Precisely, great post! My kid isn't old enough play games but i have found myself with pleanty lately; that doesn't mean she'll be playing them though any time soon!

Hey Trips, do you believe these games should be taken off the market? If not, do you think there should be a law prohibiting children from playing them?

How can it be considered "overprotecting, sheltering, and pampering" to use common sense and not allow ones kids to play video games that glorify violence and killing ?

I mean, we do have a rating system in place for movies to keep kids away from exposure to these kinds of things. Keeping kids away from these kinds of movies isn't considered "overprotecting, sheltering, and pampering." It's just considered common sense. Common sense because at these ages they're very impressionable and their minds and personalities are still developing.

While I understand your point. To a point. Does it really make sense to expose kids to violence (or sex) on screen under the theory that it will "help equip them for the tough old world" ?

No, I don't think it does.

Maybe you will have some kids someday. YOU expose your own kids to these kinds of materials and let us know the results ?

I have a strange feeling you would decide against doing this :-)

I understand what you're saying. In general. I just don't find it a necessary part of raising kids to become decent adults to expose them to such materials. They can be taught well without such crap.

Crap that is geared more towards adults in my opinion.

Yes, that's pretty much what it boils down to.

Probably.

Since I'm a GWAR fan: GWAR! :: The official Cyber-Fortress of your Lords and Masters, GWAR!

Never happen though. As corrupt as America and American culture is, I and GWAR shall RULE.

No.

No.

I beleive they should be left in place and SOLD to kids to continue promoting corruption and death worship.

It will help my cause:

GWAR America Must Be Destroyed Lyrics

With all due respect, in any society video games are not the things which glorify violence and killing.

Oh, and GWAR are the biggest pack of ass-fucks on the planet...

Stopping 15 year olds from seeing boobies and playing Grand Theft Auto? lol. I remember being 16 and being turned away from a movie that was rated R for sexual content. I considered this rather bemusing since I was not a virgin. But I digress. The fact of the matter is that even if you allow only disney movies, forbid video games, and mandate fruit for dessert, kids are going to go over to their buddy's places where the parents are not around and watch horror flicks, eat processed dessert cakes, and play Grand Theft Auto. And I absolutely consider keeping them away from it to be pampering and sheltering them. You're starting to sound like one of those knicker twisters that thinks kids ought to be suspended from elementary school for mimicking a trigger pull during a game of "cops and robbers" on the playground.

Depends on the age of the children and their maturity level. Sex I consider to be a non issue really, as its only our particular societal pretensions that create a problem here. As for violence, I suppose it depends on the context.

Not so much. When I was growing up, I had relatively complete autonomy. No real curfew, I could watch rated R movies from about the time I was 12 or so, no real provisions and hell and brimstone about sex, not a ton of supervision in general (home alone a lot). Generally speaking, my parents were not in favor of censorship and sheltering. As a result, when I went out on my own, I didn't experience a sudden euphoria of freedom.

Contrast with a common sight that I saw in college when I was in a fraternity. Every year, you could bank on at least half a dozen freshmen girls whose parents had sheltered them from sex, drugs, rock-n-roll and whatever else, being overcome with their newfound freedom, pounding jello shots, and sucking off five or six guys in a closet.

I know which I would route I'd prefer for my kids. I would give them the opportunity to make mistakes and learn when the stakes were lower and I could shield them from some of the worse consequences and chalk it up to life lessons.

I don't know that you need to go out and buy it and play it with them. I just can't imagine telling my 15 year old child that he wasn't "allowed" to buy a video game if he had earned the money himself.

__________________
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Holy shit

How cool. I never thought I'd happen across a real member OF GWAR at this forum

Cool.

Which one ARE you ?

knicker twisters eh ?

How is it knicker twisting to use common sense and not allow ones kids to play video games that glorify violence and killing ?

Lets think about it. What is the most efficient way to RAISE violent killers ? You might ask the people that create media for the people in a number of middle east countries.

http://technorati.com/videos/youtube...%3D1LaAvZp7EP4

Ok, that I can accept :-)

The sex thing ?

I see no reason to start purposely exposing kids to pornography.

My experiences were very similar.

Yeah, I suppose. Where we're these hot little clean and easy sluts when I was in college ? I got ripped off big time.

Sure, makes sense. You DO need to protect them though. They aren't the best thinkers at these ages. You remember. You remember when you were 17 and knew EVERYTHING ? Thought those "older people" were boring and stupid ? How many things do you NOW wish you'd have listened to, said by those dumb "old people" who hadn't a clue ?

About anything :-)

I understand. One can tell him he can buy it all he wants. One can ALSO tell him that he cannot bring that kind of crap into Mom and Dads house. He can store it somewhere off mom and dads property. When he can afford his own place he can buy and bring all of that kind of shit he wants into his OWN place. He can make his OWN rules. Motivation :-)

Blaming the lack of responsible reasonable parents instead of the lack of enough silly laws? You sir are a mad man!

I've got to disagree w/you. They are supreme fuck-tards.

__________________
This land was made for you and me
-Woody Guthrie

Damn straight, but let the Jack Thompson's of the world and Hillary's go ahead and try to ban video games instead of facing the real problems.

Oh, and don't forget the books, TV, and movies as well. It may not be as interactive (well books are pretty interactive really), but anyway point is that video games have nothing to do with what these asshats did. They probably would of been asshats with or without playing video games but if anything chose Grand Theft Auto as their theme for their stupidity. It could of easily been something on youtube, the tv, in a book, etc. So lets see they were 15, and your talking about a game that isn't sold to anyone under 17 unless I'm mistaken (Granted not all retail clerks follow the rules but still). Which means usually its the parents who buy such games for such individuals in the first place and fail to explain the realities of the world apparently.

"Facing the real problems" would mean taking a look straight in the mirror for the Hillaries, Gores, Obamas and Kennedies of the political world.

Facing the fact that they've sold death worship as "freedom" to an entire society.

You can sell evil if you package and perfume it nicely enough. You can sell it to an entire civilization. Which is exactly what they've accomplished.

Totally off topic though