Clinton, Lieberman propose CDC investigate games

[Walt Starr]

Clinton, Lieberman propose CDC investigate games

Democratic Senators from New York and Connecticut are asking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate "impact of electronic media use."
A handful of US senators who are longtime foes of the video game industry took a first step Wednesday toward a future government crackdown.

Democrats Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Hillary Clinton of New York, and Dick Durbin of Illinois persuaded a Senate committee to approve a sweeping study of the "impact of electronic media use" to be organized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC.

Even though the legislation--called the Children and Media Research Advancement Act--does not include restrictions, it appears to be intended as a way to justify them. That's because a string of court decisions have been striking down antigaming laws because of a lack of hard evidence that minors are harmed by violence in video games.

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http://www.gamespot.com/news/2006/03/09/news_6145659.html?part=rss&tag=gs_&subj=6145659

[Orsino]

1. It's the only investigation they'll dare to try for.

Punks.

[YOY]

2. Congratulations in playing to the soccer moms on trivial issues

you piss off the young voters who should be queing-up behind you. I swear if anyone needs to check out a bunch of young voters being persuaded how 'video game hating' the dems are just look at www.gamespy.com 's forums.

Of course the Hilary supporters on DU (those who would swallow whatever shit came out of her ass as they are attached lamprey style to her anus) will crow over how evil these games are despite the fact that they have never played a FUCKING ONE!

War going on. Women losing their right to choose. Constitution in shreds and VIDEO GAMES are how they are going to win back the mainstream. Jesus I hate these piss-poor excuses for Democrats almost as bad as the Pugs which they should oppose on REAL ISSUES.

[BulletproofLandshark]

3. Let the president lie and get thousands of soldiers and civilians killed..

but don't dare investigate his wrongdoing. I wish our "Democratic" senators shared the same aversion to real violence that they do for the digitized variety.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. You know I have been thinking about this

and to a point bring it on. THere are some effects of gaming that are quite obvious and controllers should have a carpal tonal syndrome warming on the box... by the way, so should keyboards, cell phones and other items that lead to it.

Now you may say, why do you agree with this?

It will open the discussion, hopefully about gaming, and yes there are some games out there that I will not play... nor would I let my kids play... and for god sakes I work in the industry.

Now lets examine though what many of these games do... including US Army, the recruiting tool.

They glorify vionece... whether we can tie this glorification to the increase social violence and social mores that is another story... but they do glorify it. In fact, much of the industry depends on glorifying war. And when you talk to some kids (who obviously should not be playing these M or AO games, that is another kettle of fish), they at tines confuse the game world with reality.

Now increasing computer power will make a holodeck possible... hell some folks are working on it right now. that said, we should have a national conversation... not just a knee jerk reaction. We should also ask the obvious question, since Japanese games are at times ten times as violent, alas their national murder rate per year is my city's murder rate in the same year... even when you look at it by percentage not raw numbers.

Now if we let Lieberman and Clinton carry on with this, they will treat this the same way comics were treated in the golden age, and anybody involved in popular culture knows exactly what happened there. But the discussion should be held... by professionals, not politicians... because I have my own raw data of kids who have lost theirs access to the normal world, and truly confuse fantasy with reality. Granted, these kids have issues but that is why I don't fully dismiss it. Of course the analysis of our culture and how it glorifies war and violence is not and should not be limited to games... one of my favorite programs, Stargate SG 1 glorifies war, in particular the AF...

As I said, I work in the idustry... so I can see both sides.