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.
No kidding. Violent video games kill no more people than music with "offensive" lyrics.
Perhaps Romney is taking money from the video game industry. There is no quicker way to get publicity for a game than to start rumblings about banning it.
Based on the idiots Mitt put on the court in Massachusetts would there be ANY difference? And unfortunately my statement is not even remotely an exaggeration.
Mitt is screwing the pooch on this one. Jailing folks for game playing is not defending the constitution.
excellent point!
“Enforce Our Nation’s Obscenity Laws.”
“To protect our children, Governor Romney will require the Department of Justice to enforce our existing federal obscenity laws. Even though the interstate trafficking of obscenity is illegal, federal obscenity laws have not been adequately enforced.”
http://www.mittromney.com/Issues/american-culture
He just lost the college-age vote.
In the video game world, there are various types of games that are rated “Mature.” My 16-year-old son explains them to me and shows me reviews, and if there is only violence that makes “sense” in a War Games kind of way, I allow him to purchase those games. Like the Halo games. I have watched him play them and have even occasionally let my younger son have a turn. I understand the character of my teen and he is not glued to these games, or violent and surly the rest of the time. He even loves to “hack” the games to find out how they are developed, and like many bright 16-year-olds he would love to be a part of the gaming industry one day.
He and his older, voter-age, gaming compatriots are VERY MILITANT against ANY candidate who wants to make video games with violence in them harder to purchase or use. They get on bandwagons faster than we do against Hillary. This is no joke.
We are expected to obey laws, the state enforces laws. Enforcement is expensive and if laws are ignored in general, enforcement is next to impossible.
Yours is my vote for Post of the Day!
Here’s an excerpt written by Newt Gingrich re the McCain-Feingold-Thompson legislation:
“The McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law enacted in 2002 is an equally dangerous modern-day assault on the First Amendment. It could more accurately be called the McCain-Feingold censorship law because it stifles political speech, protects incumbent politicians and consolidates power in Washington. This law is of the Congress, by the Congress, and for the Congress, because it protects members of Congress by silencing opposing points of view.”
Another great move by Mitt!!!!! (/sarcasm)
I will definitely vote against this clown. I still remember him trying to out liberal Ted Kennedy in 1994.
“Just what we F**king Need!”
Another devoted Fred supporter speaks their mind! I am really inspired by your devotion!!!!!
This is a security issue because being so morally depraved makes us more vulnerable. Really violent games are very detrimental to the spirtual well being of our country. I think this is more important then trying to reform education, because issues like these are at the root of children not being motivated to learn. I think No Child Left Behind is a lousy idea because it doesn’t get at the root of the problem. I am not saying this is the only root, but it is one of the roots. I respect Mitt for his vision and I am sure this comes from being a life-long family man with strong spirtual roots. You can degrade him if you want to, but it won’t change the way I see it.
I’m not a Romney supporter by any means... but...
Look folks, we see all manor of violence and way too much sex delivered to young children. We see their innocense stolen through enticement. What the result of that is, we have no way of fully knowing, but we see evidence of it.
We do see a corser society. Today body mutilation has become the rage. We see the body turned into a canvas of art sometimes craftily executed, and more often than not, it’s ghastly.
It’s become a right of passage to pierce yourself. If it’s not your nose it’s your face. If not your face your tongue. If not your tongue, the mutilation heads south. The perpetuators of this kind of activity is turning our society into a third world African tribal hovel.
While some of you kind of wink and nod at the presentation of sexual inendo and far worse to our children, it’s become commonplace to hear of mere children gratifying each other orally on our grade school campuses and even buses. Is this the brave new world we desire for our progeny?
Groups of kids now prey on other kids. Sexual perversions and violence rack our society. We lament the lowering of the ages of these perpetrators, then slam a public figure who has stepped up to address the issue.
Whether in song or video or video game, by radio wave or advertising hook, as a society we are corrupting our children.
We see what takes place in the news every day and we collectively say something to the effect, “Where do these kids come up with these ideas?” When I was a child, I would never have thought to do some of the stuff that takes place today. If I had, I would never have carried it out. I would have blocked that vile thought out of my mind in moments, but today’s youth have been conditioned to see those acts as something that can be accepted, if only the circumstances are warranted. And those circumstances are then evaluated by mere children, totally without the tools to judge correctly, and totally vulnerable because there were folks who valued fun more than righteousness.
Folks, advertisers pay billions of dollars each year just to get their name before the public. Advertising is a very powerful form of propaganda. It can be a very powerful propaganda for good, and I obviously support that. What I cannot support is that we recognize the effects of propaganda for good, then dismiss the fact that presenting foul disgusting demonic materials to children, has no effect. It has an effect. It has a vile effect and we all know it.
Today we live in a society where a corporation like Disney feels compelled to introduce off color and even adult situations into the most innocent of stories, simply because they think adults and even children can’t sit through something purely crafted for children.
Somewhere along the line we flattered ourselves that enlightenment meant just about all limits would be lifed as it applied to our youth. No folks, that is not the case. Enlightenment would be understanding that it is not necessary to corrupt our youth, and that adults could find plenty to entertain them if children were left to be children.
How we go about that at this point is up to discussion, but the need for it isn’t.
That is “nanny politics”, Mitt. Let all parents and all legal guardians of children be fully responsible for discouraging the buying, renting, and use of the most violent of video games if it’s truly unsuitable for them. It depends upon each individual child for parents to determine what’s truly O.K. for them and what’s truly not O.K. for them. The government at every level should never, ever be in a parenting role at any time!
“When I was a kid, we had toy guns and played army. Sometimes we even played cops & robbers.”
Don’t try that during recess at a public school! Forming your finger into a gun and saying ‘bang’ will get a kid put into a non-make-believe jail faster than you can say, “Why in the world didn’t I home school??”
“He decided to use his “karate” skills and act out some video game they were playing on the 7 year old. She’s now dead.”
If the video game didn’t exist he would have done the exact same stunt, only he would have been acting out some other make-believe source. Movies, television, radio shows, song lyrics, books, some story his grandfather told him about the war... any of these things would easily fill in as the inspiration for this stunt.
You cannot make a law to prevent this event from occurring, even if you put grandpa in jail for being the source material for this look-at-me-pretend stunt.
“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.”
Exactly right. In fact, every single action Mitt states he will take is already being taken, and has been so for a very long time now. Games are rated like movies, stores won’t sell X content, you can’t buy the ‘R’ stuff without ID, there are warnings to parents about a game’s content right on the box, game consoles have parental controls... the only thing missing in this whole scenario is a parent who actually cares about this. That’s something Mitt cannot provide no matter what he does.
Having no clue on the subject is certainly not helping his effort much, either. It’s possible he absolutely knows all the measures he proposed are in place already, and is simply counting on the rubes not being aware of it. If he wins he can point to the established game standards as his doing.
Mitt invented video game protections!
I've never met either one, but somehow I trust Dee Snider more than Tipper.
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