Republicans Luring Youths With Video Games

[blindthrall]

Of course we're more warlike. Back then we just sat around and let Hitler teabag Europe. Now we go to war based on fuzzy pictures from five miles up. How is it that during the Cuban Missile Crisis you could see the missiles clear as day pointed right at the camera, but after 40 years the picture has gotten worse?

Objectivism is more than just fiscally conservative. Ayn Rand forgot that humans are social animals. We're not some solitary hunter, we're not even pack hunters, we're insects in a hive. Yes, in Rapture the smartest and the strongest could thrive, but it was inevitable that a lower class would form, people being unequal. And as soon as that lower class outnumbered the people who had stayed on top, the outcome was determined. Rand thought the individual is more important than the society. It's an appealing notion, and most people believe it, but it's an illusion fostered by luxury. When things fall apart, the importance of the individual becomes apparent. Remember, all those bodies in the street were once individuals too. This is the problem with objectivism, anarchism, any utopian system really. They work wonderfully...for about a month. Then the elements of society that were disenfranchised band together, or people learn how to exploit the system, and you've got counterrevolution. The end result is usually brutal communist dictatorship. But you know what? Republicans would hate Ryan because of his opinion on religion. The party as a whole whored out after the Nixon disaster, and they haven't said anything I've agreed with since. Except for their stance on gun control.

EDIT: Sorry, I don't know what happened with the quotes.

Yeah, the quote tags aren't working properly. I'm just axing the begining of the post.

Warlike may have been a poor choice of words on my part. Bloodthursty would probably be a better, if more provocative, choice.

As for Rapture and Rand, it looks to me like what you've got is a Marxist critique of Rand, which would have been a hell of a lot meatier than what Bioshock did give us.

Warlike a good word, as America likes war but is squeamish about the details. If we were bloodthirsty we would be demanding to see pictures of the enemy dead, rather than censoring them. If more Americans knew what actually happens during war, they wouldn't be so keen on jumping right into one.

I can't help it if Marx used all the good vocabulary. It is really hard to talk about class struggles without sounding like a socialist. I personally think I sound more like a Social Darwinist than a Marxist, which equates with Nazi on the other end of the political spectrum.

 

[blindthrall]

1. Surveillance *is* neutral. Both sides do it fairly frequently, it's just that the republicans were the first to do it on a grand scale and they got caught.
2. Very interesting indeed.
3. Knew that.
4. Again, both parties are in bed with lobbyists and special interests groups. I honestly can't figure out why the republicans get more criticism for this when neither side can take the moral high ground.
5. I'd heard that one, but I actually didn't know that was primarily Republican. Interesting.

What I can't figure out is why either side gives a shit. There never has been any conclusive evidence to suggest that video games have any effect on people. Never. You would think that both parties would be falling all over it trying to use it as a medium to get a message across to the youth. I'm just fairly glad that neither side has made a concerted effort to taint games with politics. Although, this may be changing (please, God, don't let it happen).

McCarthy used water fluoridation to scare people into thinking that communists were spiking our drinking water with mind control drugs. Ever since then, survivalists and separatists have thought that, but the organic foods group have jumped on the bandwagon as well, giving it a more liberal appearance. It is an important issue, as just deciding to dump a highly reactive chemical into the water supply without any democratic input is kind of shady. Fluoride definitely does prevent tooth decay, but it may also, in rare cases, cause a bone disease in young boys (basically the body thinks fluoride is calcium and decides to build bone out of it). Trouble is, trying to prove a definite link is as hard as proving high tension wires cause tumors- the results have LOTS of other explanations.

The overlooked shooter Area 51 (the one with Duchovny, that was based off the arcade game) had this as one of its hidden conspiracies. For appearing in a video game, it's a pretty plausible explanation. Fluorine is used industrially to clean mined aluminum. But once it's done reacting with the metal, what to do with the waste? It's too reactive to dump into the environment, as companies used to do. Turns out fluorine is most efficiently processed by organic systems. So the chemical companies no longer have to pay to get rid of their waste, now they can actually sell it to the water companies. And the population act as fluorine scrubbers. If this is actually what's going on, and fluorine doesn't melt your bones or anything horrible, this is one conspiracy I actually support. Humans made the waste, they can clean it up.

