Yesterday, we discussed how various people have used the massacre in Connecticut to call for everything from gun control to new social programs and prayer in school. Now, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), a long advocate for censoring music and speech, added his own take: crackdown on violent video games. Lieberman described Adam Lanza of having a “hypnotic involvement” with the games and called on Congress to get involved.
Of course, it was not Lanza history of mental illness. Lieberman’s focus is on the games he played — the same games played by hundreds of millions of kids and adults who do not run to their local school to mow down students. However, Lieberman insists that “[v]ery often these young men have an almost hypnotic involvement in some form of violence in our entertainment culture – particularly violent video games. . . And then they obtain guns and become not just troubled young men but mass murderers.”
The basis for his concern with regard to Lanza? “Rumors” that he played the games. It was enough however to go to the floor of the Senate to call for yet another area of government regulation of speech and association.
Lieberman recognizes that the games seem to leave a surprising number of people in a non-murderous state, but that is just a fortunate side note: “Thank God, not all of them become murderers, but some of them do and we have to ask why.” I prefer to ask why we are talking about video games instead of the history of mental illness demonstrated by Lanza. And that is not even a rumor.
Beddy-bye. Hope you have a nice Sat. night party, wherever.
Oooooh, you mean it was not only weak, it should be seen as a misdirected feint, a diversion, a digressive move, an idea used to ridicule others, etc etc.
YES, YES, YES.
Sometimes coins don’t always drop in the automat we call a brain.
Saying as I would that I think we will see a lot of that, is too weak compared to the millions we’ve been fed in the last two decades alone.
Let me repeat Carlin and et al here:
Two parties, one joint idea, two facades in different colors—-all meant to distract from the true situation, and insure retention of the status quo.
Something else about the matches to guns analogy.
We don’t, as a cultural expression, see the following:
“I have matches. And if somebody comes here trying to burn down my house, I’m sure nuff gonna light my matches and burn down HIS HOUSE FIRST! You can’t just tell me you’re gonna burn down my house and get away with it.”
We don’t, as a cultural expression, see a TV show about two guys faced off, lots of tense music, and then one of them lights a match first and wins and he’s the good guy and the other guy is absolutely defeated so we know whom to love and whom to hate.
The whole analogy ignores our habits, our misconceptions, our myths, our vulnerabilities, our common social sicknesses and our history.
Malisha and other child beaters 😉 ,
I was almost reported to the police when a young couple reacted to my shaking my wife’s sister’s 8 year old.’ This occured as the heigth of the younger parents indignation for their own upbringing some twenty five years ago, I was charged with him for two hours, parked in a downtown mall’s children play area. The boy had raced around as the first he did, mistreating other children. So high´were the feelings aroused in the young idealists who raced to his aid. After a short discussion they departed.
The physical, and even emotional, abuse of children is definitely forbidden and will be tried for. Some cases receive media notice each year.
It was timely, in keeping with reformation of society from top to toe here.
And the flattening of society by eliminating titles (we don’t even say sir, mister, madame, etc, has been accompanied non.acceptance of any form of child abuse, even emotional. (For example, even high level doctors and professors are addressed by their first name or the last whichever fits comfortably, but no honors titles.
So if you should come here and give your child a good shaking, expect to be detained, fined and possibly imprisoned.
We don’t solve things between people other than by ostracizing them or compromise. Frustrating for an American in 1968. Now I thank ´my lucky stars for this.
MikeS,
Thanks, you indeed should know, and perhaps LJC too.
DonS,
Lyme disease is a bad one. Hope they caught it early. Here it is a ten day penicillin cure. Germany treats it much longer. Have had it 5 times.
Daffodils we have lots. And not nary a nibble.
We thinned the forests and the bush is gone. And fewer trees both small and large. Stockhol county is worst in Sweden for just Lyme disease.
Malisha, I shouldn’t have flattered myself thinking you would recall. All the better. Water under the bridge.
As to Zimmerman, to be clear, I am not saying he is innocent, only that I do not know who initiated the physical confrontation and I think each side has more evidence to be presented. GZ is a moron for following and putting himself in the position he did, but that does not automatically mean he is guilty of murder. I do think prosecution will have a tough time doing away with reasonable doubt. That is all I will say about that until the next appropriate thread when you and me can go at it (we both know there will be numerous as trial date gets near).
