "I guess your son wants one of those Mario games huh?" She agreed with me. I cheered up, "Well, you don't need a Super Nintendo for that! Do you have a computer?" She said yes, and I sold her a copy of Mario Teaches Typing for her PC.
I was sooo happy to get this woman out of the store without a SNES. You see, I got that if someone like this had bought a console for her son, pretty soon we'd see nasty letters to the editor about how Sonic Blast Man was corrupting our youth, soon followed by government action.
I really could care less if underaged kids with overprotective parents get to play video games. My problem is when the content of video games I like to play gets censored because of these same parents.
For example, I can go to one of Tampa's many gun shops and buy an actual, honest to goodness handgun. However, when the Dreamcast came out, you could not get the actual plastic gun for House of the Dead II with it... and of course HotD II would, I imagine, suck with a joystick (I wouldn't know, not owning a Dreamcast. HotD one, for my PC, seems to work OK with a mouse.
Of course, House of the Dead will be targetted, but Soldier of Fortune is protected, even though it is the more "violent" of the two. Why? Because it is a PC game rather than an arcade cabinet, and because it uses a mouse instead of a light gun.
Oh, it goes without saying that none of the school shooters were big HoTD fans, people don't normally get into that game as much as Quake.
This censorship is entirely arbitrary, and it's having an effect.
At various times, filters have blocked sites that cater to gays and lesbians as well as conservative sites that contain language hostile to homosexuals.
I imagine that that is what the leader of America, Donald Wildmon is upset about.
The article doesn't say one thing about game cartridges, it is referring to video arcades which have to remove cabinets to comply with this sick new ordinance.
So, were you born stupid or did you just get hit in the head alot?
I mean, you have to have the IQ of a slug to call people names for not reading an article you haven't read yourself.
The main point I want to reiterate here is that one arcade owner was talking about removing Tekken(Tekken for God's sake!!!) and Area 51 from his arcade. My guess is his arcade was probably too small to comply with the 10 foot rule required by the ordinance, and that meant he couldn't keep these games in the arcade. This is the same dodge that the Christian Right is using when they target strip clubs with distance requirements, and clearly comes from the same source. If the club is too small to keep people 6 feet away from the dancers, well, then it has to close. Even if it is big enough, it takes a hit from the smaller seating capacity in the club. (After all, six feet around the stage has to be empty space.)
The goal of all this crap is to make it too inconvenient to keep these games available in the arcade. It's got nothing to do with "having parents present," its a law designed to harrass arcades out of business.
Here's the thing, if I were to get my creaky, 31 year old body into an arcade in Indianapolis, chances are I'm not going to be able to play House of the Dead or Tekken. It's got nothing to do with me not being old enough, it has to do with the arcade owner being unable to keep those games in stock and still comply with the ordinance.
Of course, these kind of attacks are not just going against video games, check out banned books week at your local library some time. Or look at the fact that getting Harry Potter books out of the libraryalso now requires parental permission in this country.
This stuff isn't about "protecting children" or "empowering parents." It's part of the Culture War, which is about destroying any part of American culture which is not right-wing religious lunatic-compliant.
The main problem I find with most of the intelligent people arguing against this ban is that they seem to be under the impression that the American Bill of Rights still means something or that the courts are going to protect their rights. How many Bible Bangers do you think you can appoint to the courts without it starting to effect case law? There is no First Amendment for all practical purposes, and the Bill of Rights is about as useful to you as the rights guaranteed in the Soviet Constitution were to its citizens.
The First Amendment, which has been on the decline since the 70's, was finally dealt its coupe de gras with the recent Supreme Court decision City of Erie v. PAP's A.M.. Basically, this case affirms a doctrine proposed by the court in a previous case, called "secondary effects." The Secondary Effects doctrine basically states that the First Amendment no longer applies if it can cause the "secondary effect" of a crime. The court, in making this ruling also stated that no proof is necessary, the authorities merely need to assert this. Of course, all speech that anyone has ever wanted to restrict has been said to be leading to "moral decay," crime, and other negative effects. So, it's open season on the First Amendment, and a significant number of the poster's to Slashdot today seem to think that this is a good thing.
