Senators Pushing for CDC investigation of gaming!

Taurothar

Taurothar

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GU Comics post:

Damn Anti-gaming Activists (3/14)
Democratic Senators Joseph Lieberman (CT), Hilary Clinton (NY), and Dick Durbin (IL) last Wednesday, March 8th, convinced a Senate committee to appropriate funds for an extensive study of the "impact of electronic media use" that would be organized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Source: Gamespot [ more info ]

Now, I don't really mind the idea of an unbiased, third party agency investigating the "impact of electronic media use". But the CDC is NOT an unbiased, 3rd party agency. The CDC is an operating division of the Department of Health and Human Services and thus receives its funding as part of the DHHS budget. That's not exactly what I'd call unbiased or 3rd party.

But what really bothers me is, what does the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have to do with studying games/gamers? For my money, and it is, in part, my money (taxes), I prefer they continue to study... you know... actual diseases and not be sent off on some wild, anti-gaming goose chase initiated by wild, anti-gaming peckerwoods... er... Senators.

This initiative doesn't outline how, when, why any restrictions might be levied. But, it's obviously meant to give anti-gaming legislators a means to justify the levying of restrictions on the gaming industry. You might remember recently an appellate court overturning a St.Louis Missouri law designed to prohibit making violent video games available to minors without a guardian's consent on the grounds that the county would have to provide proof violent video games caused psychological harm to minors. This bill, CAMRA (Children and Media Research Advancement Act), could potentially serve just that end.

Again I'll state plainly that I'm all for keeping certain games, movies, etc. out of the hand of "unsupervised" minors. But, I'm sick and tired of the current approach to restricting the exposure of certain games to a specific audience. Age is not an indication of maturity. So, it's a terrible way to determine the proper viewing audience for any media type. "What's right" for a child should be determined by a parent or guardian that actually spends time with the party in question while they watch, play, or otherwise interact with a piece of media whether that be television, movies, games, or even books. "Parental" Guidance is the key.

Well, I'll wrap this up as I could continue to rant on the subject for hours on end. And I'm probably just preaching to the chior here. I would just like to wrap up this post by saying the bill does NOT single out video games. It covers most media types: tv, movies, video games, cell phones, the internet, et cetera. And, where I don't agree with them using the CDC to carry out their heavy handed ignorance, it might not be a totally unprecendted move. Someone more familiar with CDC policy would have to comment on that. I don't care; I just see it as a conflict of interests.


UPDATE: Comic changed from Hilary Clinton to Joseph Lieberman.

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Thread direction:
Try not to aimlessly bash these legislators yeah? I know it's frustrating how they keep raining this crap down on use, but there are ways to go about showing them our displeasure that do not include issuing forth expletives and inanities on a little known game-related forum. So, no pointless negativy, no direct disagreement with other posters over their opinion, etc.
Click to expand...

Related Comic: Here

Discuss.
 
People have been trying to rid our society of "bad" games for a long long time. If they wanted to ban a lot of "electronic media" that is "poisoning our minds" they better get to re-writing the constitution. It'll never happen they are just wasting our hard earned taxed dollars. They need to put that money to classes that teach parents how to raise better children by teaching them right from wrong.
 
why can't hillary clinton just get a tumor :\
 
I still find it odd that they only attribute violence to video games, while ignoring the blindingly obvious positive effects of playing games and studies showing no causality between the two. Amazing that we can't learn how to be funny, be more dramatic, or be romantic from media; but see someone getting hit and we just have to immitate it!

tetris.jpg
 
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."

-Kristian Wilson, Nintendo Inc. 1989
 
It all reminds me of the hysteria around the old Tales from the Crypt comics and how everyone was convinced all those gory stories would turn our kids into degenerates who slouch against walls and let their hair grow long.

I was pleased to see the resulting Comics Code Authority go the way of the dodo. Let parents worry about monitoring their children's media and let the artists do their thing.
 
The funny thing about violent video games is that every real, reputable study and experiment (i.e. not the academic bullshit rhetoric spewed out by the above Crackheads.. er, Senators) has shown no evidence that the violence in video games cause more violence in people.

And, fuck, man. Look what their generation grew up with... Look at the old Warner Bros. cartoons, stuff like Tom & Jerry. - .-'


Edit: Oh, and Skaw wins this thread.
 
Just another excuse to avoid calling people bad parents.

Parenting has ALWAYS been the issue.

What simply amazes me is a child can grow up in a home where he was beaten, raped, tortured, screamed at, berated, and just otherwise treated like crap; but that's all disregarded as a cause to his violence if they happen to find a copy of Doom or Goldeneye in his room.

For fucks sake people, parenting is the issue, not the goddamn video games.
 
Tyrion said:
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."

-Kristian Wilson, Nintendo Inc. 1989
Click to expand...

I used to do this all the time.....now I know it was due to pac-man >.<

Damn you pac-man!! You yellow circle bastard!
 
Ya know crap like this is what makes me not a democrat (Dont get me wrong I am not republican either). The American government on both ends and all around is run by a bunch of morons, y because smart people have better things to do.

This reminds alot of PMRC and all that crap from a about a decade or so ago. Hooray for Liberman.

Ladys and gents, it is the parents responsiblity for their children, not the government, not the media, the parents. It will be a beautiful day when you have to have a license to have children.... ok that may be a bit extreme, but the current issue with parents drives me crazy.... and Im going to be a high school teacher, I must be crazy.
 
You're not allowed to be a teacher, you actually have interesting interests.
 
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