From the article
Quote:"In this country, the state lacks the authority to ban protected speech on the ground that it affects the listener's or observer's thoughts and attitudes," the judge wrote.
From the article
Quote:"In this country, the state lacks the authority to ban protected speech on the ground that it affects the listener's or observer's thoughts and attitudes," the judge wrote.
And of course where would this link be without the Slashdot discussion on the subject
I am just @#%$ ****ed.
To see what these games are doing to people and families, and we have no way to defend ourselves.
I hope they will rewrite it, so it is consitutional. In many of the games, they are doing everything that is illegal in real life. That is going to affect how the people act who play them hour after hour, day after day, year after year.
This is what the attorney for Grand Theft Auto said - Defense attorneys claim that the first amendment protects the defendantsAC/a,!a,,C/ right to distribute mature-rated video games to minors. This is pure @#%$ that we have to allow our children to be subjected to these kind of games. There should be laws regulating that. Don't give me the arguement, that parents should know what their kids are doing all of the time. I recall when I was a teenager. If my mother knew what I was doing, she would have had a heartattack. Kids have away of getting around their parent, unless the parent chains them in the kitchen.
Liz
Liz Woolley
Ugh. We need laws like this, ****it. These games are made for adults and adults alone. Is it unconstitutional to not allow a kid into an R-rated movie? No! Then, by that same logic, it shouldn't be unconstitutional to not allow a kid to buy an M-rated game.
-Mutt
Creator of Perki Goth/Candi Raver
And MPLH
Kids being barred from entering R rated movies is a choice made by the theatre, not the Govt. It is perfectly legal for a 6 year old to walk into a R rated movie, so the constitution is not involved. By creating laws for this type of thing, the constitution is brought into play.
The problem becomes who decides what material is offensive and what is not. Some parents may feel their children can see some violence, others may feel some nudity, others may feel some language, it is something that is dependant on the parent. By creating a law with arbitrary standards for decency, parents lose the right to decide whether they want their children to be able to do certain things. A parent who has no problem with allowing their child to buy Halo would no longer have that option with this law in place. Yes, the parent can go buy it for themselves and maybe they should, but that is not the point.
The point is the constitution was written with the idea that anything that was not expressly given as a govt power was considered a "people power". Allowing the Govt to start acting as the morality police is a step away from the founders intentions and a step in the wrong direction. The question always comes up, whose morality are they building laws for?
Right now across the country, parents are free to parent as they see fit for most things. Although it does not seem immediately wrong for the Govt to give them a little help here and there it is an ominous sign of things to come when considered carefully. It lessens the parental rights of the less restrictive parents and sets a precedent for the Govt to arbitrarily dictate its own set of morals on the People. This individual case may not be all that bad, but our laws and courts consider precedent to have a high importance. If something has been done before than it can be done again, only more so.
Let the parents and economics decide. It has worked with movies, no laws exist there and that system works fine. The same can apply with games. Places like Wal-Mart will not sell "immoral" games to minors, or even at all. Other stores like EB may. Society can affect which model wins out by shopping at one or the other for their games, thereby telling the game companies how to do business.
In summary I do not think we should continue down the road of imposed morality and the associated nanny state as it will lead to a place we do not want to go and will not be able to return from. Throughout history it can be seen that laws frequently become more restrictive and it is an extreme rarity for laws to be relaxed..
Edited by: Banninated at: 12/8/05 9:24
This is why the idea of separation of church and state is so important. When a group of people grow so strong that they can coerce the government to impose their moral agendas upon the rest of the public, then one by one those freedoms which theh group feels goes against their beliefs are curtailed and abolished.
During this presidency, you've heard again and again how the conservative religious folks claimed they were the reason for Bush winning the election and how they have openly voiced their discontent with how aspects of the government have been run. Their latest complaint is that Bush sent out Holiday cards saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."
www.washingtonpost.com/wp...01900.html
Now, those of you who know me know I am not anti-Christian or anti-religious - However I am against certain groups, no matter what their mission is, whether it's religious or otherwise, who organize and use their numbers to persuade the government to impose their will on other citizens.