(Causing me to come up with my own, "Slashdot sucks on weekends" doctrine.;-)
The practical upshot of this is that only a massive public outcry will prevent anything from being censored in this country. Of course, except for a few really brutal dictatorships this is the rule throughout the world anyway, there's nothing particularly special about America on this. (I'm still going to have to hear, ad nauseum, what an incredibly free country America is of course. American hypocrits love to pretend they live in a free country while restricting everyone according to absurd, intrusive rules. If you dare speak the truth, that there are many places in the world to live that are more pleasant and more free than the US, you get shouted down by these people.) It also provides a massive opening for Organized Crime, which I hope they will take advantage of. "Speakeasy" arcades could be a source of easy money, and they don't have the traditional distastefulness of dealing heroin. I mean there is money to be made here, look at what's happening in Indianapolis:
Some video vendors, like Jayson Kreie, do mind. "We recently took Area 51 and Tekken out." Executive Billiards, which also carries arcade games, replaced two of its biggest sellers thanks to the new ordinance. Kreie says, "We're taking a hell of a hit. That's 60% of our profits right there that we're losing per week on that."--MSNBC: City pulling plug on video games
When legitimate businessmen are driven out of business by prohibition, that's the time when the underworld should move in. If La Costa Nostra needs a business model, just look at the People's Republic of China, where video gaming parlors are banned... but enough of a payoff to the party leaders and they'll look the other way.
Of course, it isn't just video games that are being targetted, look at Louisiana, where a skating rink playing that eeevil Rock and Roll was targetted:
In a letter allegedly written by the sheriff to area pastors and entered into evidence yesterday, Hebert warned that music played at the Skate Zone was contributing to juvenile delinquency.
"The music that is being played in this establishment is not what we in this community want our children to be hearing," the sheriff wrote. "This music is demeaning toward women, includes racial slurs, strong vulgar language and lyrics with anti-law messages.
Of course, soon it will be too much of a headache to allow your business to have any appeal for teenagers (you know, 16 - 18 year olds). I suggest that all the arcades in Indianapolis restrict minors altogether, until the law is repealed, including the laundromats. If you aren't 18+, you can't come in. I do that before I'd allow the government to come in and tell me which games I could stock and which I couldn't. It would take a lot of courage to do this though, and I doubt that the arcade owner's will be able to take the hit they'd be required to take if they opposed this disgusting law in this way.
After a while, of course, I'm sure that the good city council of Indianapolis would pass a new law requiring arcades to serve minors. Remember, this is about banning video games (getting votes from the Bible bangers who want them banned), not about protecting minors.
If you are voting age, and you think this sucks as much as this 31 year old does, I suggest you express yourself by voting. (Libertarians won't stand for this garbage, voting Democrat is like playing Russian roulette, and voting Republican is like playing Russian roulette with six bullets.) If you are still a teenager, and can't vote, I suggest you try your local library while the forces of ignorance are trying to turn you into the Junior Fascist Brigade. Ayn Rand, Robert A. Heinlein, George Orwell, and Ray Bradbury are a good place to start. (Though, of course, you may not be able to find any of their books in an Indiana library.)
Fight, don't be sheep like the generation proceeding you turned out to be. There are some really awful people that are trying to return the US to the age of The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible, but they haven't succeeded, yet.
When I read this, it at least makes me think he has managed to get himself informed on some of the issues.
And what can we expect from Mr. Gore on the issue of intellectual property rights? Right now the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is pushing as hard as it can for the public to accept patents on business methods.
We have patents on methods of Internet auctions, patents on one-click shopping, patents on methods of picking stocks, patents on methods of avoiding taxes on credit card transactions, patents on methods of political campaigning on the Internet, and even patents on Internet Web standards.
Mastercard has foolishly sued me, claiming their trademark rights can stop my use of parody in political ads, including using the word "priceless" itself.
There are lawsuits over hypertext links in Web pages. The Girl Scouts are told to pay royalties on campfire songs. Trade-secret laws are now a federal criminal offense. Students have been thrown in jail for refusing to turn patents over to giant corporations who fund university facilities.
