Respected Conservative columnist Phyllis Schlafly has some action items that she like to see the new crop of Republican senators focus on in 2011. While many of the New Year's resolutions in her recent column focus on actual policy ("Voting shall be on Election Day with photo ID required," "Out-of-pocket medical expenses shall be tax deductible," "We must build an army of atomic super-robots to enslave mankind") there is one item that sticks out:
"There shall be no sale, rental or arcade-playing of extremely violent video games by children without parental consent. Explanation: Video games are increasingly graphic and harmful."
I guess we've solved all the real problems, because Schlafly would rather politicians focus on imaginary violence that happens to cartoon people in fake worlds than deal with actual, complicated issues like governing.
At the risk of being overly analytical and pedantic, the problem with Schlafly's statement is the "harmful" part. Conservative types love to offhandedly point out the harm that video games do to children as if it is self-evident, but in reality, there's no real indication of any actual harm caused by games, violent or otherwise. While there is a ton of research into the effects of video games on all age groups, the results tend to be contradictory, and the effect (if any) of games on anyone isn't really understood. Maybe it can't be understood because it's impossible to separate the influence of playing games (if any) from the countless other activities that make up a normal child's life. Of course little things like facts don't stop Schlafly and her ilk from trying to legislate morality and score easy political points from a mis-informed public.
Ideology aside, enacting laws that keep kids from playing games can't be done. The government could only enforce some parental consent rule by banning the sales or rental of violent video games to kids, which means setting up a government body that judges which games are "extremely violent" and an enforcement arm that punishes people for selling them to minors. That all adds up to censorship, and censorship is unconstitutional, so it's not going to happen.
Please, Phyllis Schlafly and the rest of the politicians and pundits out there on all sides of the political spectrum: Stay out of our games. Stop wasting our time and taxpayer money trying to solve imaginary problems, and go back to trying to repeal health-care or whatever you guys are about, okay?
Source: Town Hall
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mewgirl
...Okay, wait a minute. "It's unconstitutional so it's not going to happen?" ... I'M sorry, have you ever heard of
-drivers licenses (for the general public)
-social security
-"mandatory" car insurance
-"mandatory" health insurance
-income tax
-license plates
-indictment of Julian Assange
-criminal trials that list "STATE" as plaintiff
-drugs being made "illegal"
-The 13th Amendment (which is actually the 14th Amendment)
-The Iraq war
-all the other current "wars"
-Federal Reserve Notes and the restriction of other currencies
-The 2000 presidential election
-"deeds" to a house
-X and R rated movies and related restrictions
-restrictions of religious groups in schools
-The PATRIOT Act
-The TSA
-The Constitution of the United States of America
-etc.
...Since when does Constitutionality have any effect on whether or not something will be made a statute?
Deviknyte
Here is the biggest thing. If you don't want your kid playing violent video games, or seeing violent movies, or reading violent books you need to parent your own kids! Are you too lazy or stupid or cowardly to keep GTA out of your child's XBox? Do you really need the government harassing Gamestop employees to keep Postal from your child's hands? If your kid's friend has a game you don't want your child to play, then don't let him or her go over there. "But what about all the children who will group up to be criminal because of their video games?" Well that's their horrible parents fault and not yours.
Deviknyte
If we are going to make it ILLEGAL to sell violent video games to minors, why not rated R movies too? And after that why not Explicit Lyric albums? And any book with "harmfully violent" content? And then they can control what goes through the internet in case a minor might see it. Where will it end?
Spinoza
For the love of God, keep your political bent out of your articles, it tends to alienate your readers.
For the record, this is not a 'conservative' thing. Tipper Gore did the same crap with the music industry and she was a hardcore liberal.
Jayson619
I guess Phyllis Schlafly can't handle a game of Tetris I suppose.
InHumanMarine
No doubt that people like this voted to support the Iraq-Afghanistan invasion, yet decry violence and boobs on t.v. These lowlifes are worst than campers or console fanboys/girls.
mttmks
The last time I checked one person is not the consensus of the whole.
I am a conservative, but I play video games all the time. I remember playing Mortal Kombat on the SNES with my older cousin when I was 4. I don't ever remember yelling "GET OVER HERE!!" while throwing a spike tied to a rope at someone's throat or ripping out anyone's spine.
I even encourage my younger cousins to play, but I block them from my overabundance of M-rated titles. I only make exceptions for military-based games because they pretend to be soldiers all the time before I hand them a controller. Heck if it weren't for my cousin introducing me to Burnout Revenge, I would have never been able to release the stress that real life traffic gives me.
I think Phyllis needs to think before opening her mouth or moving her fingers. If she really is one that believes in limiting government, she should be including video games as art and let the ratings system that is intact be the limiting factor for customers. Hopefully if any of my conservative representatives and senators really practice what they preach, they should not try to control or censor the video game industry. If they do, then they will have to do it to every other form of entertainment. I see kids reenacting Scarface on Youtube. I have yet to see a kid who is "harmed" by video games.
Now I agree that kids shouldn't be playing M-rated games, but that is and should be left up to the parents and not some corrupt bureaucrat who only cares about abusing what little power he has to make more money. Not to mention government organizations success rates are slim to none anyways.
gamerjes
Harmful? They attack videos games because gaming is the legal question mark.
