Tivo Alert: Jack Thompson on ABC's Nightline

Link to video anyone?

I just sent this to the people at Nightline:

I recently viewed your feature "The Virtue Vigilante" on tonight's Nightline. I have to say, I am absolutely enraged by the unbiased nature of this report. Further, I cannot believe that you have attempted to make credible a man who is as much of a bully as the game he rails on.

Blatant ommissions and unresearched facts litter this report. For example, Jack Thompson issued the challenge for a game developer to make the "I'm OK" video game in return for a donation of $10000. When the game was actually made, he called his challenge satire and withdrew his donation. It was left up to video gamers, "pixilantes" as Jack Thompson describes, to fill in this glaring error, and the creators of Penny-Arcade (http://www.penny-arcade.com), a popular gaming website, donated the money to a charity in his name. Jack Thompson would later file charges against them for this. He filed charges. Against people donating money. To charity. Think about it.

In a recent congressional hearing, Doug Lowenstein of the IDSA reported that out of a large market of video games, only 9% receive the M for Mature rating by the ESRB. 63% of the market of video gamers are aged 21 and up, with over a 125 million Americans playing them daily. 43% of this market are comprised of women, so the idea that these "murder simulators," as he says, are targeted to adolescent boys is preposterous.

Our children are not at risk from copying these games, they are as likely to copy a video game as they are any form of violent television or movie. It is up to the parents, not the government, to protect their children. Through good parenting our children can discern fact from fiction, what is right and what is wrong, and ultimately what is a game and what is reality.

The First Amendment does not offer any protection for obscenity, but in the same vein, video games are traditionally categorized at artistic, political speech. Thusly, the video game falls under strict scrutiny and is thoroughly protected. There is no overarching law banning violence in the media, and further there should not be. In order to ban violence out of media, we, as Americans, must give up our right to listen to speech, even if it is a little. If we give an inch, we give a mile.

If these restrictions and regulations that Jack Thompson clamours for enter our law, then we have given into prior restraint (which is, historically, something the Supreme Courts hates to do) and applied Christian conservative ideals to a country that is strikingly, as of late, against such. We cannot allow anything this man says come to fruition, for if we do, we have set a precedent for speech and media to be regulated in the future -- not just in video games, but also in television, movies, and print materials.

We would give up rights, and the rights that our children have to view media as well. If we, as Americans, have to give up rights in the name of protecting our children, then we have seriously damaged our nation. Video games might seem like a small hill to die on, but in the name of free speech, nothing is too small.

Proof reading for the win, I suppose. My bad.

Wait. He really claims that fewer people are reporting violent youth crime now? If so, that is the #1 craziest thing he has EVER said.

I could go on a news show and talk about the epedemic of Nuns killing babies. The reason no one knows about these killings is because nobody reports them...

Wow, I haven't seen that much recycled material since I stopped buying the newspaper. How many times have we heard about the pioneer taking the arrows? How many times have we heard about T2 going down? Give it a break Jack. Is it too early to say that he's just a one-trick-pony?

I just had a bit of a "revelation" about JT after speaking to a hardcore-Christian co-worker of mine. Her life is constantly out of control (helplessness, abusive spouse, etc) yet always talks about the glory of her Lord and her rewards waiting for her in Heaven.

The point is, she uses her faith as a form of ESCAPISM from the real world. She does the same thing that JT (a hardcore Christian) says about video game players.

Hypocrite +1

@Zerodash

That's something I've often noticed about a lot of these Born-Agains. Many of the hardcore ones, the ones who are really into it and have "devoted their lives to Jesus" etc. before they got "saved" used to lead really out of control lives (drug addiction, alcoholics, abusers, etc.) It is because of this that I have long believed that religion is mainly for people who can't control their own lives, and thus use it as a crutch. As Karl Marx said, "Religion is the opiate of the masses."

Likewise using their faith as a form of escapism, I have to wonder if the real reason they hate stuff like video games Harry Potter, Dungeons & Dragons and any other form of Science Fiction or Fantasy-based entertainment is because they see it as competition. Really, if you look at the Book of Revelation, and all the stuff that's been based on it (the Left Behind series, The Omega Code movies, et al), their religious themes notwithstanding, they could also be classified as either Fantasy or Sci-Fi.