"Will the players of violent video games disagree with Alito that a murder executed by a gamer in a video game is more vivid than the murder a reader reads about in a book?"

I'm disappointed with how our society view censorship and government regulation. So many people out there suggest that just because they find the content (in a game in this case) objectionable we should make it illegal to view it (in this case for children). The complete lack of understanding of the legal system, of…

Seems like a bit of an over-reaction to the clip. It didn't seem that bad to me. I wish he'd done it differently because I think some people will go all anti-gaming because of it, but whatever.

There actually is no law at all right now. The video game industry does all the ratings and gets the retailers to enforce them.

Consistency isn't the goal. Sex and Violence are two different catagories. And this absolutely was a first amendment decision. There is enormous legal precedent for this decision. There's nothing arbitrary about it.

Retailers do follow those ratings though. They do a better job in the video game market than any other entertainment market. The justices specifically sighted the success of industry regulation in their opinion as part of the reason the law was uneccessary.

That same punk kid could (and does) sell cigarettes, liquor, and adult entertaiment to kids even though it is against the law. Did you know that the video game industry does a better job of keeping mature content out of the hands of kids than any other entertainment industry? Or that it is almost as effective at…

It has never been the habit of the United States to restrict content without a very good reason. There is no compelling legal reason to restrict violent content. You may personally find the content reprehensible but that is not a good reason to restrict a person's rights.

I would encourage you to look a little deeper into the issue. Morally I agree with the idea that restricting content to minors is ok and that violence is probably more damaging than sexual content for minors. There's a big difference between a moral issue and a legal one though. Legally speaking, the Supreme Court did…

How do you not know this? You probably also don't know that the video game industry does a better job of preventing minors from accessing mature content than any other entertainment industry. In fact, it's almost as difficult for a child to buy an "M" rated game as it is for them to buy alcohol. That's a pretty…

How exactly did Scalia make a moral judgement? Everything in his opinion is based on legal history. He had very good legal and constitutional grounds for his decision. The short version is that he won't allow more censorship without a good reason.

I'd love to play the game co-op but I haven't found anyone else willing to play with me. I hate playing competitive shooters with random people so there's no way I'd ever consider playing a game like portal with some random online. Someone needs to find a way to filter people on services like xbox live and steam so…

I see any double standard as a societal one, not a government created one. If we were arguing philosophically about a social issue I would definitely see it as a double standard but within the realm of the court I don't see it that way. This is a "contemporary community standard," this is how we do things in our…

I disagree in regard to Breyer. There is no double-standard because children have access to this type of violent content in other media and this is considered acceptable. The first prong of the miller test is:

I was just going to post something similar. Seriously, how come no one ever mentions all the awful romance novels when comparing books and video games? Most books are crap, we're just used to having to filter them to find the good stuff.

When I don't like a game that everyone else loves I like to talk about it. I like to try to deconstruct the experience to find out what it was they liked about it and compare that with how I felt about it. I do that when I love a game that other people don't like as well.

There is actually evidence that abortion leads to increased crime rates, albeit not in the US.

I love the size but I have big hands. Holding the DS for very long is painful and causes cramps. Even a 360 controller feels slightly small these days

You're not stupid. I don't get most of them either and I've read the entire archive. Their humor is aimed pretty narrowly most of the time.

Well I definately agree that we don't want to create a culture where rape is seen as the victim's fault. And you're right, jokes can be used to oppress and put people down. I don't think rape jokes fall into that catagory by default is all.