Lieberman Weighs In On Grand Theft Auto 225
Thanks to Yahoo/Reuters for its article discussing Senator Joseph Lieberman's comments regarding Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto at a recent women's forum at Dartmouth College. Interestingly, Lieberman, a Democratic presidential hopeful and long-time proponent of views on this subject, comments: "Video games have gotten better over time", but continues: "There's a couple out there that are horrendous... You ought to see one called Grand Theft Auto. The player is rewarded for attacking a woman, pushing her to the ground, kicking her repeatedly and then ultimately killing her, shooting her over and over again." Although this isn't the specific goal of the game, he continues: "I call on the entertainment companies - they've got a right to do that, but they have a responsibility not to do it if we want to raise the next generation of our sons to treat women with respect."
What he's missing: (Score:5, Interesting)
Lieberman isn't saying anything unreasonable (Score:3, Interesting)
The classic example is that screaming "fire" in a crowded theatre and inciting a panic is not protected speech. Everyone agrees with that.
Asking videogame producers to use due judgement and produce products that are socially responsible is not censorship and is not wrong. The videogame industry is moving towards the same inane and worthless content that network television and cable is moving towards -- taking Liberman's advice may be helpful in the long run.
oh, the humanity! (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, not all technology is benevolent, so eventally Joe started up with his harangue about the resplendent evils of video games.
at that moment I turned around to glance at the hordes of assembled students filling the auditorium- all of them slack jawed in horror and amazement, surely. What struck me most resoundingly, was just how poorly Mr. Lieberman knew the folks he was speaking to; I'd reckon that most of the audience that day were familiar with the game, perhaps half had actually played it, and doubtless had a higher opinion than he'd have expected.There was a minor security "incident" toward the tail end of the talk that left me even more troubled; not because of any threat to our Senator [very little], but for his response to it, which
and He may be an adequate or even competent legislator, but didn't earn much of my confidence. I'm grateful that he's representing someone else's state.Just ignore him (Score:4, Interesting)
Whenever he wants to complain, he pulls the GTA card and claims that it's anti-women. Funny how my wife doesn't see that when she watches me playing the GTA games...
Here's the key: keep the rating system and educate parents so they get off their asses and pay attention to the ratings. The next time I see a parent buying Vice City for their 10-year-old, I swear I'm going to start flinging other games at them until they pay attention...
I'm still undecided on which Democrat I'm going to support for President, but I know damn well it will never be Lieberman. Media whore bastard...
Societal responsibilities (Score:2, Interesting)
Here are the facts:
1. Half of all marriages end in divorce.
Many, many of these have kids. One parent tries to woo the kid by giving them what they want. The other does the same. Pretty soon the kid has GTA... (this is not remote, it's common)
2. The number of children born outside of marriage is approaching (or overtaking) the number born within marriage.
There are millions of kids out there with no dads. Mom works... or doesn't. Leaves the kids at home... to do??? Get's GTA.
3. Many parents are idiots. The buy into all of this stuff that you guys are saying. Like... it's not real... or it's only in a video game... any healthy person can tell the difference...
They buy their kids GTA.
Don't take this post for what it's not... it's a simple statement of fact. Half or more of the kids in the country right now do not have responsible parents that are capable keeping this game out of their kids hands for whatever reason... and yes... it's their fault. But, your answer, to ignore it, won't work forever. Sure, Lieberman is a moron, but at least somebody is not naive enough to ignore this fact.
Someone, somewhere needs to wake up and realize that the dream world we live in, where everyone has two parents and a dog and goes to church on Sunday is not America anymore. Someone has to start encouraging society to at least set some sort of standards for itself. I'm one of the last people to want this to happen, but I see the wisdom in at least approaching the subject.
Re:So long as he isn't making it illegal... (Score:1, Interesting)
Responsibility (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps if parents spent more time with their children explaining why these things aren't things you practice instead of working so hard to afford that shiny new Lexus SUV than maybe we wouldn't have as many concerns.
I don't ever remember my parents sitting down with me and telling me that I played D&D or that any of the games I played on the Commodore or NES that I shouldn't reenact what I saw or read. Maybe kids were just smarter back then, but I doubt that.
What I find interesting is that you get these people that criticize the games, but yet they never say anything about other forms of entertainment. What about movies? I can think of several movies that glorified violence. Heat, The Godfather, Scarface, Braveheart are just a few. Or books? I don't know of any off hand as I read mostly fantasy, but I'm sure there are plenty out there.
About the only reason I can think they never consider it is cause games are interactive.
Re:NO (Score:2, Interesting)
And that's the appropriate way to handle things. That way, the community can pressure stores to enforce the ratings and we're not stuck with a government board that will rate games with political ideas that run counter to the government's with a AO rating.
Joe: YOU ought to see one called Grand Theft Auto (Score:2, Interesting)
Joe now seems to have a little more respect for game developers' first ammendment rights, but who the player beats up is really determined by their own free will so his arguement that the game might produce children with no respect for women is pretty dubious. It'd be nice to see some commentators in the media address the deceptive way these games are portrayed by opposition like Lieberman and the Haitian Civil Rights Advocacy groups.
Why is it always women? (Score:3, Interesting)
Apparently Sen. Lieberman is not at all bothered by the fact that you can beat up and kill male characters in the game too.
This reminds me of something I saw earlier today. I was in a conference room and saw leftover presentation materials from an earlier meeting, on the topic of crime prevention. The statistics included such facts as "82% of society will be victims of violent crime in their lifetime" and "3 out of 4 women will be victims of violent crime in their lifetime".
This irritated me. If the percentage for women is 75% but the overall is 82, then for men it must be nearly 90%. But of course the presentation did not say anything about this; 3 out of 4 women being victims of crime sounds much worse than 9 out of 10 men.
Why can't a society value all human life, instead of taking this attitude as Lieberman has that crime against women is bad, but crime against men would be fine?
Re:Just don't get it. (Score:3, Interesting)
Although this post is obvious flamebait, it's worth pointing out that at no time has a majority of people in this country voted to allow abortion (unless you count the very democratic 5-4 vote on the Supreme Court). In fact, this country has a very long history of criminalizing abortion going back to English common law, and many states have laws on the books that will prohibit abortion as soon as Roe is completely overturned.
Re:Lieberman isn't saying anything unreasonable (Score:3, Interesting)
The classic example is that screaming "fire" in a crowded theatre and inciting a panic is not protected speech. Everyone agrees with that.
No they don't.
Well maybe they agree that it isn't protected speach, but not that it shouldn't be.