Grand Theft of Rights: Capital City
What's up with DFL Senator Sandy Pappas? Not only is
she carrying the gambling-expansion proposal heavily
lobbied for by Governor Pawlenty, but she is also
trying to criminalize video games. She's by no means
the only person who believes that violent video games
are evil incarnate and should be banned from the face
of the Earth, but she is pushing a bill to make it a
crime for kids to rent or purchase mature- or
adult-rated video games.
I don't play these kind of FPS games, but I do know
enough to see the rank hypocrisy in criminalizing
renting a video game while allowing a child to see an
R-rated movie with a parent. If parents don't want
their kids to play violent video games, then they
should make sure their kids don't play violent video
games by paying attention to what they are doing.
There's something to be said for parental
responsibility, after all. Not only that, but laws
like the one she is proposing have been found to be
unconstitutional. This doesn't daunt her; in the
article, she says, "Who says children have First
Amendment rights?" I wonder if she would argue that
the Bloomington Kennedy High School students who were
protesting the Iraq war last month didn't have First
Amendment rights? I certainly hope not, which would
make her a bit of a hypocrite.
Kids should absolutely not be playing video games for
adults; that much is certain. However, making criminal
out of kids is definitely not the way to solve this
problem.
EY: Good points.
Eva Young
Near North
Minneapolis
Blogs:
http://lloydletta.blogspot.com
http://www.outletradio.com
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