As to YOU, as you describe, good stuff.
I am with you on the no hitting kids thing. I have a 2 yr old boy and 3 mo. old girl. My pediatrician recommended a great book for disciplining – 1-2-3 Magic. I recommend to any parent for disciplining methods.
See ya round.
Hi, Idealist707,
Good reply, overall. I’ll try to be succinct, though I’ll fail.
“Norway in common with most nations has inadequate psych facilities.
Here in Sweden, routinely those needing ER psych help are given a days help and released to the streets.” So does the US though it’s generally 72 hours to ascertain “danger”. Obviously, that only applies to those who are put into psych evaluation. Too many aren’t and those that are for too short a time. So Norway and Sweden have the same problems as the USA.
” All societies are sick due to violence….And where did that culture come from, not from any country but the USA. Don’t try to weasel out when the world regards (ie the people) you as the world’s most dangerous terrorists.” Blaming others for your behavior is not healthy. The USA does dominate in entertainment, what you do with it is your culture’s fault, see “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (the Trilogy, the Swedish version of the first better than the English version).
As for the last sentence, it reminds me of what is now a joke in the US: “how could Nixon get elected to President, no one I know voted for him?”. You did the “appeal to numbers” with conflation of “terrorist” to military operations. I do understand that Sweden doesn’t know what “military” means other than in Parade. I also understand that Swedish media encompass world opinion exactingly.
Your comment does lead to a subtext of how those who won’t protect themselves, or others, hate those who do and will wax with moral preening: You did nothing to stop ethnic cleansing in Bosnia in the 90’s. Nothing; we had to step in and frankly I was disgusted that Europeans were so impotent that we had to step in. You have built your economies on the expectation that the USA would spend it’s money protecting you. You have no basis to justify your moral-preening, but believe that preening gives you all the right to judge us while you suck from us.
I would be perfectly happy to see the USA pull all military protection from Europe, every last bit. I would love to see Europe fight not to lose all supply lines of oil, as well other resources, but to be dependent solely on the North Sea and what they could mine locally. Your economy would collapse, but wouldn’t drag the rest of us to oblivion. At your current state, Europe would give a whole new meaning to appeasement and fetal position when it comes to protecting itself.
Sweden and Norway are peace loving, and contribute nothing substantial to keeping the peace, except words and prizes. You let others die to keep your peace and think your peace moral. You do nothing.
“Doing so won’t even rise to the occasion of a “loose mind”, not even “no mind… (Now your comment) What you mean here is unclear. Please describe my prejudices. Your jibes as to my mental capacity is yours to expound. But I need no defense from that loose accusation.”
I quoted you regarding me from the ZImmerman thread where you called him, essentially, a murderer looking for a victim. I took exception to that, not to support Z, but to question your post hoc ergo prompter hoc reasoning. I simply used your terms on you. Goose, gander. Do it first and I will follow, your loose accusation just gives me opportunity.
Oops, 😳 I slipped off thread on both counts, Juris.
About the violent video games: I don’t like them. I wouldn’t want my kids to play them. If I were a legislator I wouldn’t pretend that I could pass a law against them, either. I can’t stand Lieberman. He only says good things about me, though. 😀
Juris, I can’t remember anything about you coming at me about the Zimmerman case. So obviously I didn’t take offense but if I seemed to, that’s probably because I was doing the polemic thing I thought the question merited. Let me give you in very brief form my take on Zimmerman’s guilt.
1. He expressed (to Sean on NEN call) hostility to Trayvon Martin while he claimed not to have ever seen him before, and then could not adequately explain his suspicions.
2. He claimed (to Serino) that he had not followed Trayvon Martin when clearly and obviously he HAD followed him.
3. He claimed (on Hannity) that he knew that Trayvon Martin was not afraid of him, when it is so obvious that Trayvon was afraid of him that it is beyond, as they say, “cavil.”
4. He claimed (to Singleton) that Trayvon appeared out of the darkness and said, “You got a f*ckin’ problem, homie?” which even he later questioned.
5. He announced (on Hannity) that he did not regret getting out of his car that night, that he did not regret having a loaded gun with him that night, and that he had NO REGRETS about that night.
