"morbid interest in violence"?

[IG-64]

According to the bill -- HB 1381 -- a judge would determine whether a game is "patently offensive to prevailing standards" and if it's appealing "to the minor's morbid interest in violence." If the judge finds that the game meets these criteria, the game could be ordered to be pulled from store shelves. In addition, an individual found guilty of selling such a game could face a fine ranging from $100 to $2,000 as well as up to a year in prison.

 

This is complete bull.

 

[EDIT] Here's a copy of the bill: http://www.legis.state.la.us/billdata/streamdocument.asp?did=391732 (is a pdf object)

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

This is complete bull.

Driving a kid to soccer practice is a time-consuming activity, and it leaves almost no time to actually look after your child.

[Katarn07]

Wha? I read the article and am confused. Why would they pass this when others have been struck down? The ESRB is 100% accurate in its 1st Amendment violation claims. I am all for regulating the sale of M rated games, but to pull some off the shelves is bullplop. I still am asked to see an ID when I buy R rated movies (surprisingly I've never been carded at the theater, even before I was 17). Why don't they just do the same for video games? I think it's a good enough system.

[Samnmax221]

I have a morbid interest in violence against these judges, maybe it was the video games tha did this to me, or the regulations

[Alkonium]

I disagree with this entirely. I've played some fairly violent games, and I'm quite a pacifist in real life. This is a generalisation against gamers, and another step towards the U. S. becoming a Fascist dictatorship. Well, at least I live in Canada, where the subject of video games virtually never comes up in politics.

[Hallucination]

Proposed law provides that an interactive video or computer game may not be sold, leased,

or rented to a minor if the trier of fact determines all of the following:

(1) The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that

the video or computer game, taken as a whole, appeals to the minor's morbid interest

in violence.

(2) The game depicts violence in a manner patently offensive to prevailing standards in

the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors.

(3) The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific

value for minors.

 

To me, that part looks like all video games that aren't educational are illegal to sell to minors. I'm really glad this is only in Louisiana.

[TiE23]

Then why the **** hasn't Scarface or The Matrix or Freddy vs. Jason been pulled? Teens love them and you don't see old fart judges saying that they need to be pulled.

 

Also, Louisiana blows, don't they have a ton of rules and stuff that make it a Bible Thumper/God fearing paradise? (No real offense to those living in Louisiana, I'm really only talking about the state and laws, I luv ya. >_>)

[MTV2]

I <3 Canada. i hope this doesnt get to canada. if it does, i bet there are going to be hundreds if not thousands of gamers who will sign a petition and overrule this...

[IG-64]

To me, that part looks like all video games that aren't educational are illegal to sell to minors.

 

Or that violent games are ok as long as they're educational.

 

i.e. War games.

[TK-8252]

Your tax dollars at work.

[TSR]

if a ny game is going to screw with your mind, it's this...

http://www.armchairempire.com/images/Reviews/Playstation2/we-love-katamari/we-love-katamari-1.jpg

we love katamari. no we dont. we hate it. it plays with our minds.

http://cache.kotaku.com/gaming/katamaricosplay-thumb.jpg

see what it does to people? you see?

[Dagobahn Eagle]

If you want to stop morbid interest in violence, shut down idiotic and respectless sites such as http://www.Rotten.com. This action is a ghost-hunt if I ever saw one:mad:.

 

The ESRB is 100% accurate in its 1st Amendment violation claims.

Since when did the 1st amendments protect violent video games? I thought it was a freedom-of-expression thing, not a say-whatever-the-Hell-you-want thing:confused:.

[Samnmax221]

Shutting down Rotten.com would be censorship, true freedom of speach meens letting even ideas you despise circulate

[Dagobahn Eagle]

Shutting down Rotten.com would be censorship, true freedom of speach meens letting even ideas you despise circulate

Rotten isn't "ideas" or "expression". It's just a site designed to piss as many people off as possible for the sheer joy of it, and thus it isn't censorship to close it. If it had/has political opinions on it, you could close down the other stuff on it and leave the political content without infringing on anyones' rights.

[TK-8252]

If you don't like rotton.com (I haven't been there so I don't know what's on it), don't go to it... it's that simple.

[toms]

Does freedom of speech apply to posting videos of bumfights, happy slapping and people dying? That doesn't sound like freedom of speech to me. the "speech" part would imply having something to say.

 

Anyway, while I have no problem with age restrictions for violent games I ahve to say that that law is so inanely worded as to be worthless.. and to guarantee it will be struck down instantly.

I don't know why politicians insist on wasting public time and money if they aren't going to give the laws at least a fighting chance of being upheld.

the fact it was passed unanimously is a little worrying though.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

Thanks, toms. On both paragraphs.

 

If you don't like [a Web site], then don't go to it.

Don't people ever tire of clichés? It's amazing.

[Samnmax221]

Does freedom of speech apply to posting videos of bumfights, happy slapping and people dying? That doesn't sound like freedom of speech to me. the "speech" part would imply having something to say.

I believe alot of it is faked

[The Seeker]

Does freedom of speech apply to posting videos of bumfights, happy slapping and people dying?

 

Actually, yes that is exactly what freedom of speech is. Whether it is morally wrong or offensive or widely accepted, ANY message has the right to be spoken (or displayed)

 

That's why people can hold public demonstrations that promote anything from giving to charity to opposing animal abuse, to hating someone for something as arbitrary as skin color or nationality or religious beliefs.

