See? I Admit That Some Democrats Are Evil And Stupid

[filkertom]

Because there's a little bit more going on in Louisiana these days that needs more attention than this thankfully-swatted-down moralistic bullshit censorship.

Comments

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

A state law that would ban sales of violent video games to minors

Ummm... Wasn't that the point of the whole ESRB rating system in the first place?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Shhh. You'll interrupt their self-righteous whiny tantrums.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Actually, technically, no...the ESRB ratings have no force of law, and are fully voluntary. The reason Hot Coffee was such a charlie-foxtrot is that the ESRB is empowered to sanction a company for sumbitting a game to be rated and lying (or dissembling, or what have you) about its content.

It's the same as the movies' ratings, really; though those have more of a force of law in the R/NC-17 categories, a movie doesn't have to get rated.

Every once in a while--such as after Hot Coffee--someone tries to make the ESRB ratings more concrete, such as mandating them or the like. I seem to recall Lame-Duck Senator Lieberman (jumping the gun? Maybe--but I doubt it) trying to pull that. I think that's what this was.

You'd think, after no small amount of high-level court decisions (including the Supreme Court's 9-0 striking of the CDA), they'd stop trying...

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Well, forgive me for playing devil's advocate here, but...
If a movie theatre can be litigated for allowing an unattended minor admission to an "R" rated movie...
Then why is it so far-fetched to litigate a game store for selling an "M" rated game to a minor?

Or is your indignation based on the fact thet they're doing this when their focus should be on hurricane relief?

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Personally, my indignation is fundamental...I have no patience for censorship. While I'm disappointed that this is being argued while New Orleans is still struggling to rebuild, I'd be just as indignant if the law was passed somewhere else, where there wasn't a clearly more fundamental issue at hand.

To answer your question, litigation isn't the issue; the issue is legality. As far as I'm aware, there is no law prohibiting unattended minors from seeing R-rated movies. The motion picture industry is self-regulating--the theaters, on their own initiative, keep unattended minors out.

I have no censorship objections to the video game industry being similarly self-regulating. (I do have some objections, mostly on principle; but I accept that self-regulation may be a necessary evil for now.) But to make a law regulating the content of video games...First and Fourteenth Amendments, anybody?

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

I get what you're saying.

Self-regulation is a much lesser and at times necessary evil than governmental oversight.

Is it?

[lizard-sf.livejournal.com]

http://www.mrlizard.com/judgement.html

(Yeah, I know, I spelled 'judgment' wrong...)

Re: Is it?

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

What would you have rather happened, Lizard?

The comics industry thumb their nose at congress to have the wrath of the federal government (which, I may remind you, was even more popular and trusted with the citizenry then as it is in today's world of "national security" paranoia) come crashing down on their necks?

They'd have never recovered.
They'd be destroyed, or worse, forced into coercion and become a lame, homogenized version of what they once were by terms other than their own.

Re: Is it?

[lizard-sf.livejournal.com]

Pushed the issue to the courts, which would have ruled the government had no authority to regulate the media? Actually take a stand for their own right to publish according to their own conscience?

It is very hard to argue that the industry, as it was then, WASN'T destroyed by the code. Most of the publishers collapsed. The huge variety of titles and themes shrank to next to nothing. Sales plummetted. The medium was pretty reduced to telling superhero tales, since those were the only sorts which could be effectively told within the confines of the code.

Has the ESRB system stopped anti-videogame laws? No. The ratings have only energized the attacks, by allowing lawsuits based on a perceived discrepency between the games ratings and its contents. Have TV ratings stopped the likes of the American Family Association? No, they've just got the FCC to increase fines to obscene levels.

Thanks in large part to the Code, comics in America are still considered to be, almost by definition, a 'children's medium', and this has exposed comics with adult themes to prosecution under 'obcenity' laws which would never have been applied had the same content been published in a different form. For all us drooling fanboys go on about 'graphic novels', about Watchmen and Maus and Sandman, to the average yokel, comic books are 'kiddie stuff', and they're stuck there because for 30+ years, they could not publish anything not suitable for children.

If you once pay 'em the Dane geld...

Re: Is it?

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Pushed the issue to the courts, which would have ruled the government had no authority to regulate the media? Actually take a stand for their own right to publish according to their own conscience?

I guess you just have more faith in humanity than I do.
Mind you, that isn't a criticism.

that's why...

[nezmaster.livejournal.com]

That is why I am a progressive, a liberal, but not a democrat. Progressives and Liberals should never be pro censorship. It's contrary to the rest of the ideals. But democrats often are. Thppt.

Re: that's why...

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Oh. Are you a left-leaning libertarian, like myself?

them's fightin words

[nezmaster.livejournal.com]

not on your life. I find the idea of letting companies bully and stomp on people like grapes to be abhorrent, and a fundamental part of libreterians. I'm a true liberal. Basically individual liberty is nearly complete, big business is chained up and thrown in the dungeon. The individual is given glorious rights, but once they start 'incorporating' and mining for resuorces they are monitored like hawks. No censorship, plenty of affirmative action, enviromental laws, etc..I'm probably a socialist. I think if any person on the plant makes more that 5 million dollars, we should just take it away and give it too poor people. They don't friggin need that much money. It's that simple.

Re: them's fightin words

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Hm. Interesting.

Re: that's why...

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Um...these are Louisiana Democrats. Outside of Dixie, they'd be considered about as liberal as Orrin Hatch.

[bchbum-98.livejournal.com]

Is it not illegal to sell a minor a Penthouse or the feature-length "Flesh Dance?" It must be; otherwise some merchants would certainly ignore the warning labels. It seems to me video games should be in the same category. My opinion, BTW, is NO CENSORSHIP, although I will likely vote for all Democrats.

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

Actually, even though this idiocy was perpetrated by Democrats and they deserve a full-on bitchslap for it, you also have to blame the Repugs for making censorship palatable to a broad cross-section of people on the basis of "protecting the children" or "morality" or whatever else they're hiding mind control behind. Some Dems, particularly those in the Bible Belt, have to pander to those votes. It's ignorant and evil and sad, but it's a fact of political life. If they didn't, you know damn well that the next election, there would be ads with scary music and some deep voice intoning bullshit about how Democrat X "refused to protect the children of [State Y]".

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

The clusterfuck resulting from that should be interesting. If I remember correctly there's been a few medium-high courts which ruled that games don't have First Amendment protection because, somehow, they "aren't speech."

Everyone needs a scapegoat, I suppose. I'm going to go play Call of Duty 2 and then shoot up a high school or something now.

[salkryn.livejournal.com]

Hey, anybody else here thinking about Dr. Fredric Wertham, his book Seduction of the Innocent, certain 1954 Senate hearings, and the Comics Code Authority? Because this ain't the first time people have tried this shit.

There's a simple solution...

[lizard-sf.livejournal.com]

There is absolutely no way anyone could vote for this law -- or anything similair -- without knowing it is patently unconstitutional.

Don't all elected officials take an oath to uphold the Constitution?

Therefore, any elected official who votes for a bill which anyone with a high school education in law&government can tell is unconstitutional is in direct violation of their oath of office and should be impeached.

In the real world, of course, no one ever lost an election for being too aggressive in trying to strip others of their rights -- but people HAVE lost elections for being too agressive in defending them. In other words, the electorate in America prefers people who defy the fundemental law of the land to those that uphold it. (Which is precisely why the Bill of Rights was put into place -- to protect democracy from the voters. It's ironic, but there you have it.)