Clinton introducing federal game regulation

[quote name='camoor']
Your idea that all job desciriptions should remain frozen in time, and never change from what was offered at the interview is a nice socialist viewpoint. Unfortunately for you, in the real world of American capitalism, job descriptions DO change and people with rigid moral views that are out of step with freedoms protected by law and our system of trade may find that they are no longer qualified to hold certain jobs. However with his fanatical and archaic perspective, I'm sure this pharmacist can get a job selling home remedies to the Amish. :D[/QUOTE]

I've never seen a liberal who constantly throws socialist around like you.

I get the feeling that if someone joined the military on the condition that they would work behind a desk and not fight, you wouldn't be so understanding if they suddenly sent them off to combat. Your logic allows employers to do whatever they want with employees regardless of what was originally agreed.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']I suppose that's a valid point, but they seem to be undermining the ESRB itself here. "We just make shit up" they seem to be saying, since, of course, standards of violence are arbitrary. Somehow, I think that, using the specific guidelines listed on the rating sheet on the back (where is says "foul language/drug use/blood and gore") could be used as criteria for this. The answer is under their noses.[/QUOTE]
Isn't giving a private party (in this case the ESRB) governmental powers (giving power to their ratings) unconstitutional?

Beyond that, Lowenstein said it would be unconstitutional, and not just for infringing on the creative rights of game developers. The fact that Clinton intends to base what is and isn't acceptable to sell to minors on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) ratings system gives the industry more grounds to attack the bill's constitutionality, according to Lowenstein.

"While we are gratified that the Senator holds the ESRB in such high regard that her bill would give these ratings the force of law, the courts have made clear that giving a private party governmental powers is unconstitutional," Lowenstein wrote.
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Also:
The Seventh Circuit indicated that there would need to be scientific certainty that such games would actually harm a child before the child’s First Amendment rights could be restricted.
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http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers/walsh.html

[quote name='mykevermin']That never stopped anybody before. I'd like to see what laws they proposed, and what context they were in; I don't have the time, admittedly, to look all that up. Sorry.[/QUOTE]
California law dafanged.
Washington law taken down.
Indianapolic law stopped.
Michigan law blocked.
Updates on the California, Michigan, and Illinois laws. Illinois's is not looking good, the labeling not looking good, Michigan described above, and the California law being decided next week.
There's several of them and there's probably a couple more that I missed, but these are what I can remember.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']I've never seen a liberal who constantly throws socialist around like you.

I get the feeling that if someone joined the military on the condition that they would work behind a desk and not fight, you wouldn't be so understanding if they suddenly sent them off to combat. Your logic allows employers to do whatever they want with employees regardless of what was originally agreed.[/QUOTE]

Nope - I just think that store clerks should be required to sell all of a store's in-stock merchandise, not just the merchandise that happens to coincide with their moral outlook. My vegatarian grocery clerk should not be allowed to refuse to sell me pork chops, and my Walgreen's pharmacist should not be allowed to refuse to sell me birth control.

If someone wants to open a vegetarian grocery store or a christian pharmacy, then that's their right, but if you take a job with a store owned by someone else, then you either agree to that store policy (even if it changes) and STFU or you just quit and take your morality with you.

BTW, who said I was liberal? ;)
 
[quote name='camoor']Nope - I just think that store clerks should be required to sell all of a store's in-stock merchandise, not just the merchandise that happens to coincide with their moral outlook. My vegatarian grocery clerk should not be allowed to refuse to sell me pork chops, and my Walgreen's pharmacist should not be allowed to refuse to sell me birth control.

If someone wants to open a vegetarian grocery store or a christian pharmacy, then that's their right, but if you take a job with a store owned by someone else, then you either agree to that store policy (even if it changes) and STFU or you just quit and take your morality with you.

BTW, who said I was liberal? ;)[/QUOTE]

But why should the employer get a free ride when they are the one who hired that employee?

For example, you walk into a small grocery store to buy pork but you find that there is only one employee on duty and they're vegetarian. Now not only that, they have been told by their employer, when hired, that they would not have to sell pork or other meat. Why would you place the blame on the employee moreso than the employer? I get the feeling that, if it was a cause you believe in (something other than anti abortion, or christian reasons) your opinion wouldn't be as strong.

Look, with something as important as medicine there should always be someone there to fulfill the prescription. But that does not mean the employer is exempt from agreements they made with the employee. This isn't a case of slow business, vanishing market etc. The employee is doing exactly what the employee and employer expected when they were hired. As long as there is an alternative, it should be the employers responsibility to offer that alternative to the employee.
 