I am opposed to patents on software, and opposed to patents on business methods. I believe that parody should be protected in copyright and trademark, that copyright enforcement should not override privacy rights, and that use of patents, trademarks and copyrights should be limited by fair use, and when necessary, compulsory licenses.
The public domain should be protected, and public figures need to speak out against the ever-escalated march of corporate lobbying for expanding intellectual property rights. -- Nader on IP
I know he's not great on a lot of other issues, but America could (and indeed will) do a lot worse.
At least he reasons, as opposed to jabbering emotionally loaded nonsense at us.
Of course, to me, all that stuff is Big Government stepping all over people, and I'm sure to Nader its Big Corporations controlling the government. Still, at least he's thinking.
This doesn't mean I plan on voting for him or otherwise endorsing him, but it is nice to read something coherent and rational.
Anyone who studies the Founding Fathers, even casually, notices something paradoxical about them: The men and women who created our country were, in many ways -- or so it seems, from the vantage point of 1999 - simultaneously radical libertarians and the staunchest kind of traditionalists. Consider:
- The same society that based its entire case for Independence on individual liberty placed the severest penalties on what today goes under the banner of sexual freedom and choice.
- The same government that gave us the First Amendment felt no compunction about censoring lascivious and libelous speech.
- The same leaders who fought to separate church and state went out of their way to lead public prayers, provide for permanent chaplains out of the treasury, and subsidize religious missions to the Indian tribes. Indeed, a recent Library of Congress exhibit on faith in the Capitol building showed that the House and Senate chambers have, from the earliest days, been places of prayer as well as of lawmaking.
The Republicans are not a party that believes in freedom.
Ok, now, if you tell me that groups like the American Family Association don't actually want to censor the actual Internet, you are lying.
I'll admit, George Bush might not want to censor the Internet (it's tough to tell what his real positions and what his "look I'm a good Christian censorship fanatic" positions are), but you conservatives shouldn't keep lying about your positions. You don't believe in Liberty in general or the First Amendment in particular.
A George Bush presidency, provided the congress doesn't change, means Dick Armey, House majority leader, will be free to enact legislation. What is Armey's position on this issue?
Henry Hyde actually tried to pass legislation on this issue right after the Columbine.
Basically, the only reason Republicans claim to be for freedom, is so they can continue to fool small 'l' libertarians into voting for them. But the only real Libertarian position they are solid on is the Second Amendment, they'd like to see an end to the rest of the Constitution.
Thanks, but no thanks. I'll be "wasting my vote" and voting against the Two Party Tyranny system.
My parents will be heartbroken, they're Republicans and have been active in politics. Don't you remember Orrin Hatch on TV banging a copy of Quake and saying how eeevil it was, right after Columbine? All they do is try to scare me, "you don't want Lieberman to get in, do you? That would be even worse" because they know they can't defend the Republican party on this issue. What's the difference between the two parties on this issue?
At least be honest about the tyranny the Republican party wants to inflict on the American people. You'll still get fascists, people living in fantasy land, and idiots to vote for your candidate. They seem to make up a significant portion of the electorate. Leave people who legitimately believe in freedom alone.
As an American, though, you'll have to either have a stealth mod chip (an ordinary mod chip won't do) or Bleem! (it's slightly buggy in Bleem!, the music doesn't quite match up with the onscreen action.
Basically, $ony has come to the conclusion that all American releases should be in crap-polygon format, and they mostly suppress sprite based side scrollers that come out in Japan.
A victory for region based censorship.
I hate $ony.
I had a rant about this up on my site, but I have since decided I need to mellow my position. I mean, I really like some polygon based games, I just get mad when the sprite based games are suppressed.
I've known a lot of very intelligent people who were incredibly violent, a lot of very intelligent people who were so hidebound and conservative they thought the internet should be banned for its violence, and a lot of very intelligent people who really should have been stood up against a wall and shot a long time ago for being such assholes.(emphasis mine) from his post, Re:Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Sorry, but when I saw this post, it proved my point so well that I had to add it for people who thought I was exagerating. Remember, this is the guy who thinks your kid's need to be protected from video game violence. If you don't like it, well, I guess you know what his "final solution" is now.
