Agreed - Government growth is ALWAYS bad. And while I recognize the validity of your point that many adults buy adult games for their kids, I have seen many instances where a kid at EBX can buy games likeGTA:Vice City or Hitman 2( 2 adult games I witnessed being sold to kids looking about 11).

The trouble is, for some inexplicable reason, the spotlight is not on movie theatres or Best Buy's for selling 'R' rated movies. It is on videogames. So, fair or not, game makers and game retailers have to be smarter than they have been if they wish to keep making a living doing what they are doing. It was just as unfair to the comics industry (that was largely destroyed by controversy), but fair or not, it is a cross the retailers, developers, and publishers have to bear.

Most games are bought for kids by their parents or older relatives. You'll find roughly the same percentages of enforcement on buying R rated movies at Best Buy etc. as you would on M rated games... and both are (and should remain) voluntary policies, not state enforced. And movie theaters do a far worse job of keeping minors out of R rated screenings than game retailers do restricting sales to minors.

The problem is that the older generation by and large still just does not realize that video games can contain adult content on a level of the Sopranos or Kill Bill. Does that mean we need legislation and government growth for it? Nope.

CITIZENS UNITED NEGATING TECHNOLOGY FOR LIFE AND PEOPLE'S SAFETY

it should be obvious now, The Gov is a member of C.U.N.T.F.L.A.P.S.

Hehehehe.

Bravo

Creston

The court won't seek you out and hand over your money and overturn your conviction in that circumstance. It's not like a tax that gets automatically refunded.

And had you said "No automatic refund", that statement might have some relevance. But "No refund" is not the same as "No automatic refund", no matter how you try and spin it.

If retailers would stop selling adult games to kids then this would all be moot. If a parent buys it for their kid, then obviously the retailer is off the hook. Why does this have to be so difficult?

At the local Hollywood Video, my 12 year old son is not allowed to rent 'R' or 'X' rated movies - the clerks act responsibly and deny access to such materials. Why can't the people at EBX/Walmart do the same?

You went straight from "no, it doesn't happen" to "well, it's not automatic" somehow bypassing the "I was talking out of my ass" stage. Most impressive

I bypassed it because I wasn't. I was talking from a pragmatic standpoint. The court won't seek you out and hand over your money and overturn your conviction in that circumstance. It's not like a tax that gets automatically refunded.

This comment was edited on Sep 14, 23:22.

What a nice dodge.

No, the law is law unless/until it is overturned by the court or repealed by the legislature. There are no refunds. This is not like an unlawful tax which gets repealed.

...

Technically what you quoted is true, but there is no automatic mechanism which undoes the convictions and results like fines of defendants convicted of unconstitutional laws. Every defendant would have to petition the court to revisit his case. Depending upon the size of the fine, many if not most people wouldn't go to the trouble to hire a lawyer and pay the filing fee(s) to do it.

You went straight from "no, it doesn't happen" to "well, it's not automatic" somehow bypassing the "I was talking out of my ass" stage. Most impressive.

This comment was edited on Sep 14, 23:04.

I just read a news article on the lawsuit over the Indianapolis arcade game law from 2000 which said that the city of Indianapolis had to pay the IDSA $318,000 in legal fees when the law was found to be unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds. So, it looks like the state of Michigan could be forced to pay substantial legal fees if the law is found to violate the First Amendment.

That enough of a concession for you? Looks like that makes you wrong on your hypothesis about me.

This comment was edited on Sep 14, 23:23.

I'm never replying to anything you say ever again. Jesus.

Appeal's still pending. But reimbursement is a fairly standard procedure in the American legal system.

It doesn't matter if it is pending. An appeal to a higher court would have no relevance on legal fees from litigation in that court. So, was the motion granted or denied?

Nice job merely omitting any kind of reply to my second point, btw

I replied below.

This comment was edited on Sep 14, 22:52.

I'm sure you're a far superior resource of American law than AmJur, though.

Technically what you quoted is true, but there is no automatic mechanism which undoes the convictions and results like fines of defendants convicted of unconstitutional laws. Every defendant would have to petition the court to revisit his case. Depending upon the size of the fine, many if not most people wouldn't go to the trouble to hire a lawyer and pay the filing fee(s) to do it.

Appeal's still pending. But reimbursement is a fairly standard procedure in the American legal system.

Nice job merely omitting any kind of reply to my second point, btw. My hypothesis (that you're wholly incapable of admitting even the possiblity that you may be wrong about something) is still holding up.

The IDSA countered June 19 with a motion to be reimbursed for attorneys' fees by St. Louis County in the amount of $170,882.40.

Was the motion granted though and for that amount? It's not a certainty.


This comment was edited on Sep 14, 22:40.

The IDSA countered June 19 with a motion to be reimbursed for attorneys' fees by St. Louis County in the amount of $170,882.40.

From the case in St. Louis.

