Congress Sets Sights on Videogames

boarder8925 writes "According to CNET, Congress has set its sights on 'the purported problem of violent and sexually explicit video games.... A U.S. House of Representatives committee on consumer protection says it will hold a hearing on the topic later this month, with a focus on 'informing parents and protecting children' from the alleged dangers of those types of games.' " The article goes on to describe seven bills under consideration that either attach fines to the sales of Mature titles to children, or study "the effect of electronic media on youths." Five of them are sponsored by Democrats.

Do they already pay attention?

[Cinder6]

According to this [macworld.com] article, parents already seem to oversee game purchases.

And anyways, isn't this what the ESRB was started for?

Get your nose out of my kids a..es!

[Opportunist]

It's my, and only my, responsibility to raise my kids. Not that of government, not that of special interest groups, not that of any political party. Mine!

I, and I alone, decide which values to give my kids.

Re:Damned if you do...

[Southpaw018]

It's an election year. There's really not much else to say; the President is posturing for an anti gay marriage amendment (again) even though there's no chance it will ever pass. He's doing so in order to appeal to the radical right. Democrats are posturing to the moderate center by trying not to look like "the godless party." It's all a bunch of he said she said ape-style beating on your chest.

God, sometimes I hate this town.

Where ARE the parents?

[chrisxkelley]

Ridiculous. Cant we let the parents do the parenting? It's really their responsibility for watching what their kids are doing, not the governments.

Consistency

[NetSettler]

Recently, watching the Da Vinci Code movie, I marveled at how we have movies that allow PG-13 to contain "disturbing violent images" but only mild sex. There's a lot of sex not in that movie that's in the book. But the violence that was only passing in the book is really graphic in the movie. My conclusion was that the government cares only about limiting sex and not violence. p>

Now I read here that the government cares about violence in video games. Why not in movies?

It's the random way in which the government incoherently stabs us with little points of pain rather than ever creating any notion of consistent policy that troubles me way more than just whether they want ratings on video games or not.

I wouldn't care if they rated all video games heavily for sex and violence, and then left it to the market what to buy. But when they rate some but not all, regulate some but not all, what's the point? The only obvious result I see is the eventual strangulation of all US business by litigation.

It's mid-term election time.

[khasim]

This is where you find out that the Democrats are the other political party and not "liberal" by definition.

They're just following the most basic of political teachings: It's easier to get people to vote if they're "protecting" their "children" from the "bad people".

You don't hate the children, do you?
You don't support the bad people, do you?

The only way to prevent this from happening is by writing letter to your Congress Critters and telling them exactly how you feel about the issues and that they will lose your vote (and the votes of anyone you can convince) if they do not vote against those bills.

Then you just have to convince enough of your friends/family to become an active voting bloc with you.

Freedom is not free. At the minimum, it takes time and effort.

Is it an election year?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, whoops, I guess it is.

Well, I guess the Democrats have to find something to do with their time this year. After all, if they couldn't find something to keep themselves busy, they might have to start taking on the Republicans on things like systematic corruption-- or the process whereby the management of federal departments like FEMA or NASA have now been bungled to the point where they might as well not exist at all-- or the handling of a "War on Terror" that's long since stopped being about any actual threats to America and started being about just pouring money into a big pit-- or the Republican Congress' refusal to investigate the President's admitted violations of the law.

And of course the Democrats don't want to do that. So it's time to concentrate on the things that are really threats to America's wellbeing-- video games!

Sports?

[Alchemar]

I think that sports are way to violent. I think we need to tack an amendment that prohibts all children from watching sports. And makes it a federal offense to let a child play football. Think of the Children. Can someone get me the data for how many children that play sports in school have any sort of illness or injury before they graduate so we can get this passed.

Re:With regard to the editorial remark...

[CosmeticLobotamy]

It makes no sense to differentiate between the two anymore.

It never did. If you're voting for a party, you're a moron. Vote for people, not parties. There are good ones and awful ones in all of them.

More of the same = ?

[DeusExMalex]

Does it seem odd to anyone else that additional laws are typically enacted to make previously criminal offenses even more criminal-y instead of enforcing those laws already enacted (or perhaps punishing the non-enforcement of said laws)? For instance: killing someone is already a crime - does it really need to be extra crime-y if the victim is somehow different from the perp?

Re:Get your nose out of my kids a..es!

[Opportunist]

That is for sure one of the values I'll give them.

Re:Damned if you do...

[dick pubes]

Video games don't teach kids how to kill. Absent parenting combined with social retardation (as in the case of Columbine)lead kids to kill. Bad parenting or no parenting is behind most if not all teen murderers.

Amazing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally when a blurb like this comes up about 95% of slashdot freaks out and starts screaming "It's the bible beating republicans". Now that the blurb actually points out it's the democrats the posts are suddenly "the problem is both parties!"

