Video games and the Constitutional rights of minors

I'd suggest that violence is tolerated but sexual content is not.

You're probably right.

But the R rating is given to both violent and sexy films. If they were to start rating them, say, R-V and R-S do you (the "royal you", not you, Setanta) think one would be deemed acceptable for minors and the other not?

Great... In the name of freedom of speech we will create a generation who can conceive of violence, but cannot imagine going to work... Here comes the revolution, if we can just get it off their collective asses...

It is possible that because video games have wider distributorship. Still, it boils down to parental control.

Uhhhh..... today's kids didn't invent violence.

Video games are made by adults who get up every morning and go to their job of making video games.

Agreed. That's why I'm not falling for the "end run around parental authority" argument. Parents still have the right to say "I'm not buying that for you".

I don't see why there need be a revision of the motion picture rating system. There is a video game rating system in place. I've seen the ESRB ratings on games for years.

I'm not suggesting there should be. I was just wondering is there would be more tolerance to R-violence than to R-sex.

I always question the people at the video game store as to why certain games get certain ratings. I can't believe how much they know. They have always steered me right in regards to games that I might find objectionable for Mo.

I'll bet those store employees are gamers. So, for example, if you were purchasing an RPG (roll playing game) for Mo, i could tell you that the Baldur's Gate series has a lot of adult content, and that Sacred has a good deal of salacious content, but that Icewind Dale (by the same people who made Baldur's Gate) has no sexual or salacious content, nor has Dungeon Siege. So my guess is that these boys are sufficiently famliar with the games to steer you right.

The others are. Motion picture ratings aren't government ratings and they aren't enforced by the government. In fact, they're not even enforced by the group that puts out the ratings, they're enforced by movie theater owners and, indirectly, by media outlets that refuse to accept advertising for movies that are either unrated or have an "adults-only" rating (formerly X, currently NC-17). The video game industry has adopted a similar rating system for games -- again, that's not a government action, that's something that is enforced by retailers.

As I understand it, Justice Scalia said that the government can't regulate violent content the same way that it regulates obscenity. Obscenity is bad, Scalia reasoned, but violence can be good. It's in Dante's Inferno, fer cryin' out loud. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito would have struck down the law for vagueness, holding out the possibility that a better-drafted law could withstand constitutional scrutiny. Justice Thomas, in dissent, essentially said that no child has any rights that an adult is bound to respect. Justice Breyer's dissent pointed out that the court should leave legislating to the legislature, which is usually Scalia's line (except when he doesn't like what the legislature did, as in this case).

In addition to what joefromchicago just said:

The last time I looked at this issue was when I read the briefs for the case of US vs. Stevens, in which the Supreme Court struck down a ban on animal-cruelty videos. As I understand the case law discussed in those briefs, the Supreme Court is very reluctant to add any more categorical exceptions to free-speech rights. But the exceptions that were already in place about 50 years ago, when the Supreme Court started taking a stronger stand on free speech, remain grandfathered in. As it happens, pornography is one of those historical exceptions, but depictions of violence are not.

Hence, I think the current state of affairs has more to do with historical accident than with any substantive reason for preferring violence over porn. The Supreme Court may have upheld state prohibitions on distributing pornography to minors---video games or movie tickets.

I hope joefromchicago won't be too shy to correct me if I'm wrong.

A commentary in today's paper said that the law was really a "curb on commerce", not a ban of the games. Off the top of my head I can think of some other legal things that kids can't buy: air soft guns and pellets, and spray paint. Are those also vague laws that curb commerce?

I guess I'm just trying to figure out how this became a 1st amendment issue.

Is curbing commerce a 1st A issue?



This sounds completely crazy to me. I'm still thinking on it......

That makes sense.

If memory serves there have been a lot of challenges to pornography laws over the years. I wonder why the law is so inflexible there.....

I am not blaiming the kids... It is the right of speech sold to those who profit on it that I don't like... We learn so early to be numb to pain as we have to simply to survive in this world... We do not need anyone teaching children to take pleasure in it... What ever it is on television, or in a video game, it is not nearly so terrible as the real thing, but kids should be taught that; That from the real thing there is no reset... Take out your frustrations and pain on some one and you may be looking at the end of your life as a quasi free person.. Which is saying nothing of the damage you might do to others... We need a world that is safe to be sensitive in... How does this supreme court ruling get us there???... I don't believe law is the answer to every social problem, but there are laws preventing the sale and advertizing of cigarettes to minors... Violence is so much worse a problem than the ones smoke subjects society to...

Read this while you're cogitating.

<sputter....sputter>

Justice Thomas is obviously strange. What century is he living in?



I so completely agree.

Thank you for that link. The comments were especially interesting.

I have never learned to be numbed to pain.

I don't think TV, video games, movies, music or any other form of entertainment teach children that delivering pain is a pleasure.

Certainly a century in which the Ninth Amendment hadn't been ratified yet. Clarence Thomas's entire argument can be summed up as observing that the US constitution doesn't enumerate a right of minors to speak or be spoken to, and construing that to deny and disparage the notion that such a right exists. Clarence Thomas's opinion embarrasses me as a fellow Thomas. Not for the first time, I might add.

Ha! You're the reason that I specified Justice Thomas. He's a strange bird; you're a cool cat.