Comments on: A Lesson in Satire

by: CookieJesus

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 21:04:50 +0000

“‘Ello my name is Terry and I’m a law abider. There’s nothing I like more than getting fired up on beer. And when the weekend’s here I’ll excercise my right to get paralytic and fight…”

The Irony of it all, The Streets. Your article reminded me of this one.

by: Head881

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 17:33:59 +0000

Absolutely.

Unfortunately, as a graduate student of political science, I know that telling the truth, especially in the manner I described here would amount to me never being elected. My only recourse is to post my opinions in places where they might actually matter, and hope that I can influence people in that way.

Seriously though, look at Senator Hillary Clinton (D, NY), she along with Senator Charles Schumer (D, NY) as well as a few others I can’t remember now, have started to crusade against games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in the case of the former and 25 to Life in the case of the latter.

What is significant is that both senators are Democrats and as such, they should, in a broad sense, be more concerned with regulating business practices over regulating social and moral behavior. Case in point, Democrats by and large support “gay rights” (which I quote because, really, aren’t they entitled to human rights like everyone else, rendering a specific set of rights superfluous?) because it is not for the government to regulate morality. Whereas on the other hand, Republicans by and large do not support gay rights because they consider it a sin against God and prefer to regulate moral activities over business activities.

The point of my example is this: two Democratic senators are behaving like Republicans because they know on this particular issue, they are best served by acting like Republicans and when pressed on this issue come election time, they will be able to say they stood with the families, and thus give less ammo to any Republican candidate looking to unseat them.

Politicians are the worst scum on this planet. Their only real interest is conitunance in office and upward mobility to an office with more power. A great example would be County Executive Thomas Suozzi of Nassau County in New York. He was the Mayor of Great Neck, moved to County Executive and is now planning on running for Governor of New York State. That is enough of local politics.

The only way to keep keep violent videogames out of the hands of children is for the parents to take an interest in their kids’ hobby and act responsibly. The only way to keep the government out of our hobby is to remember the stance your representative has taken on the issue, and if this issue is important enough to you, to vote for or against them accordingly. That way, hopefully, lunatics like Jack Thompson will find no welcoming arms in government who will help him to redirect blame from the parents to an amorphous industry when they themselves have failed to raise their kids.

Okay…that was all a bit long and sounds self-important, but the previous poster stroked my ego. Thank you for the kind words.

by: Alfred

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 21:28:22 +0000

Your right parents do need to watch out for games more often. The idea of maturity has become a type of call to rebel rather then to actually be mature. Its a terrible trick that has worked on several different products. Most of these have been regulated to make sure they don’t go to far. Before these laws people made the statment that parents should watch out for these products. Alcahol is one, ciggarettes is another.
At one point Pornography was considered open to anyone. Including the pictures. Lucklily laws came in and regulated these things making such things more difficult to get at.
I am often surprised that Americans don’t realize our system of government is a mixed bag. It has a market system that is regulated to keep people safe.
The problem comes when we speak of art. Freedom of speech allows art of any type to be shown. But because of the large amount of artists -and the amount of people willing to buy this art- it is difficult to figure out what is art and what is good art.
This is especially coming in for Videogames which is new to the ideas of being art. Can videogames become more then ‘just a game’ and represent life. I think there are already games like that. The Sims, and Animal Crossing comes to mind. Very true they don’t show real world events. But they can show things I read in Poetry and books all the time.
I wish I had a closing statement except that because of the attempts by different sides to show ‘rebellion’ I am wondering how I could actually go out and rebel against them. And the answer is to actually watch what I do and what video games I play. Then I should share my opinion with others -which I am doing now- this way when a game comes out and the ideas of ‘rebellion’ I won’t have to worry about it making money.
Good job head881 for letting your opinion known and sharing the truth of games to parents. If you where a law maker would you try to do the same thing you did when working at Babbages?

by: Head881

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 05:40:17 +0000

This is just an extension of the decay of Western society. Everyone is so wrapped up in having the Government, whichever government that may be, to take care of them and be mommy and daddy.

Mommy and Daddy can’t pay any attention to little Jimmy because they are too busy working two jobs on two seperate career tracks, fucking their way to the top, but then are pissed off that the government hasn’t stepped in and stopped there kid from playing a violent videogame, when all they had to do was read the back of the fucking box.

I used to, in what feels like another life, work at Babbage’s Etc. when Grand Theft Auto III was first released. Parents would come in with their kid, and by kid I mean like ten fucking years old, and ask to buy GTA because the kid wanted it.

Well, the second most pleasurable thing during my tenure at Babbage’s was to ask the prospective parent if they knew what they were buying for their kid. Their answer: no. My answer? You basically go around killing people, cops, and having sex with prostitutes. The look on their face was classic. One father looked at his kid, said “no” and walked out of the store.

My first most favorite thing to do at Babbage’s was to ask the teenagers who wanted to buy GTA how old they were. Not one of them was swift enough to lie. 16? No game for you. Their face was even better than the parents, because their whole self-image of mature badass was shattered by a store clerk who reminded them that they are too fucking young to run around doing whatever the fuck they want.

Yeah, so I veered off into a rant there.

Basically, I and I’m sure any open minded free thinker, agree with you.

by: Plagiarize

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 17:04:06 +0000

that law is sensible certainly. the other difference though is that it isn’t illegal for children to play M rated games, and no one has yet proposed laws doing the same for games yes, just to make it illegal for them to buy them. with alcohol it is illegal for an adult to buy their underage kid alcohol.