Somewhat on topic: As far as using games for political purposes, anybody ever see that game based on the Left Behind books? You're part of a Christian militia that shoots anybody liberal. I'm completely serious.

EDIT: Did a little digging around on the fluoridation thing. It doesn't have anything to do with aluminum. The fluoride compound in our water is a byproduct of mining phosphorous for fertilizer and drywall. The scrubbers in the smokestacks collect the fluoride compound, and most of it comes from an operation in Florida. Still, it does prevent tooth decay, and as long as you're older than 5, there aren't any health risks. As said before, it's a conspiracy I don't mind, I just wish all the facts were out there. I had to dig through a half-dozen antivaccination loon sites before I found a reliable one with the information.

http://www.scumdoctor.com/dental-health/fluoride/Where-Does-Fluoride-Come-From.html

 

[RJ Dalton]

Somewhat on topic: As far as using games for political purposes, anybody ever see that game based on the Left Behind books? You're part of a Christian militia that shoots anybody liberal. I'm completely serious.

I had never heard of that. Unless it's one of those cheap games made from home by one or two people, I can't imagine it's serious. It sounds like a parody.

 

[lacktheknack]

I find it hilarious how many people instantly connect "Republicans" with "video game haters". Poor ignorant flock.

After all:

Considering how republicans lead the games are destroying our youth bandwagon, I find the hypocrisy of using games hilarious.

It's really about equal. The Family Entertainment Protection Act, for example, was introduced by Senator Hillary Clinton, and co-sponsored by Senators Joe Lieberman, Tim Johnson and Evan Bayh, all democrats.

 

[blindthrall]

Somewhat on topic: As far as using games for political purposes, anybody ever see that game based on the Left Behind books? You're part of a Christian militia that shoots anybody liberal. I'm completely serious.

I had never heard of that. Unless it's one of those cheap games made from home by one or two people, I can't imagine it's serious. It sounds like a parody.

It was pretty cheap looking, as most isometric squad shooters are, but it wasn't a parody. It was put out by a company that made Christian-themed video games (?) and looked to be pretty serious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_forces

EDIT: I just read all of that wiki article, and while the game itself might not be that bad, what they were planning to do with it was pretty horrible. They were going to send it to soldiers in Iraq. The idiots even used the word "crusade" in a press release.

 

[Obrien Xp]

This is quite, how should I say it? Interesting and or pathetic imo.

Does playing with videogames further any political point other than trying to get the younger generation on your side?

I can't wait for something like this to happen in Canada.
(Though, I did see Jack Layton advertising on xfire during the election).

 

[MortisLegio]

Where does the Republicans hate videogames stereotype come from anyway? Isn't it just politicians in general?

IDK... Hilary Clinton is the one whose trying to create videogame legislation

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article438332.ece

 

[nomadic_chad]

*steps onto soapbox*
the amount of fail in the above comments make me want to puke. Not all republicans are "Vid'ya game" hating windbags. Only the loud annoying ones on TV are. Grow the fuck up and learn some tolerance.
/rant

Agree 100%, but most people would rather go by what others say than to actually research the topic themselves.

I agree that not all republicans are "vid'ya game" hating windbags...and that most of the ones that are just happen to get themselves on tv with their loud and annoying antics. But you've got to ask yourself, why are there always loud annoying asshats representing your party on tv.

It's because there's a large number of people supporting those loud annoying asshats, enough so that the loud annoying asshats aren't getting pulled off their respective tv shows and/or are repeatedly asked back to shows as pundits and whatnot.

The jibes happen because of the tendency towards the conservative party to produce highly hypocritical behavior. (Family Values lecturers doing other dudes/argentinian chicks that aren't their wives/inconsistent outrage at the use of the "retard" word/etc). It irks people, makes them behave illogically and write the whole party off. Same way republicans right off pretty much everything democrats say and do as evil/socialist/etc.