No worries. Some video game vigilante freak will go right up to hilary clinton and fuck her shit up for sure.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']
I don't see you complain about the extra cost for the recording industry in "cleaning" up lyrics (which involves *far* more than simply muddling/bleeping bad language) so their CD can be sold in Wal-Mart. I'm certain this is because it is company-based regulation, not government. OTOH, every CD you buy is potentially a bit more expensive because of the extra time spent in the studio to rerecord lyrics, to hire professionals to edit the lyrical content of an album, or to redesign the layout of an album. This isn't labor that's done for free as a service to the community; you're paying for it whether or not you buy cds at Wal-Mart, and you're paying for it whether or not you buy the "clean" or "naughty" versions.
[/quote] I'm not complaining. It's a company's choice to put out 'clean' versions of their products. What's your fucking point?

You libertarian types who capitulate so damned quickly when a business says jump, yet act like the government is the same vagrant you've seen begging for 15 years are so boring and so predictable, not to mention simple-minded, that it's not even fun to argue with you.
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Libertarians don't capitulate to business, they act to protect it. It's libs like you who automatically capitulate to government.

Government is a vagrant looking for ways to steal your money. The difference is that they don't beg for it, they just start taking it. The simple minded person is the one who fails to recognize that and thinks the government would only help us and never do anything to curtail our freedom.

I can't think of a single example that shows your "slippery slope to no more video games being made ever" argument holds even the tiniest sliver of validity. Is there something that can constitute speech (and not, I suppose, obscenity - though that's another issue) that, due to government regulation, has ceased to exist as a result of greater and greater pressure and censorship from the government?
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I'm not making 'speech' arguments about censorship or about videogames becoming non-existent. Whores like Hillary don't give a crap about kids or violence in games, they just want their cut, or tax on every one produced. But you've made it clear that you don't care how many cuts the government takes, becuase it's better to give it to them than any evil corporation.

What we're talking about is the monitoring of sales, which is unrelated to that. Really, in the end, if people in this country are *dumb* enough to fight for a corporation's right to kill them in the form of tobacco, then I think that any sort of "slippery slope" argument is not only something that has no prior proof, but something we, as gamers and as parents, have very little to worry about.
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What we're talking about is the federal monitoring of sales which is unprecedented, and a giant usurpation of individual and state control over an entertainment medium. Feds don't regulate alcohol, movies, or porn, states do. We should be questioning the motivation behind this legislation, not capitulating to it as being innocuous or benign simply becuase a few senators claim they only have good intentions.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']Look, with something as important as medicine there should always be someone there to fulfill the prescription. But that does not mean the employer is exempt from agreements they made with the employee. This isn't a case of slow business, vanishing market etc. The employee is doing exactly what the employee and employer expected when they were hired. As long as there is an alternative, it should be the employers responsibility to offer that alternative to the employee.[/QUOTE]

Read the article again - the law just changed as a result of the governor's sponsored legislation being passed. Now the law requires pharmacists to fill all in-stock prescriptions regardless of their personal morality, and this pharmacist is breaking the law every time he refuses medication to the store's customers.

Yet even if the company was just trying to maximize profits, I would still support their move of firing this dangerous pharmacist. A job is like a contract between a company and an employee*. As soon as one of the two parties can make more money elsewhere, they should be within their rights to modify or break this contract (assuming the contract does not have a specified lifespan). Verbal agreements are not worth the paper they are written on.

* Of course, there should be SOME limitations on companies enforced by government regulations. Safe working conditions, judicious compensation for overtime, and health benefits are a few of the regulations I approve of for employees. However I do not support upholding the moral whims of an employee over the rights of the consumer to purchase in-stock store items. Or in layman's terms - this pharmacist should know his damn role.
 
[quote name='FriskyTanuki']http://www.livejournal.com/users/gamepolitics/147862.html
Another Senator joins the gang.[/QUOTE]

I voted for him too...

Actually this is a little disaapointing for me as I really like Senator Bayh alot. I'd still vote for him even though I disagree strongly with his approach here. I just hope he's not becoming like our Mayor here in the capital, who I don't like much at all partially for his trying to become Mayor Morals about once every other year and also how he handles many issues too though.
 
It's almost time for Mr Spectre and Mr Hatch to bring up the flag burning ammendment again. You think game regulation is a dumb idea? Wait until they write out freedom of speech from the constitution.
 
