Shoot
I know I'm a little late to the game here, but I can't say I was thrilled by the Supreme Court's 7-2 decision overturning a California law banning the sale of violent video games to minors. It should have been unanimous.
Under a strict scrutiny standard, there's no way this law should have been allowed to stand. Unfortunately, two Justices thought otherwise.
Justice Thomas wrote an "originalist" dissent that basically said silly rabbit, freedom of speech is only for adults. Justice Breyer, who has been trying to come up with new ways to deny our freedom for some time, wonders why we can ban sexually explicit material but not violent material. So we see the slippery slope in action--"hey, there's no freedom over here, why can't we deny freedom everywhere?" The distinction between sex and violence has always been pretty clear and widely observed, in law and in practice. During Hollywood's Production Code years, kids could enjoy the Three Stooges poking each others' eyes out, John Wayne shooting hundreds to death, and Bugs Bunny baking his enemies in ovens, but not even adults were allowed to see a married couple, fully-clothed, on a bed unless someone's feet were on the floor. For that matter, no one's too worried (well, maybe some parents, but it should be their call) when kids play cops and robbers, or cowboys and Indians, but if they play "my first trip to the whorehouse" then we get a bit concerned.
Just as worrisome were the concurrences by Roberts and Alito, who indicated they might be open to a better-written law. So when you think about it, we really only had a 5-4 pro-First Amendment decision, made up by an odd combination of liberals and conservatives. Who knows what'll happen if one of those five is replaced.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:11 AM
7 Comments:
The argument about how sex and violence are treated differently should of course be treated another way- since violence is OK, why shouldn't sex be OK. Just assuming, but willing to bet that on the whole , sex is the aggregate is probably more enjoyable for the participants than violence is. That must be the problem about both why the authority wants to ban depictions of sex and violent video games. The fear that somehow somewhere someone might be enjoying themselves. (Mencken might have been a jerk on some things but he had some good lines)
As a parent, I can explain why violence and sex are treated differently when considering minors (and thus when discussing freedom of speech affecting minors).
Violence is a primal activity, readily understood by minors. The negative consequences of violence are obvious to even a three year-old - it is why parents may pinch their child to stop them from pinching others. 13-year-olds have no problem grasping that shooting people in a video game, where you can't be shot back, is not reality.
The consequences of sexual activity are much much more complicated and difficult to explain to kids. A pleasurable activity, it simply is impossible for minors, especially hormone ravaged teens, to grasp the consequences of pre-adult pregnancies, or even the emotional tumult associated with broken hearts and the mistreatment of sexual partners. Maturity brings understanding, and to give kids time to mature, there has to be a restriction on free speech around children. Note - I agree it's the parents responsibility to control the speech, but they need some help from government regulations.
Sorry DG- we will have to disagree. As a parent I want my children to avoid the debitating hangups about sex. Your concerns around sexually-themed speech are valid but so are concerns about multiple types of speech and I don't want the government or any authority dictating what is acceptable- especially when the stubborn sex-obsessed judeo-christian
mindset(not that any other religion is better on this) is present in most regulators and self-appointed guardians of virtue. These concerns are also the product of current cultural assumptions about sexuality and it is not the government's business to protect current cultural assumptions. Notice how over the last century, youth seems to continually overturn them anyway. We can see some of this in the current generation- precocious sexting and oversharing on social networks- Slutwalks against rape, etc...
I liked Gary Shteyngart's "Super Sad True Love Story" for many reasons but also for describing a future which everyone (everyone cool that is) wore links which advertised a user's "hotness" as voted by online commenters and terms like "slut" were not derogatory. I'm not sure I'd like such a world but I enjoyed reading about one where common assumptions are turned on their head. etc...
Can you imagine the enforcement problems of such a law? Even if you could decide what's too sexy and what isn't, just try to keep videogames out of the hands of teenagers in their own homes. It'd make Prohibition look like a cakewalk.
John Wayne shooting hundreds? That's a false note, I think. Liberty Valance, sure, and of course he may literally have done a couple hundred movies, but I think he worked retail, not wholesale. Maybe you're thinking of Churchill.
During the Production Code era, John Wayne appeared in over 100 movies. He didn't kill people in all of them, but I can think of several Westerns and war films where the body count was pretty high. Killing hundreds during that time doesn't seem out of the question.
Even before Churchill, violence was an open part of society, and little kids played lots of games that dealt with violent deaths. And as Justice Scalia notes, many fairy tales are pretty gruesome. For that matter, ever read the Iliad? Pages and pages of excruciating detail on how warriors died on the battlefield.
Anon 2,
I'm not asking for book burning or prior restraint. I'm just asking the government to preserve a public environment where different parents can choose how much exposure to give their own kids. In fact, one of the problems with the California law was it took choice out of the hands of parents with an absolute ban on the sale of violent video games to minors. It made video game vendors watchdogs for the parents, which I do not favor.
I don't want government to outlaw sexually explicit speech. But I think it is not too much to ask government to regulate speech, commercial speech in particular, in the public square. Parents can regulate what their kids see at home (to some extent - yes I know it is a losing battle, but if the battle be extended at least till kids turn 18, that's something).
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