For the record, I'm a moderate. Fanatics have a tendency to blow themselves up and run planes into buildings, so I stay in the middle, with logic and rationality intact.

 

[RJ Dalton]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_forces

Wow. It's not as bad as I was expecting. It's not so much political as it is religious (well, somebody's idea of religion; I certainly wouldn't endorse it (I'll bet Jack Chick would, though).
Honestly, though, I can see the idea working. Tweak the presentation a bit, work in a way to convert hostile troops and have peace based missions. It could work. You'd have to change a few elements. If you wanted to play it safe, it'd probably be a good idea to drop the religious aspect, but if you wanted to go for it, you'd have to find a way to avoid making it about killing non-Christians just because they're not Christian. Done well, you could probably pull it off. You'd still get some people who would complain, but if you're going to center it around religious ideologies, there's always going to be some people who complain.

Funny how Jack Thompson shied away from it. The guy may have a personal vendetta against video games, but at least we know he's not inconsistent about it his objections.

 

[Sacman]

Awesome Ima bring a copy of Mass Effect!
I saved right before the sex scene...

 

[Starke]

Of course we're more warlike. Back then we just sat around and let Hitler teabag Europe. Now we go to war based on fuzzy pictures from five miles up. How is it that during the Cuban Missile Crisis you could see the missiles clear as day pointed right at the camera, but after 40 years the picture has gotten worse?

Objectivism is more than just fiscally conservative. Ayn Rand forgot that humans are social animals. We're not some solitary hunter, we're not even pack hunters, we're insects in a hive. Yes, in Rapture the smartest and the strongest could thrive, but it was inevitable that a lower class would form, people being unequal. And as soon as that lower class outnumbered the people who had stayed on top, the outcome was determined. Rand thought the individual is more important than the society. It's an appealing notion, and most people believe it, but it's an illusion fostered by luxury. When things fall apart, the importance of the individual becomes apparent. Remember, all those bodies in the street were once individuals too. This is the problem with objectivism, anarchism, any utopian system really. They work wonderfully...for about a month. Then the elements of society that were disenfranchised band together, or people learn how to exploit the system, and you've got counterrevolution. The end result is usually brutal communist dictatorship. But you know what? Republicans would hate Ryan because of his opinion on religion. The party as a whole whored out after the Nixon disaster, and they haven't said anything I've agreed with since. Except for their stance on gun control.

EDIT: Sorry, I don't know what happened with the quotes.

Yeah, the quote tags aren't working properly. I'm just axing the beginning of the post.

Warlike may have been a poor choice of words on my part. Bloodthirsty would probably be a better, if more provocative, choice.

As for Rapture and Rand, it looks to me like what you've got is a Marxist critique of Rand, which would have been a hell of a lot meatier than what Bioshock did give us.

Warlike a good word, as America likes war but is squeamish about the details. If we were bloodthirsty we would be demanding to see pictures of the enemy dead, rather than censoring them. If more Americans knew what actually happens during war, they wouldn't be so keen on jumping right into one.

I can't help it if Marx used all the good vocabulary. It is really hard to talk about class struggles without sounding like a socialist. I personally think I sound more like a Social Darwinist than a Marxist, which equates with Nazi on the other end of the political spectrum.

Fair point about warlike. Honestly, the best description would be to say we're squeamish war profiteers. I was trying to skirt the whole Military Industrial Complex mess, but, that's probably a lost cause on my part, and trying to avoid being flame bait, which, honestly on this subject is also very tricky.

As for the second, I wasn't meaning you were sounding Marxist. I mean what you're describing about the way Objectivism in Rapture played out fits pretty tightly with Marx's projections for capitalism's fate. And, now that I'm thinking about it, Rand's Objectivism is really advocating a capitalistic system of precisely the kind Marx was responding to. So, in my opinion, Bioshock could have actually been very well served by bringing in that thread overtly, rather than covertly. It's a little disingenuous here, but, for example, Fontaine acts like a good socialist overtly to subvert Ryan's society.

