Rachel Walla
Sometimes I question if the planes hitting the Twin Towers was truly the worst outcome of September 11, 2001. The domino effect that terrible event set into motion has yet to come to a halt and the rippling effects may last centuries; but how much of the damage done to the American way of life since that day has been self-inflicted? Take the Patriot Act as an example. After 9/11 Americans willingly gave up freedoms and the right to their own privacy in an attempt to expose terrorists. After making it permissible to monitor such mundane things as library books, the government has taken the initiative to continue to take the safety and well-being of Americans into its own hands.
Ben Franklin said, “Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
We are rational individuals and can reason fairly well for the most part, can’t we? As a nation, historically we have proven ourselves to be very deserving of freedoms. The thing that seems to be slipping through our grasp is the right to make choices for ourselves as individuals. True, 63.1% of American adults are overweight or obese; but this doesn’t prove we can’t make the decision ourselves. New York proposed a sin tax on unhealthy sodas and outlawed trans fats; other states have piled on the bandwagon, showing the average citizen that if you want to ingest something unhealthy, it will cost you. This type of mentality is the government “helping” us make our food choices. I think in the end if American citizens keep giving away the right to make their own judgments, others will gain a greater ability to make them for us.
The most recent and, to me, surprising issue surrounding this “big brother knows best” mentality isn’t at the library, the grocery store or even at the liquor store. It’s at the gaming stores. Due to several years of controversy and unmade decisions in the California Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of the United States now has a vested interest in whether or not the games you play are good for you and if you are old enough to choose them yourself. Where this all begins is with the violent nature of many games. It became an issue that children could buy games containing obscene violence and nudity. The California court system set out to ban the sale of these games to minors. The video game industry had already created its own rating system, but it wasn’t regularly enforced in any way. A variety of different groups united to do the job that parents should be responsible for; supervising the children of America. I agree that many games do contain shocking violence, however, who is better than a parent to know what their child is too young to see? The entire issue ended as a vocabulary argument with courts attempting to define “deviant violence” and trying to differentiate it from less influential scenes such as Bugs Bunny-style cartoon violence. Well, deviant violence doesn’t have a definition and is, as Justice Potter Stewart said about Porn, “I can’t define it…..but I know it when I see it.”
Since California couldn’t resolve the issue amongst them it went to the Supreme Court. It’s a similar situation to two kids fighting over the same toy, pretty soon the parents are deciding and usually no one gets to play. If the states can’t decide, it won’t be a state’s rights issue anymore. So in the process this question of selling certain video games to minors has gotten more tied up with definitions than with the issue itself. The real question is, are video games entitled to be covered by the 1st Amendment right of to freedom of speech? If they are, games can be under a rating system like other forms of entertainment. However, if games are deemed to be obscene, they will no longer be covered under free speech, just as porn is not. The tricky part of the 1st Amendment is that if a medium is considered obscene, the government can regulate it. Obscene falls into three categories:
1. Subject matter that is offensive to the average citizen
2. Subject matter that contains offensively sexual content
3. Mediums lacking the following values:
a. Artistic
b. Political
c. Literary
d. Scientific
Since certain video games can be offensive and contain all sorts of sexual content, the issue that is being focused on now is whether or not video games have artistic value. This may seem very in-depth for a solution to violent games being sold to minors, but what it comes down to is if video games aren’t covered by the first amendment, you will no longer be able to just go to Wal-Mart and buy them; they will be regulated, and only certain versions of games will be distributed to the public through traditional retail suppliers. The advertising on these games will also be drastically reduced, so a game that doesn’t have the right ratings won’t be advertised to the mass public, won’t be purchased, and the industries that create these games will change the way games are created and produced in order to keep sales high. This could be good or bad, who knows? The bigger issue is the government now attempting a new endeavor to control a form of entertainment that we were able to control ourselves. In fact, the petition to the courts of California stated that minors “lack the mental ability to make reasoned choices” on the games they buy.
Maybe from a broad perspective, looking at the obesity statistics, not to mention alcoholism or even the average American’s credit score, some may feel the average individual could use some guidance. Maybe we do make some poor choices. However, not making choices at all is not going to make Americans savvier when it comes to choosing. It is our right to make poor choices as well as good quality decisions. I think this principle applies readily to the gaming issue in that the choice to purchase should be in our hands. Having enough faith in the American public to monitor their children isn’t setting the bar too high, and monitoring this entertainment medium in particular might stunt the growth of an industry that could truly have artistic, literary, political and scientific value.
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