This Just In--Of Drained Resevoirs

[BoiseBYU]

Man in Oregon urinates in reservoir; as a result, operators determine to drain 8 MILLION gallons of water as a health precaution. Man just think what would happen if the Utes' FB team had been there....

Supreme Court says First Amendment protects extremely violent video games, protesters who want to assert that US soldiers died because God is punishing them as a result of there being homosexuals in this country, and corporations who want to spend millions to defeat a candidate that threatens their special interests. When did the First Amendment turn into the permission key to corrode, corrupt and denigrate our communities?

Dodgers file for bankruptcy. They hope to join the SEC

Jimmer goes to Sacramento Kings. California will first ask Jimmer to balance the State budget.

[BroncoBot]

I realize what you are saying about first amendment, but once again this goes back to what our LDS leaders have been preaching for decades; that the family is eroding before our eyes. If kids had strong families, parents would be teaching their kids that such behavior is inappropriate and extreme violence wouldn't be accepted. I don't think the government exists to babysit today's children and adolescents.

First family, and then church should be teaching morals to our youth.

[BoiseBYU]

I realize what you are saying about first amendment, but once again this goes back to what our LDS leaders have been preaching for decades; that the family is eroding before our eyes. If kids had strong families, parents would be teaching their kids that such behavior is inappropriate and extreme violence wouldn't be accepted. I don't think the government exists to babysit today's children and adolescents.

First family, and then church should be teaching morals to our youth.

You make good points, as always. If all families were like, perhaps, yours, there would not be a need for the State to set some standards. But I can most assuredly say that many families are not like that. Does that mean the govt should be the nanny? No. But I do think it appropriate for the govt. to rule out allowing the selling of certain levels of sex and violence to all kids, regardless of how well or not well their family has taught them. It comes back to where we draw lines and where we do that--under the Court's reading of the 1st A , the line is different from where I'd like it...Perhaps the Court's decision is a reflection of the culture we find ourselves in today where we have evil people wanting to sell evil products. I am not certain other generations have had to deal with that like we do today....

[snoscythe]

I think the Supreme Court really muffed it here. This was their chance to go all-in or to cash-out. Now we are left with the Supreme Court saying the 1st Amendment protects children's access to gratuitous violence in 1st Person RPGs, but that same Amendment doesn't protect children's access to obscenity/hard-core pornography. I don't see how they can read that one sentence of the Constitution and hold straight-faced to two diametrically opposite interpretations.

This was a chance for the Court to either expand Ginsberg v. New York and Miller v. California to cover gore games or to admit that they stretched the credibility of the First Amendment in those cases and to scale those decisions back in accord with this decision.

[BoiseBYU]

I think the Supreme Court really muffed it here. This was their chance to go all-in or to cash-out. Now we are left with the Supreme Court saying the 1st Amendment protects children's access to gratuitous violence in 1st Person RPGs, but that same Amendment doesn't protect children's access to obscenity/hard-core pornography. I don't see how they can read that one sentence of the Constitution and hold straight-faced to two diametrically opposite interpretations.

This was a chance for the Court to either expand Ginsberg v. New York and Miller v. California to cover gore games or to admit that they stretched the credibility of the First Amendment in those cases and to scale those decisions back in accord with this decision.

I do not know much about this stuff like you, but it is utterly naive/ignorant to equate the Grimms' Brothers fairy tales, which I understand is what Judge Scalia did, with the live action realistic mayhem the peddlers sell to very young persons. The effect between the two is not the same. They can and should be treated differently. The First Amendment has never been absolute, but we are getting there more and more...

[jvquarterback]

Your argument is individuals are harmed by playing these games. I don't disagree, but the person producing or selling the game is not harming anyone. The person purchasing and playing the game is injuring their own person. Anyone arguing force should be used to prevent agency that results in injury to no one else is barking up the wrong tree.

I would have preferred a discussion about how governments prohibit the free exercise of religion through zoning laws. The Supreme Court has been a pansie on that idea.

[Schmoe]

Yes, but when the individual is a minor, the parents should be the ones to decide if the game is appropriate or not and whether they want their child harming himself by playing it or not. Hence, the game should need to be purchased by the parent, not the child.

[jvquarterback]

The parent should not allow the child to purchase the game and decide how to prevent access to the game. If the child purchases the game it is the parents fault.

[Sammich]

Yes, but when the individual is a minor, the parents should be the ones to decide if the game is appropriate or not and whether they want their child harming himself by playing it or not. Hence, the game should need to be purchased by the parent, not the child.

This is already the case for most, if not all retailers. The complaint that Yee made about Walmart and others corporations making millions by selling games to kids is silly. These stores already have policies in place to prevent clerks from selling M-rated games to minors unless they are attended by a parent (parents can also buy an R-rated movie for their kids). And of course these corporations do their best to enforce these policies, because they are goldmines for people seeking lawsuits. The only retailers this law would affect are small operations that have a low risk of public backlash.

I'm not a proponent of selling games to kids, but it should ultimately be up to the parents; and for the most part, it already is. Making a federal law is a big deal and often has lots of unintended consequences. I don't believe that exercising that power is necessarily the ideal solution in this case.

[Lawboy]

Your argument is individuals are harmed by playing these games. I don't disagree, but the person producing or selling the game is not harming anyone. The person purchasing and playing the game is injuring their own person. Anyone arguing force should be used to prevent agency that results in injury to no one else is barking up the wrong tree.

Wrong. When the individual is harmed, society is harmed. As a society, we all enter into a compact, and when we allow people to do harmful things to themselves, you think it has no reaching effects on society in terms of actual cost? That is stupid. If you need further proof, look at the obesity epidemic. You telling me that we need to allow everyone to eat themselves into oblivion "because it harms no one else" and then just sit back and bask in their individual freedom as our medical and health related costs continue to rise as a result of this "freedom"? Sorry--not buying it.

People have duties to society and if they decide to ignore those, then society has a right to basically compel them to act responsibly.