« "Brokeback Fountain" | Main | Thanks For The Handout, Sucker! »
February 25, 2006
Political Masturbation
Update* It seems the article linked to has been removed for some reason. This link will take you to a brief rundown of the legislative session and it speaks to the video game ban.
Often described as just doing something becuase it makes one feel good, I feel that is an apt description for the current bill that incredibly sailed through the Utah House and is now on it's way to the Senate. The bill in question, HB257, would place violent video games under the current law protecting children from harmful material, until now, the exclusive domain of pornography.
Seeing as this law, if passed, will be patently unenforcable, it has thereby achieved the venerable status of "Political Masturbation" because it accomplishes nothing at all, except to make the writers of said legislation feel good about themselves.
One of the proponents of this bill, David Houge (R) Riverton, in a Tribune article:
Rep. David Hogue, R-Riverton, implied such games played a serious role in school shootings such as Columbine.
"Would these same kids have done this anyway without watching violent videos? Maybe not." he said.
Or mabye, Mr Hogue, it had to do with them being bullied, or having absent minded parents who never wanted to violate their kids privacy by entering their rooms, or maybe, just maybe, it had nothing at all to do with any of it and they were just two evil kids who needed no other influence than each other. For whatever reason, the conditions were right for this catastrophe to rear it's ugly head and all the legislation in the world wouldn't have stopped it and making yourself feel better isn't going to stop the next one either.
One of the first questions I asked myself was what criteria do they use to describe a "violent" video game and who decides? The same Tribune piece has answered that for me:
To violate the terms of the legislation, a violent video game would have to be "patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community" and lack any serious "literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors." Rep. Scott Wyatt, R-Logan, said such a tough standard means only the most depraved video games would fall under this bill.
I beg to differ, Mr. Wyatt. Take a game like Super Mario Kart, one of the most benign childrens games out there, and apply it to this standard. The object of the game is to win races, and oftentimes that means deliberately crashing your opponents off the course. You can pick up various items from the track that will unfairly give you an advantage, or cause harm to your opponents, which are clearly "offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community" because it's cheating, right? And let's not forget that there is not a video game made that provides "literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors." Zip. Zero. Nada. Video games, by their very nature do not have those qualities because they are escapism defined. Their sole purpose is to blow off steam, have a little fun.
The Tribune article does not provide quotes on how this measure is going to be enforced. I have stated above that I think it unenforcable, so how are they going to do it? Have police officers at the check-out registers at Best Buy? Maybe dictate in the law that all merchants who sell games keep a record of those that fit the bill? Then what? Is somebody going to call my house if I pick up a copy of "Road Rash III" and ask if I have a minor in the home who might be exposed to it? I'm going to hang up or shut the door in their face, right after I tell whoever it is to go pound sand.
I would have thought by now, that we in society had progressed to the point that we would know beyond a doubt that you cannot legislate responsibility and you cannot legislate common sense. As a parent, I know exactly what games my child has because, and this is key here, I go into his room and I look! It's a given that I know about the games that I've bought for him, but kids swap games like they do phone numbers and I would not be a responsible parent if I didn't know what's going on in his life. So I make it my business to know. This bill, and others like it, seem to have been made with the resignation that parents have given up parenting their kids and the State must do it for them.
This bill needs to be relegated to the trash heap, and the sooner the better. Those who sponsored it need to find another we to please themselves. Hey how about this: How about they get involved in their own lives, and stay out of mine!
Posted by Jonathan at February 25, 2006 9:33 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.mangledcat.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/129