 

Now personally I think rotten.com is disgusting, so is the ku klux klan. But equal freedoms for everyone means that I have the right and liberty to say what I just did, but those I oppose have the right to try and spread their message as well.

 

For them to rate and enforce ratings on video games is something I have been hoping for for quite a while. Personally, I would rather it be parents that monitor what games their kids are playing, but I have given up on that notion of common sense. However for the politicians to decide what games even make it to the shelves, based on moral decency and common perceptions of offensiveness is dictatorial censorship to the extreme.

 

Just my two cents

[toms]

But even the Klu Klux Klan had a message.. a point... posting random crap isn't speech under my definition (and i'm right ). Posting dodgy stuff for a reason should be protected.. posting random stuff for no reason shouldn't.

But we are way OT here...

 

The ESA/ESRB should just rate games with the exact same ratings as movies... that way they would equate the two in people's minds... which would have several advantages:

1 - Parents couldn't be as stupid as they are now in not understanding as its a system they already know.

2 - You might get some equality in content - so a game with a flash of boob or a bit of sex might only get a PG-13 rating like a similar movie... not cause an international incident and get banned.

[The Seeker]

But even the Klu Klux Klan had a message.. a point... posting random crap isn't speech under my definition (and i'm right ). Posting dodgy stuff for a reason should be protected.. posting random stuff for no reason shouldn't.

 

By that logic, we shouldn't be allowed to post here in the swamp. More than 75% of the stuff in here is random crap that plenty of people see as pointless and stupid. However we can post here because that is one of our freedoms. Just because something has no moral or uplifting or theoretical point doesn't mean that the right to express said something should be restricted.

 

 

The ESA/ESRB should just rate games with the exact same ratings as movies... that way they would equate the two in people's minds... which would have several advantages:

1 - Parents couldn't be as stupid as they are now in not understanding as its a system they already know.

2 - You might get some equality in content - so a game with a flash of boob or a bit of sex might only get a PG-13 rating like a similar movie... not cause an international incident and get banned.

 

And I wholeheartedly agree with that statement. Ratings and enforcement of those ratings is the answer not restricting what hits the shelves.

[Katarn07]

The ESA/ESRB should just rate games with the exact same ratings as movies... that way they would equate the two in people's minds... which would have several advantages:

1 - Parents couldn't be as stupid as they are now in not understanding as its a system they already know.

2 - You might get some equality in content - so a game with a flash of boob or a bit of sex might only get a PG-13 rating like a similar movie... not cause an international incident and get banned.

 

Let's go back to the rating system that was around in the mid '90s with that thermometer in the corner that showed how much violence and sex is in a game! Maybe that was simpler for ignorant parents to figure out than the much more detailed content descriptors on the back of the packaging

[Datheus]

Rotten isn't "ideas" or "expression". It's just a site designed to piss as many people off as possible for the sheer joy of it, and thus it isn't censorship to close it. If it had/has political opinions on it, you could close down the other stuff on it and leave the political content without infringing on anyones' rights.

If you don't think being as offensive as possible hasn't become a form of expression, I'm going to have to ask you to crawl out from under your rock.

 

People:

Hunter S Thompson

Paul Mooney

Bill Hicks

Carlos Mencia

Howard Stern

Maddox

myg0t (The wiki entry has been deleted.)

GNAA (Offensive language, NSFW.)

Westboro Baptist Church (Offensive language, NSFW.)

GG Allin

 

Bands:

Tool

Mindless Self Indulgence

Anal **** (Page cannot be linked because of the filter.)

 

 

Media and Style:

Roasts

Photojournalism in war (Google search.)

Trolling

Shock jocks

 

posting random crap isn't speech under my definition (and i'm right:p). Posting dodgy stuff for a reason should be protected.. posting random stuff for no reason shouldn't.

And how about John Cage?

 

I once read a poem that was dedicated to John Cage. Some lady had taken the endings of books she had read over the course of eights years and threw them down onto paper.

 

Are you saying that since it is random, pointless crap, it would be okay to censor it? After all, it serves no purpose.

 

You can't say that offensive material with a purpose is okay and that random, pointless material is okay, but claim random offensive material is not okay. Since when have two rights made a wrong? Those former two aspects of free speech are not mutually exclusive of each other.

[Samnmax221]

Remember Andrew Dice Clay, everything he had to say was offensive. Free speech means protection for ideas you absolutely hate and despise.

 

"Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech."

 

-Noam Chomsky

 

Wise words from a man I absolutely hate and despise, but he makes an execelent point

 

I can paraphrase something Yakov once told a joke about

 

"In America you have the right to say I don't like president Reagan, In Russia you also have the right to say you don't like president Reagan!"

 

-Yakov Smirnoff (Couldn't find the quote)

[Dagobahn Eagle]

If you don't think being as offensive as possible hasn't become a form of expression, I'm going to have to ask you to crawl out from under your rock.

"It's common, so it's a form of expression".

Not.

 

ANY message has the right to be spoken (or displayed)

Didn't say anything else. I'm talking about Rotten and the other morons who do unethical things to get attention. That's not a "message", that's just plain assholeism.