Posted on 04/26/2010 3:41:04 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court will decide whether free speech rights are more important than helping parents keep violent material away from children.
The justices agreed Monday to consider reinstating California's ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors, a law the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco threw out last year on grounds that it violated minors' constitutional rights.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who signed the law in 2005, said he was pleased the high court would review the appeals court decision. He said, "We have a responsibility to our kids and our communities to protect against the effects of games that depict ultra-violent actions, just as we already do with movies."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Actually I think the parents not the states should decide what is best for the kids, but that is just me..
So if things with killing, maiming, dismembering and sexually assaulting of human beings can’t be sold to kids does that mean no To Kill a Mocking Bird?
That’s always the problem with these kind of laws. What makes video games so magical?
Well, that’s fascinating.
Doesn’t mean its related (post hoc fallacy), but still interesting.
Of course it makes a certain amount of sense from the government side - the government is ALWAYS looking to allocate power to itself at the expense of others.
Then under California's law you're free to buy violent games and give them to your kids. What California is trying to stop is kids buying them on their own, the same way that kids can't buy alcohol, cigarettes or porn.
Leaving the subject of connectivity between violent crimes & video games alone, I think it's fantastical to believe crime statistics published by the government. It's analogous to Cuba's 100% claimed literacy rate, and the Iraqi claims of "100% voted for Sadam", during his regime.
Retired Officers Raise Questions on Crime Data
In the 80's, the federal government began measuring crime metrics reported by states and municipalities, and would tie improvement to added federal investment. Almost magically, crime statistics began to improve. How about that?
Well, if To Kill a Mocking Bird was turned into a video game, I suppose so. But, since it's a book, it should be perfectly safe and readily available in school libraries all over California.
Actually, there is a proposed causal mechanism: violent video games provide an outlet for youthful agression, which otherwise finds its outlet in antisocial behavior, including crime. There are finer statistics focusing on crimes by young people that find drops in the wake of each release of a very popular first-person shooter or two-player fighting game (e.g. the Mortal Kombat series).
And books require reader visualization. And TV and movies put people into a beta wave state similar to dreams and hypnosis. And meanwhile nobody has managed show that any of these things actually make people do anything. I was just reading a book about Psycho and he loon that killed two people after watching the movie, and many accused the movie of “making” him do it. But the only way they could make those accusations fly is to ignore that at least 1 other person he killed before the movie came out and the dozen rapes he claimed to have committed, again before the movie came out.
There’s always the crowd that wants to blame the movie, or the game, or the book. But it’s PEOPLE that commit crimes.
You ignored the next sentence: what makes video games so magical?
Reminds me in the 80s with the AD&D crowd. The social cons went straight Taliban on the that crowd.
I don't know. I'm not a child psychologist. But, I am a conservative Republican who believes that matters like this should be left to the states to decide absent the heavy hand of the imperial federal government.
The parents in California elected the state legislators. They crafted a bill that was signed by the governor, who too was elected by parents. That's good enough for me.
I’m sure there are plenty of issues to worry about then kids buying video games..
We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.
Yep, and the evils of heavy metal, and more recently Harry Potter, and let’s not forget good old Fredrick Wortham and Seduction of the Innocent. There’s always something people are blaming for “twisting our kids minds”, it never seems to occur to them that maybe parents more interested in crusading than teaching might be messing up our kids.
I don’t know what to believe, I only know about the other guy ‘cause he gave me a free book.
I have played “violent” games all my life - GI Joe, dirt clods, BB Gun, wargames, RPGs, first person shooters, etc.
I served in the military, and have a bit of range time and I love to shoot (doesn’t mean I’m good shot, unfortunately!).
Despite that, I have never been trouble or been inclined to make any. If I go my whole life without any more trouble than I’ve seen, I will die a happy man.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure this regime is gonna allow that.
These guys obviously have not played Just Cause 2. In it, you get to blow up all sorts of oppressive government property, run missions against the government, and decimate their military. It’s great fun, and I’m thinking there may be something for the children of the future to learn within...
First of all, no one is forced to buy a violent video game. Secondly, define what constitutes a violent video game, for instance would Madden’s NFL be considered a violent video game? Finally, it is the responsibility of the parents to raise their children, not the government’s. The tendency of parents and teachers to use the government as a parent is troubling.
I’m a believer in logic and history and I’ve seen these idiotic crusades before, and they never have any proof of anything. It’s flexing state power to gain control, imperial power wielded at the state level is no less tyranical than at the fed.
