Don't Blame The Games, Blame The Parent

jayintune writes "2old2play has an interesting article up on the recent push for more laws on videogame sales to children. It goes over the history of violent crime amongst teens and how it relates to the new surge in videogame-related legislation. Do laws really help our children or is it ultimately the parents role to decided?" From the article: "I'd say by the time a kid is three or four, he or she should know it's not okay to hit someone else. The child should be aware violence is not an acceptable response. Parents, grandparents, older siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, teachers... anyone older than a child should reinforce certain societal values and traits. Kids should and mostly do know better. I talked with a psychologist who told me children can separate reality from fiction at about nine or ten years of age. Well, "pre-teen" is what he said. At that age, they know what's on TV isn't real, what's in a video game isn't real. Video games are easier; they're basically just moving cartoons."

Re:sports=violence?

[alfs boner]

Just as an interesting aside that your comment reminded me of, I was watching Real TV, or at least a similar show, basically video clips of crazy stuff happening. Anyways, there's one of a teenage ice hockey game going on where a fight breaks out. Big brawl, involving a number of players from both sides. One kid out there thinks that the fighting is stupid and a waste of time, so to protest and stop the fight, he takes his shirt off, and drops his pants, while skating around the rink.

That probably wouldn't have been my first idea had I been in his case, but people started cheering for him, and everyone stopped fighting to see what was going on. So his plan worked. What made it more interesting, however, was that someone in the stands didn't approve, and called the cops. And the cops arrested him for indecent exposure, and took him to jail.

I'm not anti-sport, or even anti-violent sports like hockey and football, but I think that it's amazing that in the midst of all that fighting, the guy that goes to jail is the pacifist who felt like taking his clothes off. It wasn't really lewd or sexual(unlike the infamous superbowl incident). He caused a fight to stop. He stopped people from trying to hurt each other. And someone found that offensive enough to call the cops. That just, to me, says something very strange about our culture.

Solution: Vote

[Mr. Sketch]

Seriously, if we have law makers passing this kind of legislation, it is our responsibility to vote them out of office. The article speaks of a generational gap between us (the under 35/40 crowd) and the older crowd. Not surprisingly, it's the older crowd that has the most active voting population, and they vote people in that have their views, which are usually anti-video games. They also have a well organized group (AARP) that feeds them the propaganda that they want to hear so they will write their congressperson and let them know they think violent video games are bad.

If we want to change this situation, we, as a generation, need to take action and vote out the people who are making these laws. This problem can only be addressed by doing something. We need to vote on election days and write on congressperson every time this issue comes up to let our voice be heard.

Re:It's a shame

[esper]

Yup... There was a guy I went to college with, die-hard Republican, back when the Iran-Contra thing was hot. One of the left-wing groups on campus had a big rally one day to protest it and all the local news stations showed up. This guy rounded up a couple of his buddies and set up across the street to protest against lime jello.

Hundreds of people protesting a real issue on one side. Three loonies claiming lime Jello should be banned because it killed one of their mothers on the other side. Guess which way the TV cameras were pointed... (Hint: The Iran-Contra protesters were not happy about being ignored.)

Re:of course...

[joe 155]

One thing people never mention is when God ordered the death of someone for working on a sunday, now I know I don't have a right to challenge Him; but surely God is more important than a videogame, especially in a country where most people are active in their faith... why did no one say "that kid at columbine had read the bible, people were killed in the bible, it must be the bible's fault, ban the bible" instead they blame Manson (even though they weren't fans anyway).

Video games are on the whole no more violent than the bible, they often contain messages of hope or the idea of good winning... I always fail to see why people always blame games

Wait for it.

[Sylver Dragon]

As with most of life's problems, this one will go away if we just wait long enough.
In 20 years or so, those of us who grew up with video games will be in our 40-50's and in control of most things. The people who grew up in the mists of the dark ages will either be dead or pretty darn close to it. Once that happens we can all agree that video games are not evil and insted work on preventing the corruption of children by whatever new evil has come about by then.