With regard to gaming, I have no problems with the rating system and the enforcement of it, just as I have no problems with the rating and enforcement of movies. What I have a problem with is when certain organizations who have problems with the content of a game or movie try to force the government to censor or ban it. The whole freedom of speech aspect of our Constitution is not some tired old cliche. Just because you have a large group of people who disagree with the views of a few individuals, it does not mean that the majority wins. In fact, the whole purpose of our form of government is to protect the individuals from the large groups and ensure those less powerful are granted the same rights and privileges as those more powerful.
I choose not to play games like GTA: San Andreas because I am appalled by the content and genre and I wouldn't buy it for anyone I know. If I was a parent, I wouldn't buy it for my kids and if I had a publication, I would not accept advertising to display ads for it. I have even told parents that I don't think it's a good idea to let their young kids play it. But that's where my responsibility ends.
And just because it might not always be realistic for parents to monitor and control things that their kids do, does that mean you abandon the principle that says that parents should always be responsible? I don't think so. That should be the premise that we all start out with. The problem is that many parents think that they can't and just throw up their hands and say, "Oh Well."
Parents today never cease to amaze me. How come my generation is so irresponsible?
Ron
"Get a Life!"
Ron Jaffe AKA Diggo McDiggity
OLGA Admin and Member since 2001
eMail: ronjaffe@cfl.rr.com
Co-Founder of OLGA and member since 2002
Quote:This is why the idea of separation of church and state is so important.If you look at history, this concept came about to keep the GOVERNMENT out of Church life, not to keep GOD out of the government.
If you will look at why people came over here in the first place - it was for religious freedom - so they could worship as THEY wanted, not as the government told them.
The founders of our country were all very spiritual people, and our country was formed, based on God, as you can see, by looking at our coins, and reading our history. It never was the intention of our founders, to take God out of the government. That is a sad thing, that is happening now, because of misinterpretation of that statement.
Liz
Edited by: lizwool at: 12/8/05 10:38
Liz Woolley
Of course, deciding WHICH group has the right God for govenernment is the problem. Liz, if it were devout Muslims who had the prevalant voice in government, would you make this same arguement? Or devout Jews?
Edited by: tiredangel at: 12/8/05 13:43
Considering this is the United States, and it was founded by Christians, and I am an American, and that is how I was raised, I am very comfortable with that.
For people who have come here from different countries and backgrounds, if they want to be closer to their preferred religion and beliefs, go to the land where they are practiced. If they do not like Christians, why do they come here?
Liz Woolley
Religions of ALL kinds are practiced in the United States, so non-Christian Americans are already in a land where their religion is practiced. And our forefathers, as you point out, fully understood religious persectution, and found it so important that congress NOT make laws favoring one religion. There is no ambiguity in the wording, except for people who are VERY good at spin -- it addresses both the state establishing a religion and people's right to practice, not just the one as you suggest. There is NOTHING in the constitution or Declaration of Independance that mentions Christianity. And at least one founding father rejected the mysticism of Christianity (Thomaas Jefferson).
This country is a melting pot of cultures. It's something that I was taught to be proud of.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Hugs,
Tiredangel
Edited by: tiredangel at: 12/8/05 16:39
But in reality, the people who came to this country and settled it (while chasing the indians out, murdering them and taking their land) were from Europe. They believed in God, not Buddah or Islam or Mohammed. Those are all higher powers of China and the Middle East.
So, in reality, we were originally a melting pot for other people who believed in God (Italy, Mexico, Europe, Africa, South America). It has only been of late - since the Vietnam war in the 1970's that people started coming here with other higher power backgrounds. I saw the change. When I was growing up, there were no people from the middle east or China here.