More appropriate for the age group would be a game based on "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" though!
Simple... Nothing "magical" about it. More like "scientific".
Stress, Stimulus, Response, Reward - repeat as necessary.
Repetitive, autonomic, gratuitous, and extremely graphic violence depicted in a casual, "entertaining" manner affects the "Limbic Brain".
It's called "Operant Conditioning". It's very much related to the techniques we use to train (actually, to "condition") our military, police, and high-end security forces to kill.
See the work of LtCol. Dave Grossman. He's one of the world's leading experts in the field.
http://www.killology.com/
http://www.killology.com/book_stop_summary.htm
http://www.killology.com/new_media_vio.htm
http://www.killology.com/killrev.htm
I've spent a significant portion of my professional life using far less sophisticated simulations to train armed professionals in the application of deadly force. That was under tightly controlled conditions, and it works very well. If we can use them to "train" mentally thoughened and prepared warriors, what's the effect on a 13-year old kid who might have a host of other problems, and no boundaries.
We all like to pretend that we are individually "too smart/tough/mentally alert for it to affect us, but if you can accept the premise that media imagery affects people's consumer behaviors (one kind of has to - Madison Avenue spends over 100 billion dollars a year on that bet, and they win every time), and other behaviors (how do you feel about the psychologocal effects of pornography?) you have to accept the premise that almost any other behavior can be affected and/or manipulated with similar techniques.
Again - it's simple... The real question is: If someone spends a significant portion of their lives playing violent, angry games on screen, why would anyone be surprised when they turn out to be violent, angry people.
Tyrannical? We're talking about the state limiting the sale of a video game to minor children - people who have reached the age of majority. There's no limit on what adults can buy, and there's no limit on what the children can actually play or watch. The law doesn't limit any adult; It empowers them and expands and reinforces their authority.
The Court has long held that while children do enjoy constitutional rights, they don't enjoy all constitutional rights or rights that are as robust as adults.
Plus, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The last time I checked, the Founders were silent on video game sales.
people who have not reached the age of majority
Public schools do more damage to children than any music, game, movie, etc. could do.
I’m agnostic on this one. Playing “cowboys and indians” or “army men” has been demonized by libs for the same reason. It’s part of the intentional wimpification of kids, esp boys.
That said, I see little wrong with requiring parental OK or action to by the equivalent of an R-rated interactive movie.
Personally, I’m wondering where the parents are on all this. Why does the gooberment have legislate about movies when parents can just hit the off switch?
Often exhausted from working two jobs, one of which goes almost entirely just to pay taxes. Which again is the intent: Destroy the family and have government take its place over a dumbed-down and pacified population.
I never figured that out.
A pacified and dumbed down populace doesn’t produce anything to loot. These commies are cutting their own throats.
The looting is nice, but it’s secondary to power. Read 1984 for an exposition on that topic...
I think the key is “host of other problems and no boundaries”. The fact is MILLIONS of people have been playing these violent video games for decades now and the only time anybody goes buggy it turns out they were already buggy.
Advertising works completely differently than what people are claiming video games do to people. Advertising pushes product awareness and bandwagoning. Neither of which are even slightly applicable to this, we already know about violence, and there is no bandwagon for it.
Yes tyrannical, we’re talking about fining companies for selling legal products. We’re talking about treating video games like they’re tobacco or alcohol. We’re talking about setting up a government group that decides which games are “appropriate” for which groups of people. That’s tyranny pure and simple.
Let’s also keep in mind this is all to control an industry that the FCC already considers one of he best self policed groups out there. Video games already rate themselves AND enforce those ratings.
The founders were quite explicitly against the limiting of speech in ALL forms. And you’re throwing in a silly well poisoning on them not mentioning a specific form that didn’t exist then shows you know your argument is crap. People who have confidence in the facts don’t need cheap fallacies.
It's not that "he played a video game and went nuts". It's that he has played violent video games and watched violent movies for hours a day since he was a child, he was depressed and angry, and at some point, when confronted with an overwhelming trigger event that his rational mind couldn't handle, his long-term overexposure to violent images inhibited his problem solving solving skills (i.e. "when confronted with a problem, fight it out"), and his violence-saturated limbic brain overode his rational mind and he reacted with violence - AKA, he "just went off".