Thanks for making the point about the people who are opposed to Freedom and the Bill of Rights in this country far more eloquently than I ever could.
The words of one angry, psychopathic fascist who supports the current system makes my point for me far better than I ever could with mere rational argument.
Those of you who don't think our political system is in trouble, read the parent post. It is these grim, humorlous fanatics that you have to fear. Imagine what a person like this could do if he had access to troops, or to a paramilitary organization.
I note that in none of my posts did I ever mention children, the excuse that politicians use to flog this issue.
Well, the real problem is that people keep acting like these two politicians see a problem for which there is a solution. The two tickets are defining the problem as school violence and the solution as the gradual end of the First Amendment.
However, the actual truth of the matter is that these politicians do not see a problem in search of a solution. They see opportunities.
The first is to get the "soccer mom's." The soccer mom's don't like those video games, but buy them for their kids when the kids whine. They don't really believe that they are going to turn their kids into killers, they just think theses games are "icky." (And they think that that kid up the street, with the permissive freethinking parents needs more restrictions. If his parents won't do it, then by Gum, the government will have to.)
The second is to get the grumpy old people's vote. These people don't like teenagers, period, and anything that makes the kids miserable is fine by them. "Lousy longhaired kids, they think they're so smart. Well, when I was a kid they had a shortage of rubber, and I had crummy toys. Why should those punks have it better than me."
The third are the Religious Right. These people vote reliably, but their mentality resembles that of Carry's Mom in the movie Carry. In other words they're nuts, but the politicians want their votes.
The movie and TV industry would probably like to duck for cover, "Get those video games, they're to blame." Besides, if the kids can't play video games, they might sell a few more tickets to Scream XXIV.
Politicians also like power, and the ability to wipe their feet on the US Constitution. This gives them a chance to further suppress the First Amendment. Heck, it might just be video games, but it's a start!
So, politicians will always want to keep this issue around. It's not something the vide game industry could fix by self-censoring, politicians will always want to flog this issue, and they'll always find an excuse to do it.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a lot of good work out there, but it is a pretty small sub-culture.
1. Politicians like to go after anything fun, not just video games. One of the big things about Communist countries is that just about anything fun was outlawed as Western decadence, misery was state mandated and seen as productive. In this country, the Christian Right represents the character of Thomas Gradgrind from Dickens' Hard Times who hated imagination:
There's no difference between a grim, gray-pajama dictatorship whether the people who run it claim to work for the people or for the Lord. It's still Hell on earth, either way. So, you see, I consider this to be a fight against the forces of evil.2. The Christian Right has demonstrated, over and over again, that anything which is frivolously entertaining will be hounded and attacked, through legislative means if possible. This, frankly, is social engineering. The same social engineering that Republicans claim only the Left wants to do, as they hypocritically engage in it themselves. Republicans have no problem driving someone out of business if their business doesn't fit into the realm of grim, joyless productivity, and the only way a business can survive this assault is through bribery (protection money!). The reason why Hollywood is not credibly threatened is, of course, because all their bribes are paid up. Of course, these bribes also allow them to engage in social engineering of their own, such as the DMCA.
Now, the Democrats are also social engineers, and more horribly than that, they've caught the Christian Right's "gray-pajama" dictatorship disease (at least the Gore ticket has). But at least they aren't liars, they admit they believe in social engineering..
You people act like the only part of the Bill of Rights anyone ever needs to worry about is the Right to Bear Arms. Well, since I don't own a gun and don't plan to in the near future, that Right is irrelevant to my personal life. Why should I care about such an abstract issue compared to something that is going to have a real, measurable impact on my life? I may never own a gun, but I've bought plenty of games in my 31 years.
Understand, though I am not far away from libertarian Republicans on many issues, I will never vote Republican again in my life, ever. The Republican party is evil as it is currently constituted, and I'll never trust it enough to believe it has changed.