6. He claimed (about five, six times) that his purpose in getting out of the car was to get an address or a street name for the police, an obvious lie.
There is my synopsis of “the reasons I believe George Zimmerman is guilty of second-degree murder.”
Now, don’t go trying to find a thread to post an apology on; I don’t need any apology but if it’s important to you that I got one, I accept it and thank you for it.
Here’s me: I don’t care who opposes me. I don’t care who agrees with me. I try to use logic to form my opinions. When I don’t, I try to see that I am not. I try to give myself counter-arguments, if only to be able to defeat them as mental exercise. I generally like and respect people who will argue with me even if I disagree with them. If I disrespect somebody hurtfully, and it is not a person I MEAN to hurt, I want to learn of it and have a chance to apologize and set it straight. If I have disrespected somebody hurtfully and it IS a person I mean to hurt (right now, that would include George Zimmerman but not Mark O’Mara; it would include Alan Dershowitz but not Jeralyn Merritt), I am not sorry.
So, let’s keep talking, I much appreciate the conversation with you! 🙂
About the guns: A while back a few countries made it illegal for parents to hit children. There were no penalties, though, and no prosecutions. What the laws did was STATE, in effect, “this is not OK.” Everybody knows that it was broken from time to time. I don’t believe in hitting kids but I hit my own kid twice and he remembers both times (and laughs about them, telling me I didn’t hurt him at all, though both times I was beside myself with anger). But the point of it was that the countries (I think they were Scandinavian) were publishing social guidelines. That is PART of the idea of gun control. You really cannot control the ownership of guns. You really canNOT keep folks from amassing huge amounts of weaponry and doing horrible damage with it. But you can definitely start to say, as a society: “OK we are not going to glorify this overly resentful, hostile, angry, seemingly masculine, seemingly “strong” and “macho” idea any more. We are now going to de-mystify the gunslinger. We are going to start seeing him as an anti-hero and not as a hero. We are going to start demanding that the competing image of a non-violent, responsible, protective male can come into his own. We are doing this officially: get used to it.”
Gun control will naturally bring with it, albeit gradually, the image of the VIOLATOR of that social imperative being a CRIMINAL and not a HERO. That is where we need to go. We can go slowly. Gun control would, obviously, be only the first very small baby-step. But we do need to take it.
Saying that it won’t solve all of our problems does not mean that we should not do it. We should do it because we need to start solving our problems, not fussing about what will NOT solve them.
Thanks, Mike. Same back at ya.
I thought more than a minute about mentioning my condition, but it is an ‘interesting’ one which I doubt many of us have ever heard of.,
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ID, and tulips and lilies are candy; daffodils not. Depends some on the year, the scarcity of winter forage, and deer perversity ;-).. Generally we love to hate them, but last year my wife got Lyme disease and so we’re not so understanding anymore. Of course “we” have created the problem of out of control herds by creating exactly the kind of habitat (‘edge’) that they thrive in by cutting down too much of the Eastern forests.
DonS,
Up temporarily to take my meds.
Now know why misery loves company, when it comes to sickness there is always someone who has it worse than you do. And it is your duty as a human NOT to tell them that theirs is worse of the two. I am in no pain at least, but mine has its disadvantages of other kinds.
Hope you have good anti-neuralgic meds and no pain caused by breathing.
Woke up from my nap feeling like I had let the hospital sell me a bad used car. Blah.
After many methods failed I put up a 1 meter 80 cm “wild fence” (max allowed) which gave many years of garden pleasure to the wife, particularly her taste for a white garden including climbing roses.
Then the deer began hurling themselves against the fence, and broke it down in 5 places, which has happened since I moved to town. She passed away some 4 years ago. So now I have some 300 ex rhododendrons of mostly wild apecies and some azaleas too. But azalea buds are candy for them.
Now I am giving TMI again. Too much information.
Hope we are both better tomorrow.
ID & Don,
Been there, hope tomorrow is a better day for you both.
ID707, We’ve deer proofed by eliminating certain favorite vegetation, but they adjust their eating too; pretty much wife has given up on trying to be too fancy. We have an 8 foot fence around veggie garden.
