Yesterday, June 27, 2011, the Supreme Court stated its majority opinion on the matter of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association which resulted in a media uproar over the stated perception that the upper court had issued a ruling that would allow children to purchase video games that contained graphic images of a violent and sexual nature. The ruling negated the California law upon which the brief was filed and other state laws that prohibited the sales to or ownership by children under the age of 18 of video games that depicted extreme acts of violence.
My opinion is that, while I abhor the subject matter of many of the violent video games on the market today, I believe that the seven justices who ruled for the majority were correct in their statement that the California law violated the protections offered by the First Amendment to the Constitution. In the statements of the justices can be seen that there were actually three issues involved. The first has to do with the right of free speech where the justices indicated that whether the content was descriptive as written (as in a book like Uncle Tom’s Cabin) or via projected images (as in a video game such as Grand Theft Auto III or Final Fantasy VIII content was protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. The second has to do with parental responsibility for the actions of their children who are minors. The ruling, in essence, was a clarion call for parents to do what they are responsible to do and make the tough guardian decisions that they must for the protection of their family values and way of life. There is a recent movie entitled “Waiting for Superman” that summarizes the failures at the family and community level to take an active part in the education of their children for the benefit of the commonweal. It seems that our modern preoccupation is to wait for the hero, the “Superman”, to come and save us from ourselves. We throw up our hands, willing to give up our freedoms, in fear of the responsibility demanded for their protection, and willingly hand over our future and that of our children to the supposed beneficence of the monolithic state. The third issue extends from the second and involves the ethical standards of the family and the community at large. It should be noted that books, unlike video games, carry no cover posted warnings of their graphic content and there are numerous books considered as “classics” that describe in detail the horrors of mutilation or torture. As parents, we have a responsibility to challenge our children with “age appropriate” content suitable for the child we know and love. There are teenagers well under the age of 18 who can easily handle the content of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, In Cold Blood, or Helter Skelter and there are others who can’t. The point is that we as parents need to be communicating with our children and with each other to insure that the family and community standards are being maintained. It is not for the government to tell us what our ethical standards should be, what we should say, who we should say it to or how we should say what we wish to say. And, I firmly believe that that is the same as the current opinion of the high court of the United States in the case of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association. The words of the First Amendment to the Constitution still ring true: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
My opinion is that, while I abhor the subject matter of many of the violent video games on the market today, I believe that the seven justices who ruled for the majority were correct in their statement that the California law violated the protections offered by the First Amendment to the Constitution. In the statements of the justices can be seen that there were actually three issues involved. The first has to do with the right of free speech where the justices indicated that whether the content was descriptive as written (as in a book like Uncle Tom’s Cabin) or via projected images (as in a video game such as Grand Theft Auto III or Final Fantasy VIII content was protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. The second has to do with parental responsibility for the actions of their children who are minors. The ruling, in essence, was a clarion call for parents to do what they are responsible to do and make the tough guardian decisions that they must for the protection of their family values and way of life. There is a recent movie entitled “Waiting for Superman” that summarizes the failures at the family and community level to take an active part in the education of their children for the benefit of the commonweal. It seems that our modern preoccupation is to wait for the hero, the “Superman”, to come and save us from ourselves. We throw up our hands, willing to give up our freedoms, in fear of the responsibility demanded for their protection, and willingly hand over our future and that of our children to the supposed beneficence of the monolithic state. The third issue extends from the second and involves the ethical standards of the family and the community at large. It should be noted that books, unlike video games, carry no cover posted warnings of their graphic content and there are numerous books considered as “classics” that describe in detail the horrors of mutilation or torture. As parents, we have a responsibility to challenge our children with “age appropriate” content suitable for the child we know and love. There are teenagers well under the age of 18 who can easily handle the content of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, In Cold Blood, or Helter Skelter and there are others who can’t. The point is that we as parents need to be communicating with our children and with each other to insure that the family and community standards are being maintained. It is not for the government to tell us what our ethical standards should be, what we should say, who we should say it to or how we should say what we wish to say. And, I firmly believe that that is the same as the current opinion of the high court of the United States in the case of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association. The words of the First Amendment to the Constitution still ring true: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
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