Now you're just deflating.
I wasn't saying that parents should have to prohibit children from playing games. That's just stupid. The entire argument has been about parental neglect. If the parent believes that the child's radical tendencies are the result of a video game, they're already idiot failures. You keep throwing the subject back there like that's the point and that's what makes you a useful idiot to the expansive Government. If a parent wants to ground a kid, switch off their power outlets. It's really fucking simple. If you were's so ridiculously shortsighted, you'd understand what we're talking about. But you're participating in a conversation that is clearly far above your understanding. Let the big boys do their work and you go play with your toys.
I'm pretty sure you're not really getting the point that I was making so I'll try to spell it out in language that you might be able to get:
Kids can buy these violent and sexually perverse materials. They can simply waltz into a store, purchase them, and then walk out and play them all they want. The law in question in California requires someone to be over 18 to purchase these materials, and if a store is found selling them to minors, they would get a fine.
I'm pretty sure that you understand all of this from what you've posted. If not, feel free to flag down any point that you feel you've missed.
What I'm saying is that this law is not inhibiting anyone's right to free speech. Not only am I willing to assert my belief in this, I would go as far as to say that having a kid's parents need to buy these materials for the kid is a step in the correct direction, not only for neglectful parents but for parents that are active in their role as parents. It lets the parent know that if they don't want their child to get the game, or to play the game, they don't have to be on constant watch of their child in order to make sure of this because in order to get the game they would need someone to break the law for them.
Now whoa whoa whoa, I'm sure at this point you are already salivating at another chance to throw your condescending rhetoric at me and want to point at the fact that you believe parents should be there for their kid observing and watching 24/7 because that's what parents do, and if you aren't okay with that well then
don't be parents.
I'm not going to argue the merits and demerits of parenting skills with you. I can see that we were both raised differently: I was raised with minimal interference from my parents who both had to work all the time so we could get by, and was left to many decisions like what books I would read and what authors I liked most. Maybe I would have been outraged with my parents if they had decided that Catcher in the Rye would have been too much for me, or if they had disallowed me to read Howl because they didn't feel as though I was ready to read something like that. But I can't help but think that if I had wanted to read something that was excessively violent or sexually perverse and had wanted to move in that direction to the extent that it would have fueled violent or sexually perverse tenancies that
my parents should at least have the ability to know that what I'm reading is violent and sexually perverse.
Before you say anything about my parents, I'm pretty sure that more and more in contemporary times, parents spend more time at work and less time with their kids. If you want to point and say that's the problem, be my guest- but what I am trying to make clear is that the failure of parenthood, the raising of a child that is unfit for society, doesn't simply bear down on the parents: the consequences leak out to the society that
we live in. It is reasonable that as you get to the smaller scales (although I wouldn't say that the California State level is at the level of the community) that the community begins to make these decisions for the whole of the community.
I know it's a really American thing to hate everything that involves a community, to hate communal things, but you have to realize that we all live on this world together. There are things that I believe shouldn't be taught in the world, and to simply shrug that off and say "It's none of your business" is stupid and backwards. I'm not saying that this is cut and dry, and that we should be enforcing this sort of censorship on the national level and blah blah blah. This is a complicated matter, and I feel that something like this law, requiring minors to have their guardians purchase for them a violent or sexually perverse game is reasonable and probably a good idea.
Obviously since you own businesses and your profit is directly related to things like this you are going to be opposed to that. I don't find it surprising that you would be- something like this means that the industry is no longer able to exploit sex and violence to sell games to little kids. I'm sure you feel the same way big tobacco felt when they found out they weren't allowed to sell cigarettes to kids anymore, and I can understand why you have a problem with that. It's your livelihood, and you don't want people to take the easy money from you. It's perfectly understandable, but what I'm trying to say is that from the perspective of the person on the ground floor, from the perspective of a common person, that I think this could be a good idea, and that from the perspective of an artist, I also (albeit a lot more tentatively) feel that this could be a good idea.
Laws already exist that punish violent crimes. What you are championing is preventive laws. Like Thought Crimes. What a load of crap based entirely in superstition (see my argument where science does not yet back violent video games having any effect on crime). At least the speed limit in neighborhoods full of kids has SOME merit. You've just got being a massive dick to the free republic.
Your argument that games graphically so intense that "IT'S PRACTICALLY THE REAL THING!" insinuates that you would RATHER these people be committing the actual rapes and murders on real people. You're a piece of work.
If there's a venue where a psychotic animal may vent his frustrations and socially unacceptable actions and violent crimes inside his own home against fake bits of data that harm absolutely no one, I say three-goddamned-cheers for technology.
I feel that what you are trying to do with my words is twist them around and blow them up to the extent that they become these giant, grotesque balloon animals that you can parade around.
I mean if you want to get all "fuck fuck fuck you fucking stupid fuck cunt shit etc. etc." with your capslock and your unnecessary incivility isn't there some violent video game that you can go let out your rage and then come back and talk with any amount of class?
I guess that's kind of the point you're trying to make anyways.