Republicans Luring Youths With Video Games

[Soushi]

Meh, i don't like the republicans but that is a personal choice. In my eyes, people don't care enough about politics, and any attempt to get people more involved.

 

[FretfulGnome]

The only people I see this attracting are people who already strongly believe in conservative ideologies. They're not going to get any liberals, moderates or even just people who don't really care about politics to attend. I mean, I'm 23 and Bingo night with grandma sounds more entertaining that XPAC.

 

[silentsentinel]

My view on politics:

No matter who you vote for, you'll end up screwed. Those who desire power should not be the ones to wield it.

 

[copperflyingace]

*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.

Yeah, cause apparently research is too hard. Its far easier to just live your life with a sense of smug superiority because you perceive yourself better than the straw man you have created as your ideological opponent.

I honestly hope you're not trying to support one party or the other with that statement, because both sides always view themselves as right, and the other as wrong. Neither side truly understands the other, so both sides become mere straw men to the other. Seriosuly, research doesn't prove anything either. There are so many biased sources out there for either side you could come up with a whatever facts you wanted.

The two parties might be ideologically different, but functionally they're the same. Both sides are for "family values", both sides have had countless sexual escapades outside of their marriages. Basically all politicians are hypocrits, and if you think YOUR party isn't, and the others is, then you'd be wrong.

yeah, I've seen enough ignorant fail on both sides (REPUBLICANS WANT TO AT WAR 4-EVAR AND KILL ALL ANIMALS!!! OBAMA IZ A COMMUNIST AND THE GAYS WANT TO RAPE UR BABIES!!)to know the whole system is fucked. However, thats no excuse for the citizens of my great country to join into the orgy of ignorance and hatred.

 

[goldenheart323]

1. Surveillance through the internet (Icarus) I would have chalked up to neutral, but after Bush I feel snooping to be conservative.

Obama administration's taking the snooping Bush started and taking it a step further. His FBI is arguing in court that because a cell phone is a wireless device the public has no right to any expectation of privacy. Also, since the phone company is a 3rd party, it's not an invasion of privacy to have them tell you when and where you use your cell phone.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10451518-38.html
When it comes to snooping, both parties seem pretty equal.

...Allow me to elaborate by using Fox News as an example. Last Year Beck slammed video games and liberal media for inciting violence in America. But when that crazed gunman shot two police officers because he believed Obama had sent them to take away his guns, Beck back peddled and said "You can't blame the media for the actions of a crazed madman." Sara Palin criticized Obama for using a teleprompter WHILE she had cliff notes written in the palm of her hand. Global Warming doesn't exist while at the same time they push to claim resources uncovered by the receding ice caps. The list goes on and on and on and on it's insanity.

The Glenn Beck example is a good one. However, I fail to see how having a few words written down as notes is equal at all to using a teleprompter. You must be a master at giving speeches if you think they're pretty much equal.

I can see how a casual observer could get the idea republicans don't think the climate is changing, however that's not what they think. For brevity's sake, most republicans/conservatives don't bother spelling out the "caused by man" part of global warming. It's similar to evolution debates where people often don't specify they believe in micro-evolution but not macro-evolution, and they end up sounding like they don't believe in any evolution at all, which is silly. I've never heard a republican claim the climate is static and never, ever, ever changes and therefore global warming is a hoax. I only hear them argue it's natural for the climate to change, but man's not causing it. The Earth was mostly tropical when then dinosaurs ruled the Earth. We've had multiple Ice Ages. There was a mini-ice age in medieval times as well as a time of warming. It's the Republicans who point out these changes while Democrats seem to forget all about them. It would be more clear and precise if everyone always said "man made global warming" instead of just "global warming," but then the debates would be even longer & drier.

 

[DoW Lowen]

I "lol'd" at this idea.

Really? The guy who scandalized Mass Effect is suddenly in love with video games? Including Call of Duty? Really...

I don't know which is worse - Republicans pretending to be cool by playing video games or that they think we're stupid enough to fall for it.

 

[lSHaDoW-FoXl]

Well, if they thing people are actually dumb enough to buy it then they are clearly retarded.
If people DO buy it then well....I give up on humanity - there's no hope for a future.

 

[presidentjlh]

As much as I want to see my party try to connect with today's youth, we might as well face facts.