As a slight defense of Marx, Marx isn't the liberal counter to Nazism, that would probably be Leninism. (Though, honestly Mao, Trotsky and Stalin all end up looking a lot like alternate flavors of fascism, and to a lesser extent so does Lenin.) Marx himself was suggesting what he expected to happen, not what he thought people should do. Hence, my comment regarding your comments sounding Marxist. Lenin took that and mutated it into Marx's class struggle demanded action from a vanguard, among other things, and ultimately subverted a lot of the ideology while still retaining (and muddying) the terminology. It gets even more muddy when you start moving on from Marxism derived from Stalin or Mao, who in turn were cribbing off Lenin. But, Marx himself isn't about politics, he's extracting from Hegel, and applying Hegel's ideology to economics. Rand on the other hand is the extreme of free markets. And for the purpose of multi-vector political commentary Rand/Marx/? would have made for some pretty interesting questions in Bioshock.

Somewhat on topic: As far as using games for political purposes, anybody ever see that game based on the Left Behind books? You're part of a Christian militia that shoots anybody liberal. I'm completely serious.

I had never heard of that. Unless it's one of those cheap games made from home by one or two people, I can't imagine it's serious. It sounds like a parody.

It was pretty cheap looking, as most isometric squad shooters are, but it wasn't a parody. It was put out by a company that made Christian-themed video games (?) and looked to be pretty serious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_forces

EDIT: I just read all of that wiki article, and while the game itself might not be that bad, what they were planning to do with it was pretty horrible. They were going to send it to soldiers in Iraq. The idiots even used the word "crusade" in a press release.

I saw something about that, but... gah. It exceeds my expectations, both in stupidity and in... my brain is hurting...

EDIT: Spellchecked

 

[blindthrall]

big snip

Don't worry, I took it as a complement. Marx was a really smart guy. He pointed out crucial flaws in capitalism, but the problem is he couldn't offer any workable solutions(if there are any). Lenin was kind of the same way. You just can't be sure sometimes in this political climate if people are pointing out parallels or trying to flame you. I do believe Marx was right that in a purely capitalist system the disenfranchised will inevitably build up to a critical mass, and that will be the end of it. This happens at the end of Atlas Shrugged. A society must gradually become more and more socialist to stave this off, until the society will reach an equilibrium that is mostly, if not all, socialist. This has been happening in America for at least a century, and Obama's policies are simply the latest iteration. I'm not saying whether it's good or bad, but it's necessary to keep the boat afloat. Any other path results in bloodshed somewhere down the line.

I think you misunderstand what I mean about the Nazi comment. I was just saying that a Marxist is pure evil to the right, while a Social Darwinist is pure evil to the left. Nazis are anathema to both sides; it's not true that fascism in Germany was especially conservative (whereas in Spain and Italy it definitely was). The Nazis banned public smoking, instituted universal health care, heavily taxed the rich, outlawed private gun ownership, and generally looked down on religion. In the beginning, Nazis nationalized quite a few businesses, and they were socialist when it suited their needs.

 

[tsb247]

if one of the games involves shooting glen becks I'll buy it.

in all seriousness, it's not that surprising. the republicans are the fastest shrinking political party, they need a way to lure unwitting youths.

Not so much anymore. The GOP is actually undergoing a surge. A lot of the heavy-handed right wingers are alienating themselves and the moderates seem to be rising to the top. There could be good things in store over the next few years as long as they can keep their heads together.

I saw this on the news a day or so ago... A political editorial mentioned something to this effect anyway - and no... It was NOT on Fox.

 

[pwnzerstick]

Ya I'd say the kids would come for the games, as soon as they hear "Why republicans are the most awsome coolest people ever, starting in 5 minutes" their outa there.
Ok though, this is the most retarded thing I can possibly think of, their pretty much making somthing thats completly hipocritical of what they've been saying about games. Now their just like "hey lets forget about our bashing of games, and our complete disrespect for anyone involved with them, alright". Fucktards.