When Henry Hyde proposed a law for the whole country similar to the one in Indiana (except for the fact that it covered more types of media) it was the Democrats in Congress who stood up to them.
The Republican party belongs on History's scrap heap, just like the Whigs.
I'm glad the Slashdot editors were willing to call this what it is, and you can go to Hell.
And where's that parasite from?
Indiana, of course! That state should be forcibly expelled from the Union:
I don't think Brin fell for the political act, I think he knows it's a lie and is just cynically perpetuating it in the hopes of swaying a few libertarians.
But then I tend to be cynical when a member of the Big Daddy government group decides to patronize me.
Besides, the wave of terrorist attacks that hit the country (including Columbine) recently were mostly prompted by White Supremacist rhetoric. I worry about that, because random attacks on non-whites could impact me and my family (my wife is Thai, and I have a cousin whose husband is Korean).
Of course, the best way to handle this would be to say:
1. Yes, there is a problem with our prison system. The fact that rape is a part of the experience is a disgrace.
2. I don't think Catholics, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Atheists or other religions are particularly likely to be spared this particular indignity, despite Baldreson's assertions.
We should clean up our corrupt American government, but it seems to me that it is run by white, protestant males (look at the two presidential candidates.).
The H1-B system is a problem because it prevents full citizenship for visa holders and full participation in the rights of citizenship, not because it allows them into the country.
The prison system is a disgrace, and something ought to be done about it.
However, you are probably right about the Roman senator, since most Roman senators were classically educated. So, it's possible that a Roman senator once quoted Pericles on this.
If no one bought any new cars (as they didn't in the 70's, when people decided Japanese and German quality were better than American made junk) whole families ended up destitute.
So, I just don't understand the attitude here at all. Most people would rather work at an honest job than accept charity, and it often seems to me that the whole purpose of government personel is to make you feel about two inches tall when you go for their services. (At least charities are mostly staffed by people who believe in what they are doing, not hostile, cynical bureacrats.)
Of course, it wouldn't matter if I wanted a new car or not, I can't afford one right now. But it seems to me that working people are getting shafted at both ends. By corporations, who do whatever it takes to get salaries down, and by rich liberals, who would rather help the work-shy than the guy running a cash register at K-Mart (which I did for a while... no picnic, believe me!)
The Postman(on DVD)
Ok, so, here we have David Brin's book, turned into a Hollywood movie, proudly displayed on Amazon as having "Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)."
What amazes me is that such a man can make money from a system designed to make sure Jack Valenti can have yet another ivory back scratcher, and yet he can sneer at the inheritence tax that is one of the things responsible for the transfer of property from living people to the undead. By undead, of course, I mean the neither living nor dead corporate persons who represent the real threat to things like social mobility in this country.
You see, when grandpa croaks and leaves the family business to his kids, the business is an asset, not liquid cash. That means, in order to pay off the government, the grandkids have to sell of the business, farm or whatever. Like as not, they'll sell it to OmniGlobalMegaCorp, which is a person which can own things in its own name. Now, what about OmniGlobalMegaCorp? A big company like that must pay a lot of taxes, right?
IT giants who don't pay tax part 2: how Microsoft does it
Hmmm, apparently, not only doesn't OmniGlobalMegaCorp pay inheritance taxes, he/she/it doesn't pay much in taxes at all. No wonder the family farm is going under, to be replaced by FrankenFood, Inc.
As to the Supreme Court, Clinton appointed one good judge (Ruth Bader Ginsberg) and one reactionary (Stephen G. Breyer), as evidenced by the case which redefined Free Expression in this country:
High court upholds limits on nude dancing
This case firmly established the authority of local government to regulate any speech it finds offensive, as long as it can suggest that the speech will cause the "secondary effects" of a crime. This effectively guts the First Amendment, all that keeps anything from being censored now is massive popular outcry and the whims of lower court judges.
John Paul Stevens, the other pro-First Amendment judge, was appointed by Ford. Souter, who is _sort_ of pro-First Amendment, was appointed by Bush, Sr.