We suck at getting the youth votes. I'm an 18-year-old Republican, yes, but I know I'm the rarity.

Still hate how my party rips apart video games. Honestly, video games make money and are the main products of a number of companies. I thought that we were the pro-business party.

 

[Hollock]

Republicans Luring Youths With Video Games

The idea was developed by right-winger Kevin McCullough and actor Stephen Baldwin. Stephen Baldwin you might know from such films as Bio-Dome,

Biodome? Does that mean it goes both ways?

This may in fact work as long as they wear backwards hats, cutoff jeans, sunglasses, and make the show totally grungifyed. Basically -

Edit: what am I doing wrong Embedding this video, anyways here's the URL. Watch it, it's funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY8YIn5okX8

 

[presidentjlh]

Seeing Glenn Beck being brought up really makes me nostalgic and sad. Now, before you guys respond with the usual "OMG he's insane and stupid" crap, listen. This guy used to be one of my idols. He wasn't always just another pundit on some news channel. Before he got his TV show, he used to just do radio, and he was much different.

I used to be a huge Glenn Beck fan, big time. He used to be more humorous, more thoughtful. I actually met him once during this time, nice guy, really seemed to enjoy his job

Ever since he got that damn TV show, he turned from a radio talk show host that I really enjoyed listening to into another "talking head", and he's just not as funny as he used to be. He's also more angry and willing to insult people and mean it. He wasn't like that before, I mean, he would crack jokes about people, but it was in a good-natured way.

When he only had a radio show, he used to do a bit of everything: A little bit of politics here, a little sports there, a little pop culture there, and sometimes just some goofy stuff. And he always seemed to find humor in life.

Now, it's always politics and crazy theories. Occasionally he'll do something different, and it sounds like the old Glenn to me, and I smile. I wish he would focus more on being a great radio host like he used to be instead of being another pundit.

I still like Glenn, because I agree with him on a number of things in principle. But, he's just changed so much, that I don't really listen to him as much anymore.

 

[DMonkey]

oooh, republicans are hosting game nights. scary.

:gasp: If it works, the dems will take it up too, and then the green party will try it too, and eventually we'll have communist game nights! GAAAH!

Big freakn' deal. Not going to have a huge effect on people one way or the other- I mean, game night at the church didn't really make kids in my hometown more religion-oriented. Not going to increase voter turnout all that much. I mean, hell, I'm all liberal-tastic, and I'd go to these things for free food and games.

I agree with your first statement, but not the second... it matters... there is a lot of money behind the political groups, and money *always* makes a difference...

Okay, lets say Reps actually get somewhere with this strategy... the others will follow, of course... then special interest groups... then all of their backers... then their backers money...

First it will seep into gaming conventions... then deeper into the production companies... entire games will be toss out for having *x* biased, or depicting someone doing something that someone doesn't like, and so on, and so forth... destroying the video game industry like it has been destroying everything else even remotely fun...

This will be a downward spiral that will turn video games into what TV has become...

 

[Darkauthor81]

1. Surveillance through the internet (Icarus) I would have chalked up to neutral, but after Bush I feel snooping to be conservative.

Obama administration's taking the snooping Bush started and taking it a step further. His FBI is arguing in court that because a cell phone is a wireless device the public has no right to any expectation of privacy. Also, since the phone company is a 3rd party, it's not an invasion of privacy to have them tell you when and where you use your cell phone.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10451518-38.html
When it comes to snooping, both parties seem pretty equal.

...Allow me to elaborate by using Fox News as an example. Last Year Beck slammed video games and liberal media for inciting violence in America. But when that crazed gunman shot two police officers because he believed Obama had sent them to take away his guns, Beck back peddled and said "You can't blame the media for the actions of a crazed madman." Sara Palin criticized Obama for using a teleprompter WHILE she had cliff notes written in the palm of her hand. Global Warming doesn't exist while at the same time they push to claim resources uncovered by the receding ice caps. The list goes on and on and on and on it's insanity.

The Glenn Beck example is a good one. However, I fail to see how having a few words written down as notes is equal at all to using a teleprompter. You must be a master at giving speeches if you think they're pretty much equal.