[quote name='bmulligan']It's almost time for Mr Spectre and Mr Hatch to bring up the flag burning ammendment again. You think game regulation is a dumb idea? Wait until they write out freedom of speech from the constitution.[/QUOTE]

Still, another slippery slope argument.
 
[quote name='capitalist_mao']Still, another slippery slope argument.[/QUOTE]

Sorry, there's no slope to their ammendment. The only thing that's slipping is the resistance to it being passed and ratified.
 
Mao, what exactly is your problem with 'slippery slopes', anyway? They are not arguments onto themselves and cannot be invalid by their existence alone. In some cases, they can be outrageous, but in some cases, they are relevant.

All potential legislation must be extrapolated to it's most extreme point of prudence in order to gauge it's effectiveness, preserve, or inhibit it's scope. Slippery slopes are simply logical progressions of the undermining of a chain of postulates in order to invalidate a principle. It should be our duty to investigate slilppery slopes to determine if they are intentional, or unintended, and to rectify them before they cause damage. Unfortunately, our legislators are more concerned with political expediency than unintended consequences.

Is it that you have a problem with certain princlples or absolutes?
 
[quote name='bmulligan']Mao, what exactly is your problem with 'slippery slopes', anyway? They are not arguments onto themselves and cannot be invalid by their existence alone. In some cases, they can be outrageous, but in some cases, they are relevant.

All potential legislation must be extrapolated to it's most extreme point of prudence in order to gauge it's effectiveness, preserve, or inhibit it's scope. Slippery slopes are simply logical progressions of the undermining of a chain of postulates in order to invalidate a principle. It should be our duty to investigate slilppery slopes to determine if they are intentional, or unintended, and to rectify them before they cause damage. Unfortunately, our legislators are more concerned with political expediency than unintended consequences.

Is it that you have a problem with certain princlples or absolutes?[/QUOTE]

Because, a slippery slope is an indirect route to get to an end. However, this end can vary wildly and is simply left up to the imagination of the person making the argument. Someone earlier made the argument that this legislation will lead a 1984 dystopian country, but apparently according to your reasoning that's a valid assumption. I have a hard time believing that (if anything, it will be the egregious breaches of protocol that P.A.T.R.I.O.T. has enacted that will lead to the downfall of society, but I digress).

Anyways, there's no reason to believe that just because event A happen, events B-F are going to happen. There are so many possibilities between the two disparate events (legislation enacted, and downfall of the first amendment and yes, they're quite disparate) that you would either have to argue each separate event, or make the casual link "because you said so".

As for writing out freedom of speech, Bush has already done so. Look at the free speech zones.

Essentially, slippery slopes break down into an illegitimate use of the if-then operators as each following "then" is more outrageous than the last.

I think I'll go to the next extreme. I believe that this legislation will not only help video gamers shed that nasty stereotype of being stinky letches that live in basements, but it will help bring the world together and end cultural strife. It's obvious that with less violence being shown to our nation's youth, we'll be a better society.
 
[quote name='capitalist_mao']Essentially, slippery slopes break down into an illegitimate use of the if-then operators as each following "then" is more outrageous than the last.[/QUOTE]

You have a problem with illogical cause/effect relationships, not 'slippery slope' arguments, per se. There is a difference between an improbable disparate event occuring and a compelling logical probability of an event taking place.

And as for "free speech zones", you don't really believe that type of behavior began with Bush, right ? Right ?
 
[quote name='bmulligan']You have a problem with illogical cause/effect relationships, not 'slippery slope' arguments, per se. There is a difference between an improbable disparate event occuring and a compelling logical probability of an event taking place.[/QUOTE]

I think his problem, as he stated, is when the "then" part of the slippery slope argument seems wildly and aritrarily defined, as to make the very concept of logical argument illogical by virtue of destroying the need for the "then" part to be necessarily (and thus logically) true.

In the end, the slippery slopes you've presented are not even close to logical "if-then" statements, as they are far closer to what they are: wild speculation with a dash of doom-and-gloom prophecy that's been unproven in any prior circumstance.
 
[quote name='mykevermin'] In the end, the slippery slopes you've presented are not even close to logical "if-then" statements, as they are far closer to what they are: wild speculation with a dash of doom-and-gloom prophecy that's been unproven in any prior circumstance.[/QUOTE]

Well, if you were able to display more deft in following a logical argument, I would be more inclined to accept your judgement on the subject.
 
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