All over the country, people like Jack Thompson are trying to take away your right to play violent video games. They don't like that you enjoy oral copulation from prostitutes followed by vicious assault with a baseball bat, and they feel it's their job to legally keep you from it, even if it's in a fictional world.
The trials and tribulations of what has gone on in Louisiana could prove to be a hotbed of legal precedents in dealing with video games in the future, and the long story of this case can be found after the jump.
Last year, Mr. Jack Thompson (read: the bad guy) was the author of a law in Lousiana courts that sought to "criminalize the sale, lease or rental of video or computer games that appeal to a minor's morbid interest in violence". While the Governor of Louisiana (read: kind of an idiot) signed it into law, the ESA (read: the good guys) filed for an injunction against it, saying that the law was both unconstitutional and kinda nutso.
As it turns out, Federal Judge James Brady agrees with the ESA. He found that the idea of a law that criminalizes the sale of items, such as games, even if it is to minors, violates the First Amendment. As you know, the First Amendment is one of our better Amendments and for Mr. Thompson (read: Insane Jackass) to want to go against it, he's going to see a lot of legal opposition from judges, activists, and, of course, Destructoid.
While this takes care of the issue in Louisiana, it doesn't stop such laws from being introduced throughout the country. Of course, this ruling gives defendants a firm legal footing on which to legally call Mr. Thompson (read: white-haired monkey's asshole) a jackass, and that's a step in the right direction.
One must begin to wonder about the root of this problem though. While it's true that people like Jack Thompson (read: I'm out of witty insults, sorry), and Senator Lieberman have made political careers entirely on persecuting gamers, they must actually have supporters, or they wouldn't have the kind of clout that they have. Our culture has been on a downward spiral due to the negligence of parents for quite some time and when adults would rather have our government inact laws, rather than having to discipline their children and teaching them the difference between fantasy and reality, people like Jack (read: This is fucking hard! You wanna try to come up with insults for this douchebag?) will be able to parade around in front of the soccer moms and the grandparents claiming that video games are the new Nazi movement and that Robert Summa (read: NOT the new Joseph Goebbels) is the new Joseph Goebbels.
It's easy to claim that Mr. Thompson (read: Fuck this. Entertain yourselves you lazy bitches.) is a blight on our society, but the real problem starts at home. Educate your family members, your parishioners and that MILF whose skirt you keep trying to look up. They need to know that the problems that video games might be responsible for pale in comparison to letting some rich white guy wipe his ass with our Constitution, and that if we all don't do something, we'll be losing freedoms faster than a naked Arab in Abu Ghraib (read: See? I can do topical humor too!).
Contest:
10:06 PM on 11.30.2006
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...Believe IT!
>> Louisiana got it right.
Wait, are you saying that conservatives don't wish to regulate people's lives? How about gay marriage, drugs, abortion, various other forms of good times among other things. Oh, and i'm forgetting swearing in music and VIOLENCE IN VIDEO GAMES. I don't think i'm liberal or conservative, i'm more critical of both ideologies than supportive of either.
If you sign up to an ideology you have to accept both the pros and cons of that ideology. Both the pride in what it does for the good and shame for what it does for the bad.
(Sorry for bringing conversation down from the highly respectable topic of Video games to the lower than mud topic of politics.)
I'm a lazy evil bastard! Get it right!
Republicrats or Democans, it doesn't matter. If you're in politics, chances are your main goal is to find ways to milk more votes for yourself and your party. That can be through "protecting the children from the evil videogames/sexy tv shows", "making American safe for the God-fearing religious folk", "special projects for my home district that cost taxpayers from all over the country millions" or any other number of ways.
The two terms are pretty self explanatory (liberal government, "too much" government; conservative government, less or cut back government). Both are interchangable with their respective political parties, liberal democrats and conservative republicans. If you guys remember Joe Lieberman's rant way back when, he was a democrat then. He's now an independent, but who cares.
My point is, if I ever get to it, these little incidents of legislature passing that infringes on video games are unconstitutional, which has been said many times and should be said many more. The day a US court fails to throw out such legislature is a dark one. Don't trust the politicians in your states to make the right decision. Usually these are just political posturing, a lot like Bush's pledge for a federal gay marriage ban right before the 2004 election. He energized his base to get out and vote. I honestly don't believe any politician expects these measures to stick. It's not worth getting all bent outta shape over. Plus, by the time our generation is in our 50s, this won't be an issue. The country is getting more and more liberal, and I mean liberal as in anything goes libertarian, not big government liberal.
And yeah, parents need to enforce what their kids buy. The ESRB works.
While I think that government should stay out of (thats what you mean by "small government") personal issues, like the ones that I outlined earlier, I do think there should be more regulation when it comes to businesses and the economy. I don't like the entire neo-liberal (or "Free-Trade", as they called it 100 years ago) "if we stay out of the economy and let it do it's thing, the world will be fine" attitude, it trusts business far too much, and it makes wealth an end rather than a means, which is fantasticly dull (much like this comment).
Point is, most Americans are sensible and are able to discern right from wrong objectively. The extreme liberals and conservatives are the ones who make the news.
I think it was my fault. Sorry, I was drinking and not sleeping.
But yeah, It might just be a trend of conservatives in this country and europe.
Funny how this all started with me merely saying it's a conservative movement that needs to stop. By conservative I mean neo-con "THIS IS BAD FOR THE KIDS" insert-your-label here.
FYI, being a Democrat does not make you a 'liberal', Hillary and Lieberman (who actually went from Democrat to Independent) are the two biggest proponents against video games. And some of those things that liberals want more government control? That's news to me...Please list them, I'm all ears. Last time I checked, they wanted the government out of abortion, out of freedom of speech, out of their "war" on drugs, out of smoking regulation, etc.