As it stands, they don't have a chance at censoring books, movies, broadway, or any other media form so they are aiming for the legally weak link. Fact of the matter is they want a way to censor games as a trap door into censoring the other media forms. It is an avalanche effect: "Look how well our censor laws worked on games! Just think what we could do with books!"
Its all closed minded, self serving BS. Sad thing is, politicians wouldn't be on this kind of crap if it didn't work. We have only our selves to blame.
Irockman
It's not conservatives; it's idiots in general. Any "conservative" who undermines civil liberties and tries to increase regulation and extend the government's power isn't a conservative at all. Bush wasn't a conservative, Palin isn't a conservative, John McCain isn't a conservative, and most politicians who are viewed as "conservative" aren't conservative in the smallest sense. There's nothing conservative about expanding government. Real conservatives are libertarians who don't believe in big government regulation, nation building or unnecessary wars... like the men who founded the United States. :]
Besides, it's not just these fake conservatives who think this way. There are a lot of big name democrats who want to regulate video games as well. Hell, Hilary Clinton and several others have *STRONGLY* promoted such regulation. If we get screwed on this, it'll likely come from both mainstream parties, unless, of course, the representatives elected in November are *real* conservatives.
crazyfooinc
Seriously, THIS COUNTRY HAS MUCH WORSE PROBLEMS THAN IMAGINARY VIOLENCE IN VIDEO GAMES. HOW ABOUT THE NATIONAL DEBT? HOUSING MARKET? AUTO INDUSTRY? WTF?!? Looks like we've got some A+ officials over there in Washington *facepalm*
Socrates'sMind
It's sad to see this is what the government wants to waste money on instead of actually doing the job they were elected to do. I don't know maybe get us out of this recession and back on track, fix health care, win the war, etc. I thought this was all behind us with the hearing of oral arguments in the Supreme Court last fall. All these political saps, and overly nutty parental groups just need to sit back and take a chill pill there are more damaging things going on that playing a violent video game. I mean hey we are fighting a war, a drug war, an overtaxed criminal system, and an over taxed health care system its just nuts. Lets solve these problems before we go after the imaginary ones.
Cryptomaster420
as soon as they republicans take the senate we have gotten more damage done to our country aka economically etc. im glad im Demo- "power to the people"!
mpoissant93
You ever read American Psycho or any of Chuck Palahniuk's literature? That stuff will scar kids in a much worse way then any video game could. Mr. Palahnuik's short story Guts made 72 people faint when read aloud. I've yet to hear of any video game doing that (though there has been seizures I believe). But the point I am making is that when you look at literature, there is no sort of censorship nor even any type of rating or warning. Perhaps it's because no kids read books these days but I just think video games is being unfairly discriminated against. I just basically think it's illogical and hypocritical to limit electronic media without first limiting paper media (although I'm not saying we should limit any of those)
Atavax
i am well aware of the reasons the things i listed are censored. My point was that the OP is misinforming the masses by suggesting that this case obviously breaks the constitution and will never pass. If that were the case, there wouldn't of been a supreme court case on it. it is not obvious what the government can do in these cases, and the OP is doing a dis-service to the reader by suggesting it is obvious. Saying "That all adds up to censorship, and censorship is unconstitutional, so it's not going to happen." is completely misinforming the public...
j-k-martin
If you will remember when the first video game rating system was being demanded the last names of the people calling for government censorship were Gore and Lieberman. The law to limit the sale of video games was introduced by a Democrat and was passed by a Democratic legislature. Making this a partisan issue is a losing game plan for those in the gaming community. Small government conservatives like Justice Scalia understand that government regulation is wrong in general and stand up against it. What we have here is a classic case of an older generation not understanding a younger generation s media and art forms. It happens every 25 years and old liberals and conservatives always rush to complain how "rock music is too loud". Don't make it about Republicans if you want to win people to your side.
filchingfeline
filchingfeline's comment is abusive and has been removed.
realJWade
I'm am an adult, a long time gamer, and about to have my first child. I enjoy a good hearty dose of sex and violence in my media, and believe it is my right and the right of the developer's to create and consume such media.
What I don't understand is the uproar from the gaming community every time someone suggests stopping children from buying mature rated games. A fifteen year old can't buy an adult magazine. Retailers can deny the sale of R rated movies to youths. Theaters don't allow those under the age of 17 into R rated movies, unless they are accompanied by their parents. These rules are tools to help parents control the time and manner in which their children consume entertainment perceived as Adult, not some right wing government conspiracy to control the media.
At no point in the article above is it suggested video games are evil, or that violent games should be banned. It's only a matter of time before video games sales to minors are restricted, and I. Don't. Care. Because, as a parent, I can still chose to purchase said game for me child, or deny it, and I should be expected to know my child, and what they are capable of handling, much better than Big Brother. But I won't turn away tools that are designed to help me do my job.
Canid117
Why cant we all just be friends?
mksystem74
I can see why they want to tackle this topic in 2011. I mean when we have a national debt is high, unemployment is so high, we're involved in 3 wars we're losing in, heath care is still terrible, our education system sucks.... Yeah lets make sure violent video games don't reach the hands of the children.
Life79
once again i say there is no difference between the two political branches liberal, conservative = politician one and the same. now how the individual citizen practices the dogma that these politicians preach on the palpit is on the individual, but have no doubt in your mind a politicians sole goal is control and power.
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