Personal responsibility thrown out - AGAIN

[ahartman]

This is just unreal.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/u...mes001012.html

"A new law prohibiting underage
children from playing violent and sexually
provocative video arcade games will now be
enforced after an Indiana federal court lifted a
temporary injunction preventing the ordinance
from going into effect."

[Joel]

Why should any of us feel obligated to except personal responsibility when we live in a society where even our government feels that it has a right to tell how to live our personal lives?

Joel

[Brian R.]

I think the whole issue with the gov't is that they think the vast majority of the people are either too stupid to know better or too lazy to care. They then feel they had better protect us against ourselves. Then when they do, we feel they are treating us like babies and we fall to the floor, scream, kick, and generally prove them right.

[paulcs]

Hey! That's not my government. That's Indiana's government. Here in in California, underage children are required to play violent videogames.

I've long had the feeling that old biddies, closet perverts, and neo-fascists that make up the self-styled "forces of order" in the US and elsewhere are concerned about computer-related stuff because they suspect kids are more technologically sophisticated than their parents. This is probably the case, which would support Brian's "stupid and lazy" theory.

As far as I'm concerned, if the republic is not threatened, let it be.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Greebe]

I think it's a dumb move also and I live here. Just blame it on the special intrest groups lobbying efforts, the Moral Majority and clueless do gooders.

It hasn't made it through the Supreme Court yet to see whether it's constitutional, so lets hope it dies there.

(which is another gripe as they are enacting laws without requiring constitutionality first.

[ahartman]

The sad thing is that it made it thru the appelate (sp) courts. The IN legislature passed the law and immediately suspended it until it was challenged.

It pains me that we're giving parents a way out of being responsible.

I don't want anything to do with monitoring other parent's kids and what they do or do not do.

[Himself]

It's like this, it's an issue politicians can get behind, they can only gain votes from it.

Some kids suck their thumbs, it's obviously the fact they were born with the damn things that is the problem, I suggest research into genetically engineering humans to not have thumbs.

[SteveC]

Hey Gurm (& Others) what was that about your freedom to do whatever you like? Over here we can play whatever games we feel like. (There is an age guide on games like films, but it's up to the parents...)

Sorry.

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[Rags]

Hey SteveC,

Don't you guys have censored version of games over there? I mean don't they take out the blood and guts out of some games? I remember reading something about that

I can purchase any game I like to. I can play any game I want to. I can go to any movie I want to. I can write anything I want to.

Rags

[Himself]

Hey Rags, didn't Eyes Wide Shut get censored in the US (and Canada)? I seem to recall some gay reviewer in Canada being outraged by Canada getting dragged into US political morality.

[Pertti]

I have once seen the US version of the "Smokey and the Bandit", and I was laughing my a** off because of the stuff that was cencored for the innocent american audience.

All "foul language" was dubbed down etc...
Poor Sally Fields even had her finger cut off (outch)

[Liquid Snake]

Doesn't affect me, I'm in NYC. But that's simply unfair. The parents raise the kids, so its their responsibility to watch what they do, and teach them what is right or wrong.

I believe games are heavily censored in Germany. Humans can not be killed, only monsters and aliens. Blood is also green, not red.

American Pie was censored in the theatres, but you can go buy the un-censored version in the stores. I never went to see the movie, but this is what people have told me.

[paulcs]

The US government did not censor Eyes Wide Shut. The federal government cannot censor stuff like Eyes Wide Shut and expect to get away with it.

Warner Bros. censored Eyes Wide Shut to avoid the NC-17 rating. Self-censorship and government censorship are two different things.

Rarely have I seen a better example of the pot calling the kettle black. Here's a 1994 statement from the The National Executive Board (NEB) of the National Writers Union about Canadian censorship and it's potential spread to the United States:

"The National Executive Board condemns the widespread censorship in Canada, and we denounce the current confiscation of books and magazines at the Canadian border as a pernicious affront to fundamental and inalienable human rights. We fear that this kind of censorship will become common in the United States as well should a pornography exception to the First Amendment be established. Therefore we urge our members to join us in opposing all anti-pornography and other pro-censorship legislation at the Federal, state, and local levels."

In order for Canadian-style censorship to take place in the United States, the Bill of Rights would have to amended. This has not happen once during the entire history of the republic. Not once. It is an extremely long and drawn out process. The system was designed to move extremely slowly to avoid the very sort of thing that happened in Canada after the 1992 Butler decision.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 14 October 2000).]

[paulcs]

Things may have changed in Finland recently. I can't keep up on the censorship laws in every country.

Unlike in the United States, where the rating of films is done by the industry itself, films in Finland are regulated by the state. All films in Finland are/were subject to review by the State Film Approval Office. That sounds a little chilling, and it is, although the Finns are pretty liberal when it comes to what children of a certain age can see. Thus, the makers of Smokey and the Bandit sent a more "daring" cut to Finland than the cut we saw in the US.

Finland's State Film Approval Office rates/rated films by age standards (ie, K-10, K-12, K-16, K-18, etc.). Films rated above K-16 had to be cut to be transfered to and distributed on video, although, apparently, these restrictions don't/didn't apply to imported videos.

The US government does not rate films. The industry itself does that, and I think they do a lousy job. However, I believe the idea of the federal government rating films is anathema to most thinking Americans. Local governments can and have banned material they deem pornographic, but they have been overruled by the federal courts on a number of occasions.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 14 October 2000).]

[Rags]

If you've seen "The American Version" of Smokey and the Bandit, and it had no cussing, then you must have seen the network-edited versions. I watched those movies in the theaters when they came out and they were NOT censored. You are very misinformed.

As Paul said before, a company or broadcast station that censors itself is NOT censorship by the government.

I suggest you folks get your facts straight before pulling random information out of the air.

Rags