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Um, no, kind of a knee-jerk reaction there, Mr. Crecente. Sounded to me more like he was attacking the hypocritical double-standard of not regulating ultra-violence but regulating the sex. And that has always been a good point. Why does the violence, be it in video games or movies or whatever, get hardly a peep (relatively speaking) out of people these days (well, aside from the usual suspects who seem to hate everything), but the barest hint of sex or nudity calls for a circling of the wagons and a chorus of cries to perteck thuh chill'ns? If you're going to regulate one, you should regulate the other. If you're not going to regulate the one and let it be protected under the First Amendment, then you should also not regulate the other and allow the same protection. Both or neither. I think this was the point Stewart was making.
I know I'm sounding like a broken record here, but personally I go with "neither." (If Jon Stewart feels otherwise, well, that's his opinion and he's welcome to it.) This is because, as far as video games are concerned, I think that the self-regulating that the industry already does is more than sufficient, despite what all the doomsayers might be saying to the contrary. Also, again, why should video games be singled out for regulation by the government when movies, books, music*, and such are not? That and, as always, it should be up to the parents (clueless though a lot of them may be) and not the government to decide these things. But then, if a lot of these parents seem to want the government to decide these things for them, and they keep voting in like-minded politicians, then there's not a whole lot that can be done about it, except to hope that the courts remain the voice of reason when idiotic laws like this do get passed.
* - And before anyone gets all up in my face, let me just say that I am actually a fan of two of those three particular examples (Stephen King and ICP), and the third (Saw) I couldn't really care less about, good or bad. There's no denying, however, that they are all good examples of violence in other media that are at least as "bad" as the ludicrously over-the-top Mortal Kombat, and in some ways far "worse." And yet, no, it's only the video games that will cause the collapse of civilization, apparently, and thus need to be regulated. *eye roll*
I know I'm sounding like a broken record here, but personally I go with "neither." (If Jon Stewart feels otherwise, well, that's his opinion and he's welcome to it.) This is because, as far as video games are concerned, I think that the self-regulating that the industry already does is more than sufficient, despite what all the doomsayers might be saying to the contrary. Also, again, why should video games be singled out for regulation by the government when movies, books, music*, and such are not? That and, as always, it should be up to the parents (clueless though a lot of them may be) and not the government to decide these things. But then, if a lot of these parents seem to want the government to decide these things for them, and they keep voting in like-minded politicians, then there's not a whole lot that can be done about it, except to hope that the courts remain the voice of reason when idiotic laws like this do get passed.
* - And before anyone gets all up in my face, let me just say that I am actually a fan of two of those three particular examples (Stephen King and ICP), and the third (Saw) I couldn't really care less about, good or bad. There's no denying, however, that they are all good examples of violence in other media that are at least as "bad" as the ludicrously over-the-top Mortal Kombat, and in some ways far "worse." And yet, no, it's only the video games that will cause the collapse of civilization, apparently, and thus need to be regulated. *eye roll*
