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Murphy’s Law, written by Barbara Murphy, appears monthly in The Golden Times. The column represents the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the opinion of the publisher.
Noodle Heads On Supreme Court
Are Off The Mark In Video Game Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court has done it again — handed down another lousy, stupid decision in the name of free speech.
This time the court held that states cannot ban the sale or rental of “ultra-violent” video games to children younger than 18.
The noodle-headed majority — only Justices Stephen Breyer and Clarence Thomas dissented — made its pernicious decision in throwing out California’s 2005 law banning the sale of such video games to children under 18. The majority called the ban on ultra-violent video games an unconstitutional violation of free speech rights.
Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote for the majority, said: “Even where the protection of children is the object, the constitutional limits on governmental actions apply.”
Justice Scalia was further quoted as saying that there is violence in a number of children’s fairy tales and that although states have legitimate powers to protect children from harm, “that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.”
The decision was handed down in a case captioned Brown vs. Entertainment Merchant’s Association.
Those of us out of the video game loop might think that the games at issue in this controversy are merely computerized cops and robbers games. They’re much, much worse. The games at issue are interactive video games in which children can virtually commit acts of torture, rape, murder and dismemberment.
These games have no redeeming quality whatsoever and the idea that our highest court would allow “merchants of death” to sell such perverse and sadistic games to children sadly suggests that the founding fathers may have made a big mistake in giving the Supreme Court the last word on matters of justice and morality.
The Brown decision came on the heels of other decisions of the muddle-headed court interpreting the First Amendment as allowing other kinds of villainy. On free speech grounds, the Supreme Court allowed the sale and use of animal cruelty videos and, separately, it recently ruled that it was just fine for heartless protestors to hold aloft profane placards at military funerals.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote a wise and passionate dissent to the decision regarding the funeral protestors, which was later publicly praised by retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.
Why did Justice Alito go along with the mob in the video game case? That is so disappointing. I had just put the man on a pedestal. Now I will have to take him down.
Of the two dissenters in the video game case, only Justice Breyer questioned the wisdom of the majority decision. According to Mr. Holland, Justice Breyer asked “what sense does it make it to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine containing an image of a nude woman while protecting the sale to that 13-year of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds and gags the woman and then tortures and kills her?”
Justice Thomas argued that the founders never intended for free speech to include “a right to speak to minors (or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors’ parents or guardians.”
The way I read American history, the framers of the constitution never intended the First Amendment to protect sadistic or lewd speech. They intended the First Amendment to protect political speech. (This was in a time when kings could do very nasty things to people who spoke out against the way they were ruled.)
However, all may not be lost. According to Associated Press writer Jesse J. Holland, Leland Lee, a child psychologist and California state senator who wrote the state’s video game ban, said he was reading the dissents in hopes of finding a way to reintroduce the law so that it would pass constitutional muster.
Let’s pray without ceasing for the success of Senator Lee’s project.
*
Barbara Murphy, 78, writes for The Golden Times about controversial issues each month.
Are Off The Mark In Video Game Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court has done it again — handed down another lousy, stupid decision in the name of free speech.
This time the court held that states cannot ban the sale or rental of “ultra-violent” video games to children younger than 18.
The noodle-headed majority — only Justices Stephen Breyer and Clarence Thomas dissented — made its pernicious decision in throwing out California’s 2005 law banning the sale of such video games to children under 18. The majority called the ban on ultra-violent video games an unconstitutional violation of free speech rights.
Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote for the majority, said: “Even where the protection of children is the object, the constitutional limits on governmental actions apply.”
Justice Scalia was further quoted as saying that there is violence in a number of children’s fairy tales and that although states have legitimate powers to protect children from harm, “that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.”
The decision was handed down in a case captioned Brown vs. Entertainment Merchant’s Association.
Those of us out of the video game loop might think that the games at issue in this controversy are merely computerized cops and robbers games. They’re much, much worse. The games at issue are interactive video games in which children can virtually commit acts of torture, rape, murder and dismemberment.
These games have no redeeming quality whatsoever and the idea that our highest court would allow “merchants of death” to sell such perverse and sadistic games to children sadly suggests that the founding fathers may have made a big mistake in giving the Supreme Court the last word on matters of justice and morality.
The Brown decision came on the heels of other decisions of the muddle-headed court interpreting the First Amendment as allowing other kinds of villainy. On free speech grounds, the Supreme Court allowed the sale and use of animal cruelty videos and, separately, it recently ruled that it was just fine for heartless protestors to hold aloft profane placards at military funerals.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote a wise and passionate dissent to the decision regarding the funeral protestors, which was later publicly praised by retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.
Why did Justice Alito go along with the mob in the video game case? That is so disappointing. I had just put the man on a pedestal. Now I will have to take him down.
Of the two dissenters in the video game case, only Justice Breyer questioned the wisdom of the majority decision. According to Mr. Holland, Justice Breyer asked “what sense does it make it to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine containing an image of a nude woman while protecting the sale to that 13-year of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds and gags the woman and then tortures and kills her?”
Justice Thomas argued that the founders never intended for free speech to include “a right to speak to minors (or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors’ parents or guardians.”
The way I read American history, the framers of the constitution never intended the First Amendment to protect sadistic or lewd speech. They intended the First Amendment to protect political speech. (This was in a time when kings could do very nasty things to people who spoke out against the way they were ruled.)
However, all may not be lost. According to Associated Press writer Jesse J. Holland, Leland Lee, a child psychologist and California state senator who wrote the state’s video game ban, said he was reading the dissents in hopes of finding a way to reintroduce the law so that it would pass constitutional muster.
Let’s pray without ceasing for the success of Senator Lee’s project.
*
Barbara Murphy, 78, writes for The Golden Times about controversial issues each month.