This kind of double standards piss me off. Come on fuckers! Vote em out! Vote em all out! or was the rest of that just bullshit talk because you keep your fucking blinders on when it comes to the democrats? Do you vote on ideals or do you vote on the party line? I think the answer is apparent.

Re:Sports?

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

well considering that in my area, you may remember this in the national news, but a group of highschool football players shoved a pinecone up another teammates ass causing serious damage.

Also a kid from my area, is a suspect in that lacrosse team rape story you heard about on national news...

I'm in total agreement about sports... and i like sports just the way they are.

Its when we go too far, that things get us in trouble. Thats where parenting comes into play.

Do we laugh at the idea of kicking a baby... I sure do.

BUT do we actually kick a baby?

Most of us would never dare think of doing it in reality, but there are those few.

So what really is the problem here? Videogames? Sports? TV? Movies? Art? Speech? or humanity itself?

We are the one common aspect to all of the things we blaim for the behavior of humans...

It starts with us.... our parents.

These politicians are just out for a photo op. Senators/congressmen dont do anything on TV anyways unless its for PR. Ever watch C-Span? How much debate is actually taking place in the senate or the house? Very little. Most officials dont even show up because they are busy fund raising.

Our bills are written by lobbiests and "sponsered" by officials.

Its either an election year, or its time for the videogame lobby to pay up.

Dont worry, nothing will happen, and it if it does, you really cant do anything about it anyways because the government is out of control and beyond the reach of Americans.

Priorities

[Jason1729]

focus on 'informing parents and protecting children' from the alleged dangers of those types of games.

It would be better to protect children from a knowledge-phobic society first.

Re:a product is not free speech

[Joe U]

Products are not speech. ... A game or a product has no status of any kind under the Bill of Rights.

No products? So books don't count... Whoops, thanks for playing.

Please re-read the text of the First Amendment, it doesn't have a 'unless it's for sale' clause in there.

Re:Where ARE the parents?

[Keebler71]

Ridiculous. Cant we let the parents do the parenting? It's really their responsibility for watching what their kids are doing, not the governments.

Odd,... I thought that was exactly what this bill does... it lets parents choose what video games they can play instead of letting the kids or government choose. Kids still have the right to play games under every piece of legislation mentioned. I am curious, should kids be allowed to purchase fireworks, firearms, cigarettes and alcohol too? (note: I am not equating the effect of video games with the others... simply the legality of sales)

Ignorance

[Vexorian]

As far as I know the video games that include violence and sex are rated for not so young people. People that could find the same stuff on tv without any problem anyways.

This witch hunt against video games is as stupid as it can get. I for one do not think that violence in video games causes violence in the real world (else I would be a serial killer) I actually think that it is the opposite, violence in the real world is the cause of violence in video games

Re:Damned if you do...

[Liam Slider]

The vast majority of Americans believe that the state shoudl play a strong role in daily life.

Yes, I'm sure that statistics (as in lies, damn lies, and...) can be skewed (or just plain made up) to make it seem that most Americans want an absolutist, totalitarian government.

Re:Damned if you do...

[deficite]

Parents like to "protect" their children by keeping certain things blocked or hidden from their children. They pretend like the things simply do not exist. It's the ostrich syndrome. Unfortunately, since parents aren't willing to discuss things with their children, they are actually harming them. A kid becomes curious and his parents put him into fear of even asking, so the only source is his friends. His friends are in the same boat, and they all learned it from Billy, the psycho whose dad films child porn and takes him to strip clubs for his 8th birthday. Another way they harm their children is that a child subjugated to constantly being told "no" and shut out from things sees his parents in a negative light. He only sees his parents as people who take things away from him. Thus, teenagers tend to completely despise their parents (frustration with parents is natural, but for some children it is just extreme). When the dictator who blocks his children's things and doesn't expose his children to things (to explain the right and wrongs of these things) loses power of his slaves (once the kids go to college), crap like Girls Gone Wild happens. As well as all the dumb things many college students subject themselves to (hard drinking, drugs, unprotected sex, crime). But instead of being their children's true mentors, they'd instead just to be half-assed and pretend the "bad people" didn't exist. Who cares when I can just complain to the school board that my kid now cusses like a sailor! It's THEIR responsibility to raise my child. And when the kids come back home (a moment I DREAD), the TV needs to raise them. Ah, but it needs to be blocked, and if they see anything, I'm contacting the FCC. I shouldn't have to deal with things like explaining that the violence they see on TV isn't real, that would take away my time with the hot woman down the street I've been cheating on my wife with.

Somethings faulty

[aussie_a]

The fact you seem unaware of there being more then 2 parties suggests a fault in your information gathering tools or methods. I'd suggest investing in new tools and/or methods to gather information with.

Re:Damned if you do...

[TheGavster]

Perhaps just a government that didn't collect my taxes to jail people who spend money on drugs and prostitutes.

Re:Damned if you do...

[Chowderbags]

Last time I checked, Bush's approval ratings were down in the low 30s, nowhere near a majority.