I can see how a casual observer could get the idea republicans don't think the climate is changing, however that's not what they think. For brevity's sake, most republicans/conservatives don't bother spelling out the "caused by man" part of global warming. It's similar to evolution debates where people often don't specify they believe in micro-evolution but not macro-evolution, and they end up sounding like they don't believe in any evolution at all, which is silly. I've never heard a republican claim the climate is static and never, ever, ever changes and therefore global warming is a hoax. I only hear them argue it's natural for the climate to change, but man's not causing it. The Earth was mostly tropical when then dinosaurs ruled the Earth. We've had multiple Ice Ages. There was a mini-ice age in medieval times as well as a time of warming. It's the Republicans who point out these changes while Democrats seem to forget all about them. It would be more clear and precise if everyone always said "man made global warming" instead of just "global warming," but then the debates would be even longer & drier.

Sadly those were only a few examples. I could go on and on and on with them. Fox News saying something at the start of the episodes then something completely contradictory by the end of the episode. I watched it with my girlfriend's step dad because he's a repub and I wanted to get to know the guy. I sat there in awe and I couldn't help pointing it out to him and he got really pissed and we got into it. Seriously, at the start of the episode they went on and on about how Obama hated white people but at the end they said "Now, we're not saying he's racist...." How can a person just sit there and be spoon fed this without ever questioning it?

I watched a clip on youtube about the oil rights in the receding arctic. The republican panelist stated, and I quote "See the earth goes through natural warming. How else did the oil get up there??" And the scientist said "Tectonic plate movement."

Republican "Tectonic what?"

Scientist "It moved up there over the coarse of billions of-"

Republican "Oh so it just "floated" up there."

The moderator cut it off right there before the man could thoroughly embarrass himself for not knowing, or just not believing, tectonic plate movement. I can find the clip for you if you want. It scares me that he had actually been voted into office.

I can also find the results of a study. They took 50 people who believed that the Iraq war was about 9/11. They put them into booths and showed them tons of data to the contrary, even Bush himself saying that it wasn't over 9/11 but rather the possibility of weapons of mass destruction.

Only 1 person of the 50 changed their mind over what the war was about. The other 49 got royally pissed that their view were being challenged. They had no information or proof to back themselves up but, by gosh, that's what they believed and there's nothing that's going to change that and I quote "We were right to be there. So it had to be about 9/11"

I'm not saying Democrats don't prey on emotion based thinking. But the entire Republican party seems to be founded on it. How many times I've seen their opinions challenged with pictures, studies, facts and they have the same knee jerk reaction as if facts and science are their enemies.

 

[tehroc]

*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

Sweet, someone spouting the virtues of tolerance by dictating how others should act.

 

[copperflyingace]

*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

Sweet, someone spouting the virtues of tolerance by dictating how others should act.

Cause there is no way in hell that had a hint of sarcasm, right?

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

As a Republican myself, I have to say this idea is stupid.

 

[ZeroKadaver]

The truth is that people don't care for politics whether your a Republican or Democrat you don't really care about the 'REAL' issues you just choose your side based on whatever public issue they have all over the media. The most recent being having a black president in the US vs having a white woman? While the woman has hormones the male wanted to continue the reign of terror that the previous president had in plan. Now if that doesn't tell you how disconnected youth and politics are then maybe there should be a greater study.

Valiant effort on the GOP hopefully they can instill genuine conservative values instead of their actual middle ground values.

 

[blindthrall]

I'm messing this around with the God ending, I know. But my recollection was the surveilance theme ends up tying into the concept of facilitating a dirrect democracy.

Though, as a political science student, I'd have to classify intense surveilance as an anti-Liberal position. (I don't mean conservitive, I mean opposed to the general concepts of Liberal theory that both liberals and conservitives in this country are based on.)

If you look at it like this, then the game is posing a question. If direct democracy is the epitome of Liberal theory, what means are justifable to achieve those ends.

Helios, the AI you merge with, would become a god-king, with Denton in control of most the decisions. While it would be possible for him to know everyone's opinion, it would be up to his good nature to actually follow it. That was only the beginning phase of Helios' plan. In the second game it seeks to connect everyone on the planet into its consciousness. It would be a direct democracy, and dictatorship, and a theocracy all in one, there would only ever be one opinion, that of the mass mind.

3. RX-84 was a real program approved by Reagan, but it's a contingency plan that's never been put into practice.

I'm a little fuzzy this was the bloodless coup by FEMA?