When the first settlers came here, they all did believe in God, and those are the beliefs that have been passed down to us. They knew nothing of the buddas and mohammeds. Our history is from the God side.
So, anyway, that is what I am used too, because it has only been in the last 10+ years that I have actually met up with anyone of religions different than Christian and Jews.
Liz
Edited by: lizwool at: 12/8/05 17:15
Liz Woolley
MANY Asians helped build the railroads. Many black people were brought here as slaves (most would not have been Christians, though they were tortured into taking the religion) who helped fight the wars etc. Africa has a huge Muslim influence, Liz, as well as various tribal religions -- I'm not sure why you classify it as Christian unless you're only talking about the white settlers there.
What happened, Liz, is integration. Before, you didn't LIVE with people of different cultures, but for certain, they were here.
Edited by: tiredangel at: 12/8/05 18:26
This is not as simple as religious types imposing their morals, it is much larger than that. It is anyone who imposes their morals on others via the govt, but since the thread seems to have switched over to how religion applies to this... Even within Christianity there are a myriad of opinions on how to raise children. I know christians who allow their children to play all types of video games and I know christians who will not allow a xbox or ps2 in their house. and that just reinforces why making laws like this is wrong. Who is to say what is right for my kids? it is sure as heck not the govt, its the parent. The Govt is not to force any moral point of view on the people as the people do not agree on any one set of morals.
Well, the blacks came here because they were brought here as slaves to help ensure the profits of the wealthy colonizers and landowners and the religious founders of our country. Many of the founders of this country had slaves. It was greed that brought many folks here for the first 200+ years of our country's existence.
Following the ending (laugh) of slavery, many more continued to come here for the lure of money during the industrial revolution and beyond. To this day, people come here, not for religious freedoms necessarily, but because they are brainwashed by the American television shows about how obviously rich everyone is here in the United States and so they want the best for their families and come here looking for work.
Well, maybe not in Wisconsin, but over 13,000 Chinese workers were here in the late 19th century involved with every railroad construction project in the west. The problem was that the inexperienced Chinese who consistently built better and smoother railroad tracks and beds than their white counterpart workers were invisible. The people of the United States as a whole have always been untrusting and biased against those of different cultures and religions. The Chinese were here...they were just invisible.
I wouldn't be too sure - Just because Americans today are so ignorant in terms of understanding foreign cultures and people, it doesn't mean that our ancestors who came from those cultures were. To truly understand a people and culture, you have to immerse yourself in that culture for a period of time. The Renaissance period in world history was about the exploration of other cultures and arts and literature following the dark middle ages where religious persecution and imperialism was the order of the day.
Our country has always been a melting pot but it just wasn't acceptible to make an issue out of it. Similarly, many things in this last century were kept 'behind closed door' and not discussed - It doesn't mean those things didn't exist.
Ron
"Get a Life!"
Ron Jaffe AKA Diggo McDiggity
OLGA Admin and Member since 2001
eMail: ronjaffe@cfl.rr.com
Co-Founder of OLGA and member since 2002
Not another person who thinks that if you aren't Christian then you hate America. Saying that non-Heterosexuals, non-Christians, and non-Whites don't belong in this country is sick.
Edited by: HunterTen at: 12/9/05 1:31
One thing that happened here (on our message board), is that people said that I could not talk about God, because they did not believe in God.
I am a Christian, and I do believe in God. Why do I have to act like I am a non-Christian beause someone else does not believe in God? I told them, that they don't have to talk about God, I don't care, but I am Christian, so I do talk about God. God is a part of my life.
We can all believe how we want, and we can tolerate how others believe, but we do not have to shove our beliefs on to others.
Liz
Liz Woolley
Liz, no one said you couldn't believe in the Christian God or talk about the Christian God (it really was the other way around). You're a smart lady and true to your convictions -- I like that. But it's hard to listen when you resort to strawman arguments.
I personally believe Churches of all religions should pay taxes. Or I should be allowed to make my home a place of worship. I do have an alter