Posted on 12/22/2007 9:23:45 AM PST by Sir Gawain
This comes courtesy of HA’s resident IT czar, Mark Jaquith, whose inner libertarian shivers at the prospect of it. Mine too. We’ve been binging on Huck’s nanny statism for weeks now, but with Mitt emerging as the viable alternative it pays to remind ourselves of the lengths to which he’s willing to go to clean up the “cesspool” that is America.
I want to restore values so children are protected from a societal cesspool of filth, pornography, violence, sex, and perversion. I’ve proposed that we enforce our obscenity laws again and that we get serious against those retailers that sell adult video games that are filled with violence and that we go after those retailers.
As Mark says, follow the link and compare his answer to Bill Richardson’s or Obama’s. They want to educate parents, presumably through a ratings system; Mitt wants to start locking people up. Obscenity laws are notoriously fraught with First Amendment problems since it’s hard to write one that doesn’t accidentally (or intentionally) go too far and end up prohibiting forms of protected speech. Because they’re so ripe for abuse, they rarely withstand constitutional challenge and thus the government’s basically given up on using them to prosecute people. Mitt’s promise to social cons is that all that’s going to change, with the obvious goal being to intimidate retailers into not carrying violent games in the first place lest they risk prosecution.
The good news is any law would probably be struck down. And even if it isn’t, this is Mitt we’re talking about. He’ll probably just change his mind later.
MittWitt Alert!
Frank Zappa’s kids endorsed Al Gore as did Viacom-MTV (in coverage if not outright explicit “fall on the knees and give him a Monica” love).
Wonder if MTV will be holding Presidential Balls again in 2009. They “just didn’t have time to prepare one” for either of Bush’s terms.
Someone should tell Mitt that violent video games don’t kill people, violent video game players do....
Really he needs to grow some and take on the teaching of sex ed in our schools. Parents can handle the video games.
I suppose Mitt will also go after gun dealers who sell violent assault rifles. You go Mitt...right on over to the Democratic Party, where you belong.
First he’ll go after retailers selling ultraviolent video games and then what?
Websites that let viewers see the full versions of Islamic snuff videos with jihadis yelling “Allah Akbar” in violation of the theory that Islam is a religion of peace?
Mitt dear ... it’s not about the videos.
It’s ALL about what’s in a person’s heart .... people will ALWAYS find ways to view vile things for entertainment.
what is he talking about? I don’t know a single retailer that sells adult only video games. You can buy them online, but usually from overseas countries.
Is he talking about mature rated games, which are different from adult only games? The largest retail game store will not sell M rated games to anyone without photo id, and that includes merchandise related to the game like t-shirts and the like. If they are caught selling to underage kids, the employee and the store manager are automatically fired.
So it sounds like Mitt doesn’t have a clue on this subject.
So would a Jackie Chan film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle film/cartoon etc.
In England they have forbidden the use of the term “Ninja”.
Meanwhile we have jihadists training on US soil for holy war.
There are bigger things at hand than seeing to it that Road Runner and Coyote cartoons are “adults only”.
I wonder who the Menendez brothers are endorsing.
And that’s the TRUTH!
He’ll SAY and DO ANYTHING to get elected.
Apparently trying to BUY the Presidency isn’t working out so well ... . He's a LIBERAL! He's a PHONY when it comes to Christianity also.
We need to be compassionate towards them. After all, they're orphans.
/
Mitt should look into the American Library Ass.’s position on ratings. They believe that anyone should have complete access to anything in a library collection.
But this doesn’t mean that they support the concept of a family friendly library when it comes to acquititions. That would be censoring content/access.
Rather, the ALA’s position is that if you don’t want the public library loaning out PG-13, R, or NC-17 films to your kids, you should prohibit your kids from taking out any videos from the library. The ALA also will give tips to your kids on how to defeat web blocking schemes and browse “restricted” websites. The ALA also will permit your kids to see Madonna’s “Sex” book or anything in the library’s holdings. If you are old/curious enough to be interested then they believe you have the right to see it.
I never have heard about vice squads taking down librarians who are willing to let a minor have access to Playboy like they would the 7-Eleven clerk. And with people like Jimmy Carter giving interviews to Playboy, there are some libraries that consider there to be content worth preserving in the articles.
LOL. Good one. I remember that travesty of justice. And, some people have the nerve to say we NEED lawyers.
Minors are already prohibited from buying violent video games & movies.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.