Illinois to Pay for Unconstitutional Gaming Law 219
adam_sd writes "Those of us in the Video Game Voters Network were emailed a press release today stating that the state of Illinois will have to pay a half-million dollars in attorney's fees to the Entertainment Software Association, Video Software Dealers Association and Illinois Retail Merchants Association. ESA president Douglas Lowenstein is quoted in the press release saying "Judge Kennelly's rulings send two irrefutable messages — not only are efforts to ban the sale of violent video games clearly unconstitutional, they are a waste of taxpayer dollars." The law was declared unconstitutional in December of last year."
Violence is OK then (Score:4, Insightful)
Yup. (Score:4, Insightful)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=180417&cid=149 34104 [slashdot.org]
It's a good day (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Logic? (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of the children! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, few strict constructionist judges ever notice that the war on drugs is clearly unconstitutional too.
Illinois won't be paying (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Online Gambling (gaming) ban; good or bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
You probably know this, but for those that don't -- this is only true if the money goes toward a good or service made in the US. Even if you buy from a US company, that good could be made elsewhere, you are contributing to that economy's GDP. On the flip side, you may be contributing to the US GDP if you buy a Toyota and that car is made here (Toyota does have factories here).
Because of all the outsourcing, buying "American" (i.e. from an American company) has very little meaning anymore. If we all started buying "American" from tomorrow on, it would probably have minimal effect on our trade deficits unless actual manufacturing moves back here.
Our Governer sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
Judy Baar Topinka sucks too. I don't even know her stances on crap cause she displays stupid commercials about "more accountability" which people will OOOH and AHH for.
In fact, wtf do any of Novembers' candidates stand for? They're all bad-mouthing each other and on the "increased accountability" stance.
Re:Illinois won't be paying (Score:5, Insightful)
I can dream, can't I?
Logic FTW (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Three Strikes (Score:5, Insightful)
That seems like a great idea
Uhh... no, it doesn't. For many reasons, among them:
1. You think politicians don't do anything useful now? Imagine the levels of inactivity you are going to force them into if you tell them that if they mess up too many times, their career is over. Nobody is going to take chances. Nobody is going to pass controversial measures. And it bears reminding that some things we find to be absolute no-brainers (civil rights, etc) were highly controversial when they were passed.
2. There seems to be a tacit insinuation that "legal" means "right," which is an issue of morality. There's no such link, and while I would like my politicians to adhere as best they can to the Constitution, I also understand that we need a new type of government if we're not going to let them vote the way they think is right.
3. Voters really ought to be able to elect whomever they please, as many times as they please. I don't believe in term limits for just this reason--but at least they did that one right; they amended the Constitution to include such a limit. Nobody should tell me I can't vote for somebody for any reason, including "he's fucking awful." What if I don't care that he's passed three unconstitutional laws? What if I like the stands he was taking, the points he was making with the laws? What if I supported the laws? My candidate is no longer eligible because he represented me?
Look, passing unconstitutional laws really shouldn't happen, but if there's going to be a penalty attached to such activity, I will attach it as a voter. And if voters are too dumb to take these things into consideration (and they probably are), too bad. That's one of the consequences of living in a republic.
4. Constitutionality is not a simple subject. You can take just about any Constitutional issue, post about it here on slashdot, and get a tremendous flamefest over what it means, how it pertains, etc. And that phenomena is not limited to discussion forums. You can probably take ANY Supreme Court decision--certainly EVERY decision that was not made unanimously, by the very definition--and find some judge somewhere in the country who disagrees with it. It's hard to determine these issues. We dedicated a third of our federal government to doing nothing BUT deciding these issues. A lot of people here, as elsewhere, take their own interpretations of the Constitution to be the end-all-be-all, and that's fine. I'm glad they have strong opinions. But it means absolutely nothing to a court, and it shouldn't.
5. Taking #3 into account, you're going to polticize the judicial process even more than it is already politicized. In states where judges have to run for office (is that all of them?), how kindly do you think the Republican party will take to a Republican judge kicking one of their guys out of office because of such a three-strike law? Is a Democratic judge kicking a Republican out of office going to be seen as a polticial move? Do we really want to essentially give impeachment powers to the judiciary at all?
6. And while we're here, in most states, and the federal government, this would need to be enacted as a constitutional amendment. A law to this effect would almost certainly be struck down, which would be the epitome of irony.
7. As another mini-irony, not only does the Constitution not include any such punishment scheme for violating the Constitution, it really doesn't include any provisions for declaring laws unconstitutional at all. It's something Justice Marshall took upon himself to piss off Thomas Jefferson in the opening years of our country, and we just sort of said "yeah, that makes sense." Could it be that declaring laws unconstitutional is unconstitutional? Hmmmm.
So no. It doesn't seem like a very good idea to me at all.
Re:Logic? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I do not take too much issue with his stance on AT&T's disclosure of phone records. I do not know too much about law, however, the reason is this.
While it is shitty business practice to give up your clients phone records, it is not a breach of privacy. Partially because a phone record is not really anything very personal, and can only be used to track your contacts, and frequency of... contacting them. They are not giving up anything that could be used to personally hurt you, unless of course you are doing something wrong.
