Video games have become increasingly graphic & violent, some with sexual content.
The Supreme Court just granted First Amendment protection for kids to access video games rated "M Mature 17+" & above.
On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled States cannot ban the sale or rental of ultraviolent video games to children.
They ruled that such limits are a violation fo young people;s First Amendment rightd & are leaving it up to parents & the multi billion dollar gaming industry to decide what kids can buy.
By so ruling, it thre out the 2005 California law covering games sold or rented to those under 18, caling it an unconstitutional violation of free-speech rights.
Humpty Dumpty did fall & crack up. (Some say he was pushed!)
But even with Eeny Meeny Miny Moe, if he hollered, he was let go.
Fairy Tales are not blood soaked violence feasts, that the video games are.
Justice Breyer was the voice of reason:
"What sense does it make to forbid selling to a 13 year old, to buy a magazine with an image of a nude woman, while protecting the sale to that 13 year old of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds & gags the woman, then tortures and kills her?"
It makes no sense to legally block children's access to pornography, yet allow them to buy or rent brutally violent video games."
• The Jonesboro, Arkansas school shooting in 1998, where 2 kids , 11 & 13 gunned down 15 people & killed 5.
The parents of one of the shooters, was at a video arcade a week after the shootings, their younger child playing a game that involved shooting a gun.
• Kip Kinkel ,the Springfield Oregon student shooter. Shot 23 students, 2 died & killed both his parents.
Later said he liked to play violent video games. Was also diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic.
• The Columbine High School student shooters- 34 casualties, 15 dead. Not only did these kids play violent video games, they were able to amass & alter weapons. They were "spurred by images of violence, to act out their anger in a violent way. The two Colorado teenagers who killed 12 students and a teacher, then themselves, at Columbine High School in 1999 spent endless hours blasting opponents in violent video games. Millions of children and adolescents who will never touch an actual firearm continue to do the same.
If we watch shows that show blood death & violence, news that covers war stories, then have "games" that involve serious violence, we create a saturation level where violence becomes casual, accepted, entertainment & a game.
I guess the Supreme court stopped short of advising that the violent games can be purchased at
Wal Mart, where last week, they ruled it is OK for women to make lower wages & are not entitled to a Class Action Lawsuit against gender pay discrimination.
4 comments:
i don't think there's a real answer until people stop with the fascination with violence. i wish that more parents were more responsible and that this crap wouldn't find its way into kids' hands. however, parents are busy, and there are so many ways for kids to get hold of this, so i'm not sure what they can do to make sure their kids aren't exposed to it.
I'd rather have a kid looking at a naked body than a video game where a woman is gagged & murdered with a chain saw.
But I think Breyer got it right... if they are prohibiting nudity for kids, then why not ultra violent video games.
Sure some inappropriate stuff would get in the wrong hands, but at least there is some effort & acknowledgment that for some kids this level of violence only encourages them to be violent.
I let my kids do edutainment... Where in the world is Carmen Diego & the Oregon trail...
they were "games" but it took some intelligence & learning to play.
Spattering blood, even in a fantasy video format, not so much.
As Paul Craig Roberts said in part in his June 29th piece entitled A World Overwhelmed By Western Hypocrisy...
"The Supreme Court also ruled on June 27 that California violated the US Constitution by banning the sale of violent video games to kids, despite evidence that the violent games trained the young to violent behavior. It is fine with the Supreme Court for soldiers, whose lives are on the line, to be prohibited under penalty of law from drinking beer before they are 21, but the idiot Court supports inculcating kids to be murderers, as long as it is in the interest of corporate profits, in the name of “free speech.”
"Amazing, isn’t it, that a court so concerned with ‘free speech” has not protected American war protesters from unconstitutional searches and arrests, or protected protesters from being attacked by police or herded into fenced-in areas distant from the object of protest."
He concludes his article by saying, "There is nothing left of the American character. Only a people who have lost their soul could tolerate the evil that emanates from Washington."
Hear, hear! Amen!!
Dada~ great quote.
Our local rag of a newspaper did their own editorial about how "the Supreme Court got it right" by protecting free speech.
they tried to walk the fence by saying oh sure they are violent & probably encourage violence, but free speech rules & let parents decide!
WE had our own school killing spree in nearby Springfield, the Kip Kinkel killings-- all across the nation... VA tech etc.... after the school shootings & when the blood is running, you never hear the sentiment of "well we sure are glad the shooter had his freedom of speech as the violent video games now resulted in actual deaths & injuries".
No. The media asks "How did this happen?"
Maybe a culture of casual violence had something to do with it???
Free speech now equals young children exposed to deadly violence for games, and corporations buying elections.
For all the hooplah about political parties, whom to vote for & what does it matter.... case in point, presidents appoint supreme court justices. The Bush nightmare lives on.
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