Jaden Kazega said:
Therumancer said:
At the end of the day it's just more of the same, the issue will go on until they find another boogie man. Right now by harping on video games it gives the politicians something to talk about and pretend they are taking action while they try and avoid any kind of strong action on things like immigration, or actually cracking down on the elements of society doing violence (gangs, terrorists, etc...) as they all come with touchy issues and any position in any direction that could potentially be effective or make a differance comes with enough enemies and opposition to be tantamount to political suicide.
I think this just about sums it up, like you said: violent video games are just the 'flavor of the month', or in this case... year? More like decade at this point. If they were targeting solely games like Battlefield, Call of Duty, or the Grand Theft Auto series, their opinions and statements wouldn't bother me nearly as much. The term 'violent' video game, however, is a fairly broad term to use, since the word 'violent' could be twisted to encompass almost anything -- especially in a country where even so much as throwing water on someone can be considered assault. The realistic military shooter is still a fairly-recent development, and actually think that it's our own gun culture/gun worship which has influenced video game culture in recent years.
At the end of the day, logic and reason will win out... at least one would hope. lol
EDIT: Also, on the topic of military shooters, while I'm not a police officer or in any branch of the military myself, I have been trained in some firearms and know how to use them. As anyone else will tell you, pulling a game controller trigger and a 'real' trigger (while one may think them to be similar) feel entirely different; though, this would be more directed to people who think military shooters train people on how to operate guns...
No, video games won't teach you how to operate or maintain firearms, but learning that is actually very simple. As I said their case seems to be about these games conditioning people to be more violent and see firearms violence as a viable solution, and go out to learn how to do these things as a result. They also do teach tactics at a very basic level, depending on the game.
To be honest I don't think the US has any more of a "gun culture" than anyone else, it's just that we're one of the few nations that believes in the right to keep and bear arms as a basic right. It also guarantees a lot of freedom and the abillity of the individual to stand up to authority in an absolute sense. We've had the right to keep and bear arms for a very long time, and honestly it hasn't influanced the media more here than anywhere else. Gunplay, shootouts, and all of that stuff are general action fodder throughout all generes. Basically if your culture has fantasy entertainment, it has lots of action adventure stuff with people shooting guns everywhere. Ironically the US for all of the criticisms it gets is pretty tame when you get down to it. Hollywood is typically a step or two behind the violence/death/bloodshed curve compared to movies coming out in Asia or parts of Europe, it's just that Hollywood eventually tries to up the ante once in a while to equal it. This is why imported Hong Kong action movies have been a big deal, and why Italian horror/gore cinema is viewed with such reverance by fringe movie buffs. It's ironic that the US gets all kinds of flak for promoting violence and yet "having such a problem with sex" when really we've always kind of been pantywaists there too. There is a reasy why whenever you see a really intense gunfight, or some dude running around with paird automatics blowing away dozens of dudes in a stylistic, ultra-violent fashion, people mention John Woo, or in a discussion of hard core horror cinema the works of guys like Dario Argento come up. Even in video games, the "hardcore" approach to violence and sex is one of the big reasons why Japanese bootlegs, translation movements, and similar things became such a big deal for a while, especially when it was still kind of under the radar.
The current boogie man seems like a bigger deal than usual because of the fact that politicians have more of a reason to whack it with a lot of the current violence, and really nothing better has come along. In an absolute term I think various kinds of Rock music got it longer than video games have at this point, though Video games might eventually get the record. Understand people started screaming about music being responsible for society's ills including sex, violence, suicide, and anti-social behavior since like the 1920s. It became a big deal in the 50s through the 80s, where in the 80s and 90s they even had deprogramming centers to get kids off of "the devil music" much like drug addicts can be forced into private rehab by their parents (if they have enough money). I have no idea if that is still around though.
Also politicians need a scapegoat more than they ever did before, because there has been so much buck passing (to avoid ruining a current political career, making it someone else's problem as it compounded) that the US has become polarized on pretty much every major issue there is. The line has been deadlocked on most major issues ranging from gay rights, to immigration, to foreign policy, to domestic security, to almost anything else you can think of right at the 50% mark with major political offices being won by single digit percentage points. Obama, lead at like 7% at his highest total advantage for example and that's actually pretty big compared to some other elections.
As I've been saying for years now on this forum and others, the US is kind of falling apart, it's amazing that it's survived as long as it has with this kind of political deadlock, since there would have been a civil war long before now in any other country with these kinds of divides. A timer is pretty much ticking down until the point where one "side" of the country more or less decides to take back the country from the other side. When it comes to these issues neither side accepts a middle ground, and views the other as some kind of vocal minority that is totally off kilter and not even worth listening to. We've gotten to the point where we've actually had issues about the US flag being flown in US schools during foreign holidays (Cinco Del Mayo) to avoid upsetting students who identify more as being Mexican than US despite being US citizens and receiving a free education on the US dime. Not to mention the simple question of the right of the US to deny admittence to people from other countries... ie whether US citizenship is a right... again major nastiness on both sides of the issue.
The actual "spike" in violence is mostly people going a little bit crazy in the enviroment, with a few "popping" and going off in general before anything starts. The US is a powder keg, and those are the sparks, and pretty much nobody wants to acknowlege it. It's easier to attack video games than address the issues, which is the point of a video game. I don't expect it to happen for a few years yet, but if things don't change soon on the eve of some major policy desician made by a group of extremists that claim they are balanced, there is going to be an explosion, it won't matter which side does it (though I am guessing it will be the left wing, as Obama is president right now, and the odds favor another democrat simply due to the endorsement of an incumbant from their own party, though it's still a roll of the dice, but really it doesn't matter who controls the goverment when it happens).
At any rate the point is to just get use to it, I told people to expect an upswing in violence (on these forums no less) for years. It happened, and politicians like always don't want to deal with the truth and take risks, so they are beating on their faux issues harder than ever before. If it wasn't video games it would be movies, television, or music, at the end of the days the politicians don't care what it is, all they care about is an excuse.