Now don't misunderstand this as me thinking that this is a good idea, I definately do not. If they were giving access to actual phone conversations, it would be different (and I wouldn't be suprised if it were true). But legally I just don't think AT&T really has done anything wrong. However, I would be very hesitant to give them any of my business, and I wish more people paid attention to this stuff and actually showed the big companies that they are willing to stop using services over this kind of thing. I think that a lot of blame that gets placed on public officials, though a ton of it is deserved, could easily be pointed at our very complacent and accepting population. I sometimes wonder what it would take to get a large portion of our citizens fired up, not "I'm gonna go blog RIGHT NOW!" fired up, but "I am going to go do something because I believe in it." fired up. So our new president isn't going to bar people from doing things that are shitty... As long as he is going to keep them from doing things that are illegal, I am cool with that.
There might be better options out there though... I just liked seeing someone from Illinois putting a smack down on these frivilous laws.
Re:Logic? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Violence is OK then (Score:5, Insightful)
*blinks*
Yeah. I'll bet you enjoy slavery.
Sorry, but I serve two distinct groups:
My family, and society at large. In that order. The devil and the 'lord' can go take a flying leap.
Re:Online Gambling (gaming) ban; good or bad? (Score:1, Insightful)
2) "Bush" had nothing to do with this. This was an action of the state of Illnois, which, not to put too fine a point on it, is one of the most anti-Bush states in the Union.
3) It's not really necessary to start screeching about "Bush", regardless of the topic under discussion. Please stop behaving like a rat that's been conditioned in a Skinner box [vcu.edu]. Thanks.
Re:Logic? (Score:2, Insightful)
In other words: it's the same guy.
Re:Think of the children! (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I used to consider myself "pro choice" on this; how can I be libertarian (note small "l") and not?
But I've been thinking recently, we keep harping about a "woman's right to choose", what about a MAN'S right to choose? I've changed my mind; I'm anti-abortion.
If I knock some chick up, she can abort it whether I want the child or not. If she wants it, I have to pay for it. I have no choice whatever! "Well you should have thought of that before you had sex".
So should she, especially since she has access to birth control and I don't! If I have no choice, she shouldn't either.
A law saying that she can have an abortion when both parents want it would be fine with me.
Also, why should a woman have a choice to take a few cells out but no choice to take a drug?
Note that I raised both of my kids myself, we're talking theory here.
Re:Online Gambling (gaming) ban; good or bad? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Think of the children! (Score:3, Insightful)
A few examples:
- The National speed limit: 55 miles per hour might be great in densely populated eastern states, but going from St. Louis to Denver, 75 mph is appropriate much of the way.
- The National drinking age: This one is disputable, but in some places drinking at 18 years old isn't going to be as devistating as it is in others. The federal government would restrict transportation funding if a state refused to comply.
I don't have time to write about the numerous other things that should fall into states rights, but it boils down to this: The federal government makes individuals pay taxes, then hold this money against the states to make them comply with certain laws that aren't supported by the constitution. If the states were to decline the funding from the federal government, they would have to tax their citizens more, and the citizens would become angry that they were being taxed twice for the same thing. Those of us in favor of states rights generally support the US constitution, it's the funding restrictions that drive us crazy.
Re:Logic? (Score:3, Insightful)
OT: Fairer parenting strategies (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly, I think the way it should work is something like this: if both parents want the child, everything's hunky-dory. If the father doesn't want it, then he has to cover the cost of the termination, but after that has no further liabilities. If the mother wants to continue with it at that point, it's on her. If the mother wants to terminate, and the father doesn't, then it isn't fair to require her to continue with the pregnancy: at best, she could be required to have the pregnancy terminated in such a way that the frozen embryo could be turned over to the father, and he could find/pay someone to act as a surrogate mother, if he was so inclined. Either way, either partner could leave but leave the other partner the possibility of continuing on without them, if they really wanted to.
I think the key is that we need to make it clear that nobody who is uninterested in becoming a parent should ever become one. It's too damned important a job to take on if you have any reservations at all about your ability or desire to do it. There are enough people in the world: I'd rather have more abortions than have kids born to parents who didn't want to be parents.
Re:HA HA (Score:3, Insightful)
Will it?
The legislators get the credit and the votes for "taking a principled stand". The state's taxpayers get the bill for lawyers' fees. Come November it'd be nice to see some incumbents voted out over this issue, but it's a pretty safe position (like "tough on crime") because people who aren't directly affected won't fire up the necessary neurons to examine the consequences of success -- it's not something they're into, cleaning it up can only be a good thing, vote "yes".
Re:Our Governer sucks (Score:2, Insightful)
They've been rebuilding tolls here in Illinois to use what's called "open road tolling", which works with the I-Pass RFID tolling system. Above every single one of the open tolls there's a sign that reads "Open Road Tolling - Governor Rod R. Blagojevich". Each one of these signs costs $15,000, and are made by a company that made large contributions to the gov in the last race.
I mean, to me, a sign like that is basically nothing more than using tax dollars to promote yourself and your office. Government shouldn't be using tax dollars for self-marketing.