As far as I'm concerned, if a supposed liberal, like Clinton, can appoint one bad judge, then a social reactionary, like Gore can appoint 3. As to abortion, I fully expect that the same reactionaries who allow "reasonable limits" on the First Amendment will allow similar restrictions on any other proposed right, as soon as the right case gets before them.
If you want to change politics in this country, you have to vote for the person you think is the best person for the job. That person is neither of the two major party candidates.
In the United States, of course comic books are irrelevant. Almost all culture is irrelevant in the United States, but comic books, in particular, never recovered from the crusade waged against them in the United States in the 1950's.
The situation is considerably different in Asia.
Oh, I'm probably going to hear some American say next, "Oh, I've seen manga, they are just as stupid as American comics... and I wouldn't call porno a big advance." Americans know nothing about the role of comics in Asia or about the kind and variety of comic books they have in Asia, they only see the ones that get imported and translated for the American market. (Which is a very narrow market, kept in its pathetic ghetto.)
In Asia, comics are a vital, vibrant form of entertainment with a great deal of mass appeal. (And this goes beyond just Japan, to places like Thailand, for instance.) In America, they are teenage power fantasies, for the most part. (Heck, computer games have already gone beyond that, remember when Deep Blue beat Kasparov?)
Well, anyway, this woman comes into the store with a big chip on her shoulder because her son wants a SNES. This woman's attitude was pure hostility, she said, "I don't want any of this violent garbage," and pointed to a copy of Sonic Blast Man which had apparently offended her eye. (I wouldn't have categorized that one as particularly violent... but then, who knows what is violent under the "offended mom" standard?)
Basically, she was upset because she believed all video games were evil, but her son was feeling peer pressure to get a console. Well, I knew what I had to do. "I guess your son wants one of those Mario games huh?" She agreed with me. I cheered up, "Well, you don't need a Super Nintendo for that! Do you have a computer?" She said yes, and I sold her a copy of Mario Teaches Typing for her PC.
I was sooo happy to get this woman out of the store without a SNES. You see, I got that if someone like this had bought a console for her son, pretty soon we'd see nasty letters to the editor about how Sonic Blast Man was corrupting our youth, soon followed by government action.
I really could care less if underaged kids with overprotective parents get to play video games. My problem is when the content of video games I like to play gets censored because of these same parents.
For example, I can go to one of Tampa's many gun shops and buy an actual, honest to goodness handgun. However, when the Dreamcast came out, you could not get the actual plastic gun for House of the Dead II with it... and of course HotD II would, I imagine, suck with a joystick (I wouldn't know, not owning a Dreamcast. HotD one, for my PC, seems to work OK with a mouse.
Of course, House of the Dead will be targetted, but Soldier of Fortune is protected, even though it is the more "violent" of the two. Why? Because it is a PC game rather than an arcade cabinet, and because it uses a mouse instead of a light gun.
Oh, it goes without saying that none of the school shooters were big HoTD fans, people don't normally get into that game as much as Quake. This censorship is entirely arbitrary, and it's having an effect.
Roo the day
Don't say I never did anything for you. ^_-
The article doesn't say one thing about game cartridges, it is referring to video arcades which have to remove cabinets to comply with this sick new ordinance.
So, were you born stupid or did you just get hit in the head alot?
I mean, you have to have the IQ of a slug to call people names for not reading an article you haven't read yourself.
What First Amendment?
The main point I want to reiterate here is that one arcade owner was talking about removing Tekken(Tekken for God's sake!!!) and Area 51 from his arcade. My guess is his arcade was probably too small to comply with the 10 foot rule required by the ordinance, and that meant he couldn't keep these games in the arcade. This is the same dodge that the Christian Right is using when they target strip clubs with distance requirements, and clearly comes from the same source. If the club is too small to keep people 6 feet away from the dancers, well, then it has to close. Even if it is big enough, it takes a hit from the smaller seating capacity in the club. (After all, six feet around the stage has to be empty space.)
The goal of all this crap is to make it too inconvenient to keep these games available in the arcade. It's got nothing to do with "having parents present," its a law designed to harrass arcades out of business.