I kind of always figured it was just common sense that if you do depressing, angry, and violent things long enough, you'll probably end up as a depredssed, angry, and violent person. BTW, it has been demonstrated that positive behaviors induce physiological changes to the brain - is it too much to assume that negative behaviors can too? (Hint: that's been demonstrated as well). If you won't recognize that, then I don't really know what to say, sir...
In the end, it doesn't really matter if your kid "can handle it" or not. If the kid down the street can't, your kid's just as dead when his neighbor shoots him or beats him to death because he's got "issues" and has become conditioned to find reward/pleasure in, and inured to, violence, fostered by a society that thinks it's perfectly fine to let its kids just sit around and make "play" out of being bad-assed murderers, as well as pimps and car thieves.
And yes, there's a marked psychological difference between the old days of playing "Cops and Robbers" or "Cowboys and Indians". Those games involved actual physical activity and were far less limbic-impactive. They were not focused on raking up extra points for the most gruesome killing technique or body counts.
What's the causation? Who knows? Maybe some portion of that "host of other problems" is rooted in screen/video violence. I'm not sure. But in a society increasingly full of people with "other problems and no boundaries", it's probably at least worth a look. Fewer people die of violent crime today - not because of fewer violent crimes - but because of better trauma care, at least in part gleaned from having more medical personnel with greater experience in treating the increasingly grisly effects of a violent society.
Clearly, not everyone who plays violent video games will "nut up" and gun down everyone in sight, just as not everyone who sees a Chevy commercial will run down to the dealer and buy a new Chevrolet.
But, just as sooner or later, the cumulative effect of seeing thousands of "Like a Rock" commercials might influence some people to buy Chevy trucks (it must, or "Madison Avenue" wouldn't exist), is it that difficult to concede that repetitively witnessing tens of thousands of extremely graphic, simulated, ritualized murders might lower one's resistance to committing violence themselves? Especially when one starts visualizing those murders as a child? Especially if one is "having fun" while doing it?
My point is that there are demonstrable links between violent imagery, whether it's in video games or on screen, and violence in society. To say otherwise is to either willfully or ignorantly disregard overwhelming evidence to support that assertion.
Perhaps one would be better served by actually studying and applying some of that research, instead of merely stating an anecdotal opinion. The information is there, and has been for a long time. Again, please visit http://www.killology.com and read at least some of the materials Dave Grossman (I suggest you start with "Stop Teaching our Kids to Kill") and many other extremely well-regarded experts have published on this topic. You may change your mind.
It’s not specious at all, it’s the simple reality. When a very small percentage of the population has a completely different psychological reaction to a certain stimuli than the rest then there is clearly something different about them. That difference would generally be labeled as a problem, ie they’d be buggy long before they got the stimuli.
Nope, it’s not that he played and watched, it’s that he was already nuts and finally his insanity fully manifested. I referenced earlier in the thread a guy that killed two people after watching Psycho, people liked to blame the movie for that but they ignore the person he killed and the women he raped BEFORE seeing Psycho. He was already nuts, he just opened it wider after the movie. Nobody ever “just went off”, all of them already had all of the parts to going off in place for decades before ever playing a video game or seeing a movie.
The current tests are showing that you’re idea of “common sense” is exactly backwards. That most people burn through their negative emotions by experiencing the media. Depressed people listen to depressing music and expunge some of their depression. Angry people play violent video games and exhaust their aggression. The normal mind burns through it, abnormal minds need to get normal.
Sorry but that’s the typical sad excuse for tyranny. Just because kid X isn’t well adjusted doesn’t mean society should have to change to accommodate him. Kid X needs to adjust, the rest of society, which has shown the ability to handle those stimuli, shouldn’t be dragged down because of kid X. When you drop to the lowest common denominator you glue society to the bottom.
We know what the cause is: some people are nuts. Clearly a truly insignificant percentage of the population play violent video games and perform uncontrolled violent deeds. Millions upon millions have played the games and not even dozens have had problems.
Again the advertising angle is 100% false comparison. Ads are about product awareness and bandwagoning. We already know about violence and there is no bandwagon for it.
Sorry but your “point” is false. There is absolutely no demonstrated link between violent video games and violent behavior. Not once, ever. Every study has, at best, been inconclusive, then there’s the chart posted up thread showing the drastic drop in national violent crime rate in the age of violent video games. I HAVE actually spent time studying and applying the research, that’s why I know your “point” is quite simply a lie.
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