SUPREME COURT LEAVES CHILDREN'S WINDOW TO THE SOUL, OPEN TO PURVEYORS OF VIOLENCE

Eye on top of the pyramid--from our dollar

On this Independence Day we should examine closely the real state of American independence. One small indicator in last week news warns we are caught in our own contradictions. The Supreme Court has ruled that our children are free to be exposed to the most violent video games. Califorina’s law to protect youngsters from these games was rejected. The companies that make them are free to sell what are often first shooter, bloody war games, to children of all ages. It’s their first amendment free speech right. But are we to become so dependent on violence promotion industries, that we won’t shield our children from these visually traumatic activities?

The message sent by the high court--virtual war and virtual interpersonal combat are not to be restrained in the land of the free. Yes, the parents are responsible for controlling their kids’ access to violence simulation, but if in our stress-ridden society parents are increasingly missing in action, then exposing children to culturally approved mayhem that glorifies killing, is a right not to be infringed upon.

Two wars of choice in a decade of an undeclared, but all encompassing, War on Terror, have militarized the psyche of the nation, but not called for any real sacrifice on the part of the majority of citizens, and has enriched the financial and political leadership. They bank on oil futures, and privatize our army, to doubly protect their interests. The soldiers are the ones who suffer the most, along with the economy that serves the general public.

From Universal Soldier film

These soldiers are being acclimated from childhood, made accustomed to violence, and then recruited, by war video games. All age restrictions to this subliminal training are shot down now by the Top Court. One sophisticated game 1 America ‘s Army [AA 3.1] , given free to interested kids, has a sidebar inviting contact with an army commander/recruiter versed in the virtual battles you may be game fighting on the streets of Baghdad. Another was the cover photo for the Wall Street Journal article quoted below.

The 2005 California law [now overturned by Supreme Court] prohibits selling or renting violent games to minors based on legislative findings that they reduce "activity in the frontal lobes of the brain" and promote "violent antisocial or aggressive behavior." 2

Obscenity laws that prohibit the sale of pornographic materials to minors are constitutional, but we can’t ban the sale of lurid violent materials to minors. We are subjecting our kids to a giant canary test, down in the deep mines of a violence permissive society. Every parent knows the painful fears evoked in a child that can’t sleep at night because of the cruel things they saw in a horror movie. The technology of violence media is advancing beyond horror films. If our kids are becoming more desensitized to it, fewer nightmares because the violence is video game normal, we need to heed these warning signs.