rjzeller

Screw it...I had this LONG response typed up but decided it was just not relevant. Bottom line is this:

1) Video games are no excuse for bad behavior. The kid was simply evil, and his parents should be ashamed of him.
2) Censorship is a dangerous path, and certainly these manufacturers and distributors have every right to develop their product. BUT, there should be some degree of controll over whom these products are marketed to and how easily they can be gotten for children or young teens.
3) Regardless of the first two points, there is simply no excuse for allowing a child to participate in such entertainment. This stuff is VERY insidious. Exposure to such things DO have an effect on the moral and emotional state of an individual.

Remember what coffee or beer tasted like the first time? Okay, I don't drink, but I DO remember the taste of beer thanks to a few can-switching pranks my cousins used to play on me. I remember that coffee tasted bitter and the beer just ... well ... ick. Both are clearly an acquired taste.

Remember the first time someone gave you a hot pepper or other spicy food and what your reaction was? This is also acquired. My father thinks black pepper is too hot. My mother and I snack on Jalapenos and make regular use of Habanero peppers in our cooking. In fact, not only do I LOVE spicy foods now, I keep wanting my foods hotter and hotter.

Porn, violence, fould language, and other forms of bad behavior are similar. They are learned, and they become acquired. If we satiate a curiosity or desire one time, that curiosity or desire does not lessen, it grows. IT's the same way alchoholism and drug abuse start -- someone begins perfectly in controll of their actions and desires. But the more they consume, the more they desire or crave the substance. This desire feeds upon itself, until one day you look back and realize that innocent, casual drinker has become a darkened alchoholic.

These games are no different. They cater to an animalistic side of us. And once exposed, you begin to want more. And because it's the freshness, the uniqueness of the act that intrigues the mind, each subsequent exposure has less emotional value to us. In other words, each time we partake of something like this, we need MORE. We need something more violent, more foul, more outrageous than the last time just to elicit the same emotional response. It's never enough because the more we expose ourselves, the less sensitive we become and the stronger each new experience must be to satisfy us.

Stop adding any form of salt to your foods for one month, you'd be shocked at how much salt you can already taste in foods when you've been off it for a while. Add some back into your diet and it suddenly tastes twice as strong. You had become desensitized to it.

I went on one of those no-carb diets a few years ago, didn't eat any form of sugar for months. Eventually, I could SMELL the sugar in the air, taste it even, just by walking into a room that had a cookie or cake sitting in it.

Stop eating any and all forms of fast food for three months. Then go out and order yourself a whopper. Suddenly you feel like vomiting from the grease. That same whopper you could have eaten easily months before, is now makig you sick -- and if you went back to a regular diet of fast food, you'd start to find that whopper barely covers your hunger after a while.

This is the effect of these video games. Someone is curious and decides to try it out. It arouses some primal urges (kill or be killed, use the "cool" foul language, sexual innuendo, violence, theft, etc.), and that makes you wnat to keep playing. But the next day that's old hat, so you play until you receive the same thrill, but this takes longer. Eventually, you find the game just isn't stimulating enough, and the question of "what's it REALL like??" pops up. A young mind may not draw the line here where a more mature mind would. The logical progression is that eventually, the person either gives up the game or beging to experiment with more realistic forms, and thus they ae well on their way down the spiral.

This is the same reason sex offendors are such chronic repeat offendors.

I don't know the answers -- censorhip is a dangerous slope itself. But clearly there are some steps we can take. And as for the parents, well, I guess I just don't understand such foolishness. If you're going to present to your six-year old child a product that condones violence, law breaking, murder, sex, and fould language, then damnit, yes I WILL tell you how to raise your kids. This is not a question of how to discipline them, how to teach them, how to socialize with them, or even how to care for them. This is an issue that CLEARLY will corrupt their minds.

Keep in mind we're talking about young children here. They are not as able to clearly draw a distinction between fantasy and reality. There are even many adults who cannot. And as I've stated before, that line become fuzzier and fuzzier the more we indulge in such fare.

I would not sue the game company becuase it is not their FAULT the kid committed such crimes. It's the kid's fault. But these products Do contribute to the delinquent behavior that follows their use.

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