Louisiana to Pay $92,000 After Game Law Fight 32
After Louisiana's unsuccessful anti-games legislation bid last year, the judge ordered the state to pay the court costs for the ESA and EMA. This week, Judge Brady ordered the state to shell out some $92,000 to the organizations in compensation for wasted time. "Within the ruling, Judge Brady also said he was "dumbfounded" that the state was in the position of having to shell out taxpayer money over this, noting that the law had to pass through legal review at every step. Given that similar statutes were declared unconstitutional in a number of jurisdictions, "the Court wonders why nobody objected to the enactment of this statute. In this court's view, the taxpayers deserve more from their elected officials.""
More ducking/shirking/passing the buck (Score:3, Insightful)
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Their responsibility is making less expensive decisions, or less wasteful decisions, not covering their cost. Your responsibility is putting people who will make those decisions into power, and then covering the costs of their actions once they're there.
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And look what their "less expensive decisions" got them
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This failed statute was not created by the state of Louisiana. It was created by a handful of politicians. Don't punish millions for the actions of dozens.
Here's Why... (Score:4, Interesting)
No Louisiana official wants to go on public record as being against a video game restriction statute, as they believe this might hurt their chances of re-election.
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And that's it in a nutshell. Even if 90% of the state legislature thought the legislation was clearly in violation of the state and/or federal constitutions, a majority would still vote for it because what's a hundred thousand taxpayer dollars when you can look like your going Jack Thompson on some evil game manufacturer's ass. Sure that money
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Let me be the first to say... (Score:1)
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Why stop there? (Score:5, Interesting)
Make every mistake that Jack Thompson make not just hurt the state, but hurt him. He wants to bring frivolous law suits and decry every problem as video games fault people should turn around and demand the money from him.
At the very least let's hold him accountable for his rants, coming out with in hours of the Virgina Tech shooting and blaming video games is nothing short of morbid. It's 2000 equivalent of ambulance chasing and it needs to stop.
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In this case Thompson was in fact personally involved as he helped draft the legislation. See the second paragraph of the article here [gamasutra.com]
That's all I've got time to dig up for now but it should give you enough key words to find further details. It's no secret that Thompson has been behind this bill, and he's filed amacus briefs in other lawsuits for la
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There's no disinsentive to frivolous lawsuits - it's rare in the extreme for defendants costs to be awarded. This applies to the plaintiff and his lawyer - the worst case secenario is they'd come out with nothing. All they'd lose was time.
Now if they were going to share there
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Should the elected officials have passed it? Depends, but if the law gets overturned because the words contained in it, it's the fault of the writers (of which Thompson was one). In that case that's who deserves to be punished, not the state. I can understand expecting the state
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In my opinion, cheese would make an awesome structural material, if my stupid opinion gets someone killed, I should be liable. If my opinion gets someone fined $90k, then I should be liable.
This isn't about hypocrisy, it's about responsibility. Jack Thompson, as a part author of that law, should be partly responsible for that law.
If you want to talk about it in terms of free speech, I have every right to stand in a theater and shou
Free Speech (Score:2, Insightful)
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If they didn't exist Slashdot would not exist as it would not have an internet to exist upon.
Free speech and porn created the internet not Al Gore.
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The problem is, the people who were actually elected bear the responsibillity for what it is they actually do.
;-). But, there is nothing to say he is categorically any more of an idiot than any other dam
Yes, Jack Thompson is an idiot (er, sorry, in my personal opinion he behaves in the manner of an idiot
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Thompson is a media whore, but the fact that his views carry weight is as much a problem with his listeners as it is with him.
Why? Taxpayers Are Suckers! (Score:2)
On the other hand... (Score:1)
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Personally liable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Am I the only one who caught this part? (Score:3, Interesting)
This week, Judge Brady ordered the state to shell out some $92,000 to the organizations in compensation for wasted time.
"Within the ruling, Judge Brady also said he was "dumbfounded" that the state was in the position of having to shell out taxpayer money over this, noting that the law had to pass through legal review at every step...."
So, what the judge is saying is that he thinks it is bad that the taxpayers have had to pay for this fiasco, so let's fine the state $92,000 so the taxpayers have to pay even more?
Sad irony that what he is doing is correct (paying the injured parties) yet contradicts the ridiculousness of the fact that this shouldnt have happened and the taxpayers shouldnt have had to lay out the initial sum, much less the added $92k.
:-(
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He's saying that the elected officials shouldn't have been so stupid as to put themselves in the position of needing to shell out taxpayer money, when five minutes of a lawyer's time would have told them that the law was unconstitutional and would certainly be struck down.