Rockstar Strikes Back 81
Eurogamer is reporting on a little humor that Rockstar is having at Jack Thompson's expense. From the article: "Rockstar has just launched a new website for forthcoming PSP game GTA: Liberty City Stories, which features a spoof email from 'JT@CitizensUnitedNegatingTechnology'. 'The Internet is an unambiguous evil,' the email reads. 'The only things worse than the Internet are computer games and liberals ... Only last week, I was using the Internet to look up some information for my 15 year old niece, who is a keen water skier and state wide sailor ... Trust me when I say this - searching under the subject matter "Teenage girls water sports" is not for the faint hearted.'" The article goes on to describe some frantic arm waving from the parody's target.
Liberals? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because liberals [wikipedia.org] are completely [wikipedia.org] rational [wikipedia.org] about the effects of entertainment media [wikipedia.org].
(Not a liberal or conservative - just sayin').
Teenage girl watersports (Score:4, Insightful)
I know it's a parody, but I'm tired of hearing idiots talk about "when you search for stuff on the internet, all you get back is pornography!". That's complete bullshit.
Go into "preferences" on google and select "safe search". Now, search for teenage girls water sports [google.com].
I only looked at the first 15 pages worth of results, but NONE are inappropriate or pornographic or sexual whatsoever. Even with "safe search" turned off, six of the first ten results are about the intended, non sexual, subject.
Re:Liberals? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Rockstar are using liberal in the classical sense of the word
Uh Oh (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you say "lawsuit"?
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Re:Hehe.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is best summed up by C. S. Lewis:
To sum it up: People who want to forbid you from doing something for your own good who do it because their own concience tells them to do so will never stop doing it, and will keep stopping you from doing things, not because that thing hurts them, but because it hurts you or someone else.
I tend to live by the idea that no one has any right to tell anyone not to do anything else as long as it's not hurting someone -- and something hurting someone is defined by the person who is supposed to be being hurt.
In other words, I cannot beat the crap out of people in broad daylight on city streets -- unless that person happens to not mind my doing it.
However, if that person doesn't mind it, no one, whether it be a fellow no-one like me, or someone like the Pope or the Dalai Lama, has any right to stop me from doing it , or to stop the person who is enjoying having the crap beaten out of them from enjoying it.
People always want rules, they always want laws -- always for other people. When is the last time you ever say some elected official trying to get something banned, "Because I need it to be banned to make me stop?" Never. First of all, if you know it's wrong, why do you need a law to make you stop doing it? And second of all, if you know it's wrong in the first place, why are you doing it? You must not think it's really that wrong, or you have no self-control. And if you have no self control, why are you in office?
I don't think we're going to get anywhere in this world until we find some way to rid humanity of the busy-body trait that makes others try to stop letting their fellow humans go to hell in their own way. Of course, the problem is, people like me, who feel in this way, are generally too pacifist to take any drastic action to stop it.
However, even though I am a pacifist, I am still rational, and I never let my pacifism get in the way of what I feel needs must be done.
To these people who want to take away our rights to listen to and read and watch what we will, I say this: If it offends you, don't watch it. Turn off the TV, or the Radio, or skip that story in the Magazine. But don't you dare stop me from being able to turn of the TV to that Program, or the Radio to that Song, or to that Page in the Magazine or Newspaper. Restricting the Rights of the People 'a little bit' falls into the same classic silliness as 'a little bit pregnant.' You are either pregnant or not. You are either taking my Rights away or not. There is a reason they are called Rights, and not Privellages.
I would, to paraphrase the words of Thomas Jefferson, suffer from having too much Freedom than too Little. To badly quote Benjamin Franklin, "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither." Has no one ever noticed that the Product of Freedom and Security is a constant? To have freedom, you must give up your security!
The freedom to drive an automobile is the freedom to be involved in a 37 car pile-up on the interstate. The freedom to have hardware stores is the freedom to possibly be killed with a hammer by an assailant, or to nail your hand to a board with a nailgun.
Are so many of my countrymen in these, the failing days of our once great Republic, become so stupid? Are the words of our Founding Fathers no longer required learning, even for those who would run this, the country they designed?
Very soon in this country, one of two things will happen. Either we will become the Evangelical Christian States of A
You're Listening to KXXX FM... (Score:4, Insightful)
Without hesitation, I'll go ahead and hazard a guess that Madman Jack is talking about Howard Stern. No, I know what you're thinking, Howard Stern isn't porn. You don't get it. To Jack, anything exceeding his personal obscenity barometer is pornographic filth, including but not limited to swimsuit and underwear ads, soap and shampoo commercials, commercials for "femenine hygene" products (probably also wicked tools of the Evil Femenist Regime (TM)), and pretty much anything that in any way expresses that there is some physiological difference between boys and girls.
It's an old tactic used by those who wish to manipulate the public by slapping spurious labels on what they don't like. Saying "We want filth and pornography off our airwaves," is likely to get more support than "Thinking about sex is wrong and evil."
Really, the question shouldn't be "What are Jack Thompson's views on the matter?" (Which no one really asked, but Jack supplied anyway), but "What are Jack Thompson's wife's views? Is his zealotry detracting from their marriage?
Re:Hehe.... (Score:3, Insightful)
That being said, the Evangelical Christians are a real threat to this country; I would argue it is every bit as dangerous as Islamic Fundamentalists although some may call that statement flamebait. The fuckers are setting up schools to teach young politicians how to use the bible to make lawmaker-type decisions. If that isn't the most absurd, dangerous and stupidest thing I've ever heard than I'll run around naked for a week. And yes, I think I'm employing the user of hyperbole here