Sorry to hear about your medical state. My own current complaints include an attack of “intercostal inflammation” that’s gone on a couple weeks, and likely to go on a few more. Not much known about origin, or treatment. It’s about the most painful thing I can remember; very limiting to physical activity. Boohoo.
Don S.
I guess that you have no flowers, maybe a rhododendron or two.
Glad Jul, as we say here. To Juris too.
Juris,
My ECG showed that I am back in flutter again. Hoping the medicine will take effect soon.
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Entranced by a pretty woman at the sushi court. 3 hours later, deaf from bad XMAS music and numbed by her many troubles I went home via the grocery store. There is energy and hope yet..
Juris, “a few Louisville sluggers”. Yes just what I was thinking! I used to work in an agency with a detox center, and the walk in traffic was a little unpredictable at times. My boss, who’s office was just off the lobby had a sawed off pool cue leaning in the corner. Highly effective I would think. I’ve been threatened a few times, including two involving knife wielders and, while frightened, I’ve managed to get out of the situations without any harm either way or to have to take retaliatory action.
While listing my arsenal before I forgot to include a nice air rifle that I got to pepper the butts of the marauding herds of deer in our backyard; startle one and they all take off. Better than my wife rushing out in the back yard screaming at them. But I have a hard time even doing that now.
Back from ECG.
As far as I know, we can tell Lieberman that no video game ever killed anybody.
And in spite of intensive video training, that new recruits must have intensive “polishing” to make killers out them.
And a high rate of vets didn’t clear the stress. PTSD and suicide.
They fight back and we bleed for real.
So Malisha gets my vote for her “grilling” him.
DonS,
“I guess it requires a certain level of fear to contemplate that reality…” That’s what it took for me to start thinking about getting a gun. Although, I can’t say I specifically contemplated, in the visual sence, of using it against a person, nor would I ever want to.
For me, it would just be peace of mind more than anything. I don’t know the chances, but I would bet that, at least where I live, I have a better chance of going in a car accident or even by tornado or lightning.
I am skeptical whether the gun would be useful in the event of a break-in, as I would have to keep it in a safe or some other safe place, as I have young kids that love snooping. All depends on the circumstances, but I would imagine I wouldn’t have a lot of time to go get it. But you never know.
I am an ex-ballplayer and have a few louisville sluggers hidden at strategic places throughout the house. Those will do for now. Knowing all the while that this is mostly due to hysteria after the recent events I described above, which has since dissipated.
Gene H., well said. When will the majority realize that both Neo Liberal economics and Neo Con foreign policy have both failed miserably…
Juris, it’s true, there are folks for whom having a gun around is as normal as apple pie.. But there is a whole other dimension involved in using it, especially against a person. That’s a whole different mindset. It seems, to me, incredible that even thinking along those lines is a reality for some folks. I guess it requires a certain level of fear to contemplate that reality, or maybe for some blissful ignorance or absence of emotional awareness.
Anyway, not my job to prognosticate about your struggles, when I can barely settle my own. I would say that my wife would feel like yours (my guns are stashed away, with the ammunition in a totally different place) and I’d probably be much more inclined to grab the nearest pipe or other appropriate implement in self defense.
I wonder what the statistics are as opposed to say, getting in a serious car accident?
Malisha,
First let me apologize for lashing out at you and Bettykath a few weeks ago on the Zimmerman/Martin thing. I crossed the line and am sorry for it. I just couldn’t take the absolutes you speak of in regards to that case. Obviously, you are very passionate about it. I will try to find the feed and post my apology there as well and resume discussion. Maybe you will convince me GZ is guilty as hell ;-). Now that that is out of the way…
I think DonS is right on in attributing any video game problem to that of inadequate parenting. Any law banning a video game is ridiculous and a red herring.
It just occurred to me: Lieberman knows full well that he can’t even BEGIN to get legislation such as he is suggesting. Ridiculous. He just said that for political capital, so next time somebody shoots somebody (the nation cares about) Lieberman can jump up and say, “I tried to stop all this, I’m the one who didn’t want this to happen, and nobody listened to me, it’s ME ME ME ME!”
Just imagine, a law against violent video games. I practically bust a gut laughing about it when it hit me what he was actually fixing his mouth to say. Don’t ask me what I think about him.