But let's not let precedent get in your way.

No, the law is law unless/until it is overturned by the court or repealed by the legislature. There are no refunds. This is not like an unlawful tax which gets repealed.

From American Jurisprudence (found on wikipedia):

" The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and the name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void and ineffective for any purpose since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it; an unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed .. An unconstitutional law is void."

I'm sure you're a far superior resource of American law than AmJur, though.


This comment was edited on Sep 14, 22:12.

Once they lose the case (assuming the already established legal precedent holds up) they'll have to pay the ESA's legal fees.

They could, but it's not a certainty.

If a law is found to be unconstitutional I'd imagine there's some way for those affected by the law before it was deamed unconstitutional to get their money back (+ grievances, I'd assume).

No, the law is law unless/until it is overturned by the court or repealed by the legislature. There are no refunds. This is not like an unlawful tax which gets repealed.

This comment was edited on Sep 14, 22:15.

Once they lose the case (assuming the already established legal precedent holds up) they'll have to pay the ESA's legal fees.

Furthermore: If a law is found to be unconstitutional I'd imagine there's some way for those affected by the law before it was deamed unconstitutional to get their money back (+ grievances, I'd assume). So I wouldn't count on them even being able to keep what little revenue they manage ot make off this.


This comment was edited on Sep 14, 21:54.

Prodigy was refering to the lawsuit.

I know but since the attorney general's office is a branch of state government which is paid to litigate matters such as these, it essentially costs nothing extra for the state to defend the law in the suit. It's better than the attorney general and his deputies just sitting in their offices drawing their salaries.

Prodigy was merely suggesting that the state will lose more money

But it actually won't lose money given what I wrote above plus the additional revenue from the fines. Lowenstein is just using that claim of money lost as a ruse to sway the public to the ESA's side. Remember you are reading an ESA press release, i.e. a propaganda piece, not an independent news story. The only side which will effectively pay legal fees is the ESA and its members.

I can't wait to hear about how you're actually right

The wait is over.

This comment was edited on Sep 14, 21:36.

Growing government (new enforcement agencies, committees, etc.) over something that the other mainstream media handles less well than the game industry does (someone here once linked a study about kids getting into R rated movies, and it was a way higher % than the number of kids able to purchase M rated games) is a bad idea.

This is an easy issue to "take a stand on" that wins political favor with the right-wing moral majority. This is why you see mostly Democrats pushing for this, they need those votes. Smart political move. If you think anyone who actually votes pays attention to facts or logic over emotional rhetoric, witness Bush's incompetent, bumbling administration getting return tickets to the white house.

Unfortunately, this is just another talking point issue that continues to keep the spotlight of the real sources causing this country's problems, which mostly revolve around these 3 fundamental flaws in our system:
- An average American's Tax burden is now in the 40-45% range of annual salary (used to be in the 20% range in the 50s, post WWII even... wtf?).
- You have to have a license to own a pet, but you can make as many human children as you want, with no qualifications, and unleash them on the rest of us for the long haul. And we probably paid you for it.
- Lack of critical thinking in education. At least Kansas is a sign of great things to come there... </SARCASM>

If you want more family values, a stronger economy, and better society, lower tax burdens so families have more spending power and free time to spend at home instead of dual-income overtime jobs. Require basic responsibility qualifications for prospective parents, or the state takes the kids for adoption. I'm not talking anything beyond proving you can hold a job for like a year and aren't a repeat felon. If you want more than 2 kids, you pay additional taxes, not the other way around.

And for Hank's sake, people... Intelligent Design? Chiropractic "Medicine"? The Bermuda Triangle? Please do some research on these topics before nodding your head and bleeting along with the rest of the daytime talk show herd. I suggest starting at http://www.skeptic.com.

You must be responsible for what you bring to this society, or we all get screwed as the religious right keeps on breeding and negating science's advances. Sure, it keeps the housing market profitable for now, but in the long run uncontrolled overpopulation will kill us all.

Signed,
Tired-of-Being-Blamed-for-the-Nation's-Incompetent-Governments-that-I-didn't-vote-for.

This comment was edited on Sep 14, 20:59.

That site rocks. I bounced the link to a bunch of my friends. In a way, I almost hope the ESA wins. Frankly, I have no problem with stores being fined for selling games with adult ratings to children (yes, the parents should be doing their job, but still.) But I also appreciate that if this law gets through, it can be used as precedent for a number of other laws which will eventually culminate into government regulation of media (except for all the Bush friendly news networks of course.) I hope the ESA does well.

Parallax Abstraction
Ottawa, Canada
www.pxa.ca

CITIZENS UNITED NEGATING TECHNOLOGY FOR LIFE AND PEOPLE'S SAFETY

it should be obvious now, The Gov is a member of C.U.N.T.F.L.A.P.S.

http://www.citizensunitednegatingtechnology.org/