Here's the thing, if I were to get my creaky, 31 year old body into an arcade in Indianapolis, chances are I'm not going to be able to play House of the Dead or Tekken. It's got nothing to do with me not being old enough, it has to do with the arcade owner being unable to keep those games in stock and still comply with the ordinance.
Of course, these kind of attacks are not just going against video games, check out banned books week at your local library some time. Or look at the fact that getting Harry Potter books out of the library also now requires parental permission in this country.
This stuff isn't about "protecting children" or "empowering parents." It's part of the Culture War, which is about destroying any part of American culture which is not right-wing religious lunatic-compliant.
The First Amendment, which has been on the decline since the 70's, was finally dealt its coupe de gras with the recent Supreme Court decision City of Erie v. PAP's A.M.. Basically, this case affirms a doctrine proposed by the court in a previous case, called "secondary effects." The Secondary Effects doctrine basically states that the First Amendment no longer applies if it can cause the "secondary effect" of a crime. The court, in making this ruling also stated that no proof is necessary, the authorities merely need to assert this. Of course, all speech that anyone has ever wanted to restrict has been said to be leading to "moral decay," crime, and other negative effects. So, it's open season on the First Amendment, and a significant number of the poster's to Slashdot today seem to think that this is a good thing.
(Causing me to come up with my own, "Slashdot sucks on weekends" doctrine.;-)
The practical upshot of this is that only a massive public outcry will prevent anything from being censored in this country. Of course, except for a few really brutal dictatorships this is the rule throughout the world anyway, there's nothing particularly special about America on this. (I'm still going to have to hear, ad nauseum, what an incredibly free country America is of course. American hypocrits love to pretend they live in a free country while restricting everyone according to absurd, intrusive rules. If you dare speak the truth, that there are many places in the world to live that are more pleasant and more free than the US, you get shouted down by these people.) It also provides a massive opening for Organized Crime, which I hope they will take advantage of. "Speakeasy" arcades could be a source of easy money, and they don't have the traditional distastefulness of dealing heroin. I mean there is money to be made here, look at what's happening in Indianapolis:
When legitimate businessmen are driven out of business by prohibition, that's the time when the underworld should move in. If La Costa Nostra needs a business model, just look at the People's Republic of China, where video gaming parlors are banned... but enough of a payoff to the party leaders and they'll look the other way.Of course, it isn't just video games that are being targetted, look at Louisiana, where a skating rink playing that eeevil Rock and Roll was targetted:
Of course, a court said that the rink owner couldn't be arrested again for the crime of playing music: Federal judge orders Louisiana sheriff to return confiscated musicOf course, soon it will be too much of a headache to allow your business to have any appeal for teenagers (you know, 16 - 18 year olds). I suggest that all the arcades in Indianapolis restrict minors altogether, until the law is repealed, including the laundromats. If you aren't 18+, you can't come in. I do that before I'd allow the government to come in and tell me which games I could stock and which I couldn't. It would take a lot of courage to do this though, and I doubt that the arcade owner's will be able to take the hit they'd be required to take if they opposed this disgusting law in this way.
After a while, of course, I'm sure that the good city council of Indianapolis would pass a new law requiring arcades to serve minors. Remember, this is about banning video games (getting votes from the Bible bangers who want them banned), not about protecting minors.
If you are voting age, and you think this sucks as much as this 31 year old does, I suggest you express yourself by voting. (Libertarians won't stand for this garbage, voting Democrat is like playing Russian roulette, and voting Republican is like playing Russian roulette with six bullets.) If you are still a teenager, and can't vote, I suggest you try your local library while the forces of ignorance are trying to turn you into the Junior Fascist Brigade. Ayn Rand, Robert A. Heinlein, George Orwell, and Ray Bradbury are a good place to start. (Though, of course, you may not be able to find any of their books in an Indiana library.)
Fight, don't be sheep like the generation proceeding you turned out to be. There are some really awful people that are trying to return the US to the age of The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible, but they haven't succeeded, yet.
Stuff Nader said about some of the patent issues that have been discussed on Slashdot.
When I read this, it at least makes me think he has managed to get himself informed on some of the issues.
