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Kids are not walking into stores purchasing video games rated Mature, the store won't sell them to minors. It starts with the parents. They are the ones buying this stuff. Maybe they buy it for themselves then let their kids play it as well? I don't know. But I do know that many, many parents today seem to think absolutely nothing of letting their kid have a cell phone at age 7, an iphone or android with internet access at age 12, tv in the kid's room, computer with internet access in kid's room, Playstations and Xboxes in kid's room. Really? That's like opening your front door and saying 'come on in world and have at it'. I simply don't understand giving a child that much freedom at such a young age.
If the demand for these games/shows goes down and demand for better, less violent/graphic goes up that's when the makers will change what they produce. Unfortunately I don't see that happening anytime soon. The genie may indeed be permanently out of the bottle.
No quarrel with any of that. But cultural pressures can change the culture. When I was a young adult, all the cool people smoked cigarettes. Ash trays were as common in almost every home as coasters on the end tables. It took awhile but gradually places where people could smoke became less and less. In the airport, it was almost funny the poor smokers huddled around the one ash can in the one designated smoking area, or the smokers were assigned a distant area of the restaurant. And then even those designated areas disappeared. It was no longer 'cool' to smoke and it was especially unacceptable to do it around children. Advertisements for tobacco products disappeared from television and in magazines. The remaining smokers, all good people mostly, are all mostly trying to or contemplating quitting. That's what social/cultural pressure can do.
We didn't become a society tolerant of gratuitous sex, violence, and profanity overnight either. It happened drip by drip, pushing the envelope a little until people got accustomed to it, and then a little more, and then a little more until now almost anything goes. That's what social/cultural pressure can do too.
And when enough of us get enough of it, I don't see why we can't start pushing back the other way.
Cultural pressure didn't change the views on smoking, government did. Government decided that since smoking is bad but too many people smoked they must come to the rescue! so they pushed for getting rid of smoking. Government said no more smoke ads, government said no more smoking here then there and nearly everywhere. As it disappeared from places due to being banned then it lost its appeal. Movies also stopped including it so massively, although not completely, which also influenced people. I don't want government butting in with video games and movies because they think it's 'not good' for us; that's not uncle's job. We as individuals and as a society have to make the choices ourselves to reject these types of things or not.
I quite enjoy Dexter and Shameless and choose to watch them; I also choose to take advantage of the parental controls offered by our cable provider and keep those types of shows (and others) out of reach of my two youngest. We can push back but it has to start at home, imo. I don't know that most parents want to be bothered or go to the trouble of pushing back. Very sad.
Government didn't deal with smoking in a vacuum. Had there been a large hue and cry against regulations on smoking, government would have been backed off. In our system of government, government can only do to the people what the people allow it to do. Whining, griping, and letters to the editor aren't sufficient. When we continue to re-elect people who do whatever to us via laws and regulation, they actually do take that as license to keep doing it to us. And if people do not comply with the law, government doesn't enforce the law.
I point to illegal immigration as a case in point. With so many law breakers, government feels powerless to do anything about it so looks for ways to allow it.
I point to prohibiition as another case in point. The people wanting alcohol triggered so much violence in the 20's and 30's and government was so helpless to control it, much less stop it, that the government threw in the towel and repealed the law.
Therefore banning the video games or violent content in the media, movies, etc. is also not the answer. Changing the will of the public is. If the public doesn't want something different enough to make it happen, it won't happen. And if it isn't having a substantial negative effect on the public at large, there is no reason to even try to make it happen.
Paul, I know you believe that there is no difference in events like Sandy Hook, Columbine, etc. than has ever existed in our history. I will agree to disagree with you on that point. I am not focused on violent crime in general, but on a specific syndrome. I think the events in the last thirty years are quite different. But right now I'm trying to focus on first, the reason for it, and second, what can be done about it.
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