I haven’t yet referred to the DC proposal to ban the sale of certain video games to minors, it seems so self-evidently stupid and pisses me off so much I couldn’t really mount much of an educated response. So instead I’ll just quote someone else’s thoughts on the subject. Not quite scholarly, but dead on:

District political, religious and community leaders gathered at a Southeast Washington church yesterday to support a proposed ban on the sale of violent and sexually explicit video games to minors. They summed up their objections in a word: poison.

‘Why are they selling this game to our children?’ said Ronald Moten, a leader of Peaceaholics, which mentors troubled youths in the District and Maryland. He and others drew a direct line between the make-believe mayhem in such video games as Grand Theft Auto and the very real pain they see in their neighborhoods.

Yes, they draw that line because they are idiots. GTA was built to mimick the problems in those neighborhoods. Problems that existed a long time before desktop computers were common.

I suppose no one ever robbed, killed, raped, assaulted, carjacked, joined a gang, or did any of these things before the obvious evil of videogames.

Morons. Generation after generation, and they never learn. Video games this decade, TV last decade, movies before that, books before that, poetry before that….

Ban uncovered faces, ban bared ankles, ban books other than the Bible, ban everything but a bland existence filled with nothing but unobjectionable pap — and you’ll find human beings still spend their days creating misery for themselves and others.

Exactly. Don’t forget to ban baggy pants.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 9th, 2005 at 8:12 pm and is filed under Youth Rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.