I know he's not great on a lot of other issues, but America could (and indeed will) do a lot worse.At least he reasons, as opposed to jabbering emotionally loaded nonsense at us.
Of course, to me, all that stuff is Big Government stepping all over people, and I'm sure to Nader its Big Corporations controlling the government. Still, at least he's thinking.
This doesn't mean I plan on voting for him or otherwise endorsing him, but it is nice to read something coherent and rational.
I'll admit, George Bush might not want to censor the Internet (it's tough to tell what his real positions and what his "look I'm a good Christian censorship fanatic" positions are), but you conservatives shouldn't keep lying about your positions. You don't believe in Liberty in general or the First Amendment in particular.
A George Bush presidency, provided the congress doesn't change, means Dick Armey, House majority leader, will be free to enact legislation. What is Armey's position on this issue?
Armey's Reflection on Values in Our Society
Henry Hyde actually tried to pass legislation on this issue right after the Columbine.
Basically, the only reason Republicans claim to be for freedom, is so they can continue to fool small 'l' libertarians into voting for them. But the only real Libertarian position they are solid on is the Second Amendment, they'd like to see an end to the rest of the Constitution.
Thanks, but no thanks. I'll be "wasting my vote" and voting against the Two Party Tyranny system.
My parents will be heartbroken, they're Republicans and have been active in politics. Don't you remember Orrin Hatch on TV banging a copy of Quake and saying how eeevil it was, right after Columbine? All they do is try to scare me, "you don't want Lieberman to get in, do you? That would be even worse" because they know they can't defend the Republican party on this issue. What's the difference between the two parties on this issue?
At least be honest about the tyranny the Republican party wants to inflict on the American people. You'll still get fascists, people living in fantasy land, and idiots to vote for your candidate. They seem to make up a significant portion of the electorate. Leave people who legitimately believe in freedom alone.
As an American, though, you'll have to either have a stealth mod chip (an ordinary mod chip won't do) or Bleem! (it's slightly buggy in Bleem!, the music doesn't quite match up with the onscreen action.
Basically, $ony has come to the conclusion that all American releases should be in crap-polygon format, and they mostly suppress sprite based side scrollers that come out in Japan.
A victory for region based censorship.
I hate $ony.
I had a rant about this up on my site, but I have since decided I need to mellow my position. I mean, I really like some polygon based games, I just get mad when the sprite based games are suppressed.
The words of one angry, psychopathic fascist who supports the current system makes my point for me far better than I ever could with mere rational argument.
Those of you who don't think our political system is in trouble, read the parent post. It is these grim, humorlous fanatics that you have to fear. Imagine what a person like this could do if he had access to troops, or to a paramilitary organization.
I note that in none of my posts did I ever mention children, the excuse that politicians use to flog this issue.
However, the actual truth of the matter is that these politicians do not see a problem in search of a solution. They see opportunities.
The first is to get the "soccer mom's." The soccer mom's don't like those video games, but buy them for their kids when the kids whine. They don't really believe that they are going to turn their kids into killers, they just think theses games are "icky." (And they think that that kid up the street, with the permissive freethinking parents needs more restrictions. If his parents won't do it, then by Gum, the government will have to.)
The second is to get the grumpy old people's vote. These people don't like teenagers, period, and anything that makes the kids miserable is fine by them. "Lousy longhaired kids, they think they're so smart. Well, when I was a kid they had a shortage of rubber, and I had crummy toys. Why should those punks have it better than me."
The third are the Religious Right. These people vote reliably, but their mentality resembles that of Carry's Mom in the movie Carry. In other words they're nuts, but the politicians want their votes.
The movie and TV industry would probably like to duck for cover, "Get those video games, they're to blame." Besides, if the kids can't play video games, they might sell a few more tickets to Scream XXIV.
Politicians also like power, and the ability to wipe their feet on the US Constitution. This gives them a chance to further suppress the First Amendment. Heck, it might just be video games, but it's a start!
So, politicians will always want to keep this issue around. It's not something the vide game industry could fix by self-censoring, politicians will always want to flog this issue, and they'll always find an excuse to do it.