In the interest of fairness a lot of the various components of the story, including some of the crazier ones have some factual basis. MJ12 was a military investigation unit in the mid 60s. The Echalon surveilance system almost certainly existed at some point, as information related to it has been released by foreign governments.RX-84 is a contingency plan that involves sending "unstable elements" to detention camps in the Pacific Northwest, like the Japanese internment during WWII. The author of the plan was a young Oliver North, and it was proposed to deal with the NSA's question of what to do about the Black Panthers. Officially it exists on paper but no steps have been taken to implement it. The MJ12 documents are in all probability either bullshit or smokescreen for whatever MJ12 actually was. Echelon is very real, and very active. It's a satellite system that tracks all electronic data crossing the North Atlantic, although there are other programs that monitor other important areas. European governments bitched about it when they found the information being collected was then passed onto stockbrokers who used it to influence the market in America's favor. But it's now a major component of the War on Terror.

Yeah, the MW2 thing is... ugh... I don't even know. I could go off on the influence of the Military Industrial Complex, but, really, it's just a very disturbing trend. Are we a more warlike society today than we were in 1935?

The funny thing about Bioshock is, that with the fiscal conservitive strand Objectivism should actually be fairly appealing as an ideology. That said, the fiscal conservitive strand isn't the dominant one in the Republican party today.

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.

 

[blindthrall]

I've said it before. The 2000's were the 1980's all over again. Hopefully this means another round of 90's peace and prosperity is coming our way.

This was probably the worst decade of many people's lives.

Couldn't agree more. Worst decade of my life to be sure.

I find it hilarious we have Republicans telling us to be tolerant after all the racist, intolerant bullshit spouted during the 2008 campaign and beyond, after all the shit stirred up that gave us the Teabaggers, after all the goddamn bullshit about "capitalism being dead", and you want us to be tolerant?

Can't say I agree completely with the rest of the post, but you hit the nail on the head right here. Good fucking point.

 

[Therumancer]

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

Actually this is not true. Quite the opposite actually. People on both sides of the fence have been involved in this issue, but those running point have by and large been liberals. Hlllary Clinton for example was insturmental in, and acted as the face of the entire Hot Coffee scandal.

Right now you see so many attacks on games at least in the US because we have a liberal run goverment, and the democrats basically want to limit the right to free speech and expression. Both to put more power in the hands of the goverment in general, but also to promote their agenda which they feel is well intentioned if "sort sighted". Consider that it's been a left wing policy for a long time to try and ban or censor anything they don't like or care for as "hate speech". To really follow through on that, they need to get the door opened for the goverment to have the abillity to engage in subjective censorship, much like what Australia has been trying to do with The Internet. Things like video games help to establish that precedent.

There are definatly some Republicans who have been involved as well for various reasons, but I think that is turning around, and even people who don't like a lot of what is in games are admitting that censoring them is wrong. Republicans for all the hype being very much against the federal goverment being able to tell you what you can and cannot do or say.

I'm sure many will disagree with me, but that's simply how things are, and I've been following this for years... before it became such a hot topic.

One of the reasons why I think there has been so much of a problem fighting censorship movements is because a lot of people tend to ASSUME the left wing is for "the people" and their freedom. Thus without examining the issues closely they wind up voting for the people they think are going to fight these trends, while actually supporting those that are responsible. Despite being mentioned by many (myself included) you'll find a lot of people in the gaming community do not realize the extent of the role played by Hillary Clinton in Hot Coffee which got the ball rolling.

-

That said the idea of the Republicans taking this approach is NOT new. "Young Republicans" have been around virtually forever, as have conservative youth movements, charities, and other things. You just don't hear about them, because they are generally lower key than liberal equivilents who pimp themselves out to the public screaming "look at what we do for the community!". This is noteworthy mainly because it's a direct attempt at a political rally using video games. I suspect a good part of the idea is to both show that one of the big "enemies" has changed sides, and to point out where the chips are actually falling here.

I could be proved wrong of course, but having Call Of Duty in paticular given the outcry seems intended to make a point.

The bottom line is that this isn't in any way new, and all jokes about awkwardness aside, The Republicans have been at this for a good while.

Or to quote one of my favorite politicians:

" Democrats are for women and beer. Republicans are for HOT women, and COLD beer "

 

[Lullabye]

.......I hope they play online on the 360. All those screaming prepubescent children teabagging corpses may actually come in handy for once and put an end to this show.