 

[Starke]

big snip

Don't worry, I took it as a complement. Marx was a really smart guy. He pointed out crucial flaws in capitalism, but the problem is he couldn't offer any workable solutions(if there are any). Lenin was kind of the same way. You just can't be sure sometimes in this political climate if people are pointing out parallels or trying to flame you. I do believe Marx was right that in a purely capitalist system the disenfranchised will inevitably build up to a critical mass, and that will be the end of it. This happens at the end of Atlas Shrugged. A society must gradually become more and more socialist to stave this off, until the society will reach an equilibrium that is mostly, if not all, socialist. This has been happening in America for at least a century, and Obama's policies are simply the latest iteration. I'm not saying whether it's good or bad, but it's necessary to keep the boat afloat. Any other path results in bloodshed somewhere down the line.

In general, if I had to atribute one serious flaw to Marx's reasoning, it would be that he wasn't able to predict how capitalism would adapt to prevent the critical mass he was discribing. Engels at least supported gradual reform before he died.

Honestly, at the end, is it better to have a revolution or reform? I don't know. There are some pretty coherant arguments that gradual reform will only serve to aleviate our discomfort. On the other hand, I've never heard a convincing argument for a revolution that didn't put people up against the wall. (And Ghandi doesn't count. )

I think you misunderstand what I mean about the Nazi comment. I was just saying that a Marxist is pure evil to the right, while a Social Darwinist is pure evil to the left. Nazis are anathema to both sides; it's not true that fascism in Germany was especially conservative (whereas in Spain and Italy it definitely was). The Nazis banned public smoking, instituted universal health care, heavily taxed the rich, outlawed private gun ownership, and generally looked down on religion. In the beginning, Nazis nationalized quite a few businesses, and they were socialist when it suited their needs.

When you use a broader definition of conservitive and liberal, then the placement of Facism makes sense. I appologize if this is a review of previus information, or if I'm not really answering your question. Generally speaking political ideology can be measured on a continum.

Radical Reactionary

Generally speaking stepping to the right or left reflects one of two things, the value of ideas and individuals in your system and the speed of change.

For a Liberal system the ideas and input of individuals and their ideas are important to government, there is a fairly steady stream of change culturally, and so on. (In the US this includes both political parties. So when we use the terms liberal and conservitive, it's really relative to one another.)

In a Conservitive system, the input of an individual is almost irrelevant, it's the institutions (and sometimes the leaders) that matter far more. If any change occurs it happens very slowly. An example of this would be Iran.

The extremes. Radicals seek instantanious change, the Russian Revolution comes to mind, as do some of the people involved in the American revolution. Reactionaries are the kind of people that insist that we need to actually move backwards towards older models of government, or older social structures. And here's where things get wierd, the Iranian Revolution in the 1970s is kind of a good example of both, so the continuity above can (and sometimes is) wrapped around on itself, as a circle. (No way I'm trying to do that without drawing tools, sorry.

Nazis (and Fascists) get classified as conservitive, not because they share some common ground with the Republican Party or Bush, but because their ideological structure devalued the individual in relation to the institutions of the state.

There's a lot more to how this structural system works, that I haven't gone into, and I appologize, but I simply don't have the time to write a 2k word post on the subject, (no offense intended.)

EDIT: maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but I don't get where social darwinism would be a rightist ideology.

 

[Klepa]

So they shat on videogames, realized they lost more than they gained, so now the only logical thing to do, is the exact opposite.

They are either being lead by a computer, or a child. I hope it's the former, that bit in Fallout 3 was epic.

 

[Toriver]

*steps onto soapbox*
the amount of fail in the above comments make me want to puke. Not all republicans are "Vid'ya game" hating windbags. Only the loud annoying ones on TV are. Grow the fuck up and learn some tolerance.
/rant

True that. If this were Democrats, you'd be all over this saying how awesome this is.

 

[Low Key]

Hey Escapist! Keep your asses out of politics, capiche? I'm glad you guys made the religion and politics forum, but this type of bullshit doesn't belong in the newsroom.