The Sunday, July 3rd Miami Herald's Opinion Section includes a piece by nationally syndicated columnnist Cal Thomas about the Supreme Court Justices' ruling in a First Amendment-related case. After reading the article (see link) and familiarizing yourself with the current Supreme Court members; their responsibilities and how their rulings affect us, post your comments on the blog and be ready to speak about your knwoledgeable opinions in class for extra credit.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/02/2295768/justices-dont-live-in-the-real.html
Sunday, July 3, 2011
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The article basically says that parents should have control over what their children see. Justice seems to live in an unreal world. They have no experience with video games. They try to be secure against assaults in games in which children are allowed to emulate or virtually carry out murders, tortures and all kind of horror against human beings. Justice Breyer clearly speaks about the nonsense to forbid selling boy magazines with nude images while they are allowed to buy violent games in which they can torture and kills people.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, there are more important things that should be under control. For example, there are teenagers on the streets armed in gangs thinking that life is easy and can be taken without any regret. Children aren’t born this way, they are taught these negative things.
Why there are laws to fulfill about driving and drink alcohol while there is no age restriction about violent images and games? They can produce the same harmful injures in the teenagers. Parent’s joint with the state could prevent violent culture taking care about the best interest of children. So this rule doesn’t guarantee a solution for this violent behavior.
I completely disagree with the author. First of all, the author is blaming the Supreme Court for their inexperience in cyberspace. I don’t think the Supreme Court members should be internet experts to do their job right. He further tries to take parents responsibilities and place them in the hand of Supreme Court members. The government is not going to set rules and regulations to run peoples home. It is parent’s role to control what video games are acceptable for their children to play. According to the Supreme Court, the video companies are protected by the freedom of speech to sell their products to anybody who is willing and able to buy them. The author is also mistakenly comparing two things that are not comparable when he writes about age restrictions for cigarettes, alcohol and driving. Age restriction for cigarettes, alcohol and driving are not protected by the first Amendment while video games companies are protected. I give the video games companies a lot of respect for voluntarily labeling the video games with age and content ratings. Also, the game stores voluntarily card everybody who looks under the age and refuse to sell the games.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree about what the writer is trying to put out there. I understand that most of this has a lot to do with the parents and shouldn't totally be left in the hands of the Supreme Court justices but if that's meant to be totally so, then why was it presented before the Courts to begin with. Everything said by the writer just is to true to believe. Justices are to unaware with the reality of teenager's lives to be making major decisions like that. The fact that they actually protected violent video games using the First Amendment proves how unexperienced the justices truly are. Many say that it's the entire parents fault for not knowing how to control the kids and shouldn't be something that the country has to worry about. A wide range of kids trick clubs, movie theatres, and sometimes even liquor stores to get what they want so even getting carded at the GameStops and other game stores aren't sufficient enough. When kids do this it doesn't mean that the parents are horrible parents, it just the kids that are being kids. These things truly are a big problem since what the teens learn from these games can reflect the bad behaviors and crimes in the streets. Blocking underaged kids from these games will save our police departments a whole lot of trouble. I say if the country really wants to improve the lives of their teens and kids then they should actually TRY to stop it with justices that know a real life. If not, just back off and stop wasting theirs and everybody else’s time.
ReplyDeleteThis article is written with lots of passion .It shows in many ways that violent games a greatly influencing our juveniles in a negative way. The Supreme Court should undertake the task of joining the ranks of a normal society, and observer how the nations minorities are killing each other just like in violent video games. In my humble option the Supreme Court although, protecting our freedom of speech and expressions should reconsider and protect the youth of America from violets’.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the author because everything is not black in white like the Justice seems to think. I personally think that protecting violent video games is all about money. Why should the gaming industry care about kids and teenagers buying violent games when they are making over 7 billions out of it each year? I think that everything is twisted in America and most of the time, the law is in the pocket of the big corporation.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, this article depicts some of the laws that not corrresponding with the rality of the life. In this particular case, the writer is talking about the First Amendment which potects video games. I think that the legislator protects more the business side of the video games than the effect that video games could have in our society, particularly on teenagers who are the most intersting by that. Before they speak out against such laws, parents must take their responsability by educate their children about violence watched in the video games. They must even restrict their children from paying violent video games. If they don't care what their children are playing and buying, then the fault lies with them. They must not expect the government to babysit their children and deal with their lack of responsibility. It is not the government's job to make sure you are doing your job and making sure what your children are up to on video games or internet. If the government can control the restriction for kids to drive cars until a certain age due to the fact that they are not mature enough to handle the responsability, this is because it's possible. They drive on the road and they can be catched up easily by a police. The video games are played at home and only the parents or care givers can catched up their children. What the government can do is to prohibit the production and the commercialisation of those violent video games
ReplyDeleteSomehow to think that government can solve all of societies’ problems by legislating about what they know very little about is ridiculous and will not keep our kids from committing criminal acts. In a perfect world these games would not exist but we live in an imperfect world. Because these games will not become illegal due to the first amendment it is now about supply and demand as long as there is demand these games will exist. This discussion also leads to a lack of parenting when in fact many of the problems you see today are not just lack of parenting but a lack of parent’s altogether. Many kids do not even know who the parents are. The parents may be dead or in prison because of the violence. It all goes back to the family and family structure and that is where it all begins.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what the author are saying, it is influencing all the children which can affect their behavior sometimes. I personally think that even though the children may learned many things from the games I don’t think it is really the parents fault at all unless they are a type of parents who doesn’t care for their children but children make choices and many of the parents will tell their children what’s right and what’s wrong but then again it is their choice…It will be really great if they stop passing out all the violent video games which save us a lot of trouble but I really doubt they ever will because they are really making thousands of dollars.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what the author are saying, it is influencing all the children which can affect their behavior sometimes. I personally think that even though the children may learned many things from the games I don’t think it is really the parents fault at all unless they are a type of parents who doesn’t care for their children but children make choices and many of the parents will tell their children what’s right and what’s wrong but then again it is their choice…It will be really great if they stop passing out all the violent video games which save us a lot of trouble but I really doubt they ever will because they are really making thousands of dollars.-- Lisa G.
ReplyDelete