How long before we all get arrested?

[Sagacity]

I'd just like to add that nowhere anywhere did I say government, politics, or legislation should enter into it anywhere.

[Flann]

Touchy subject.

I think freedom of speech/press/expression set down by law is more than an ideal, though. Some disagree with the exceptions, but as long as the base declaration is set we have something to work with. So is legislated racial and sexual equality. Not to mention keeping religion, in all it's zillion forms, out of the reach of government. I think civilization depends on those elements to survive.

Interesting that the root of "Civilization" is "Civil". If everyone was civil, fair, and honest with each other, regardless of color of skin or religion or ethnic background, we wouldn't need laws or governments. Odd thought of the day.

Laws usually look good on paper, you know. Until you have to enforce them. Then the cops get shot at and/or the lawyers get rich. Usually both. So we take the good with the bad.

If you are reading this, it is safe to say that you are free to argue about the laws you disagree with. I think we are lucky in that. Some aren't, and that is the tragedy.

Flann

[Namae Nai]

Let's push the boundary a bit ... because I do see what Adeste is saying.

If we are equating the right to develop and code violent games as an expression of free speech / art ...

Then you can apply the same to  child pornography.  The filming/photography of an underage person involved in a sexual act or simply naked is .. well, illegal, even if the person filming isn't doing the act.   There have been many a person that has tried the defense of free speech / expression.  It was art, you see.  Very very very rarely does that defense ever fly.  Even if the minor lies about their age.

Why is this?  Because society has determined that child pornography is, rightfully, a repugnant thing, and that it needs be censored / actioned against / etc. 

In a black and white world, idealistic world, all speech ... all expression ... even that which we think of as completely repugnant and wrongful (from calling people names to writing nasty things about people to writing code for games to taking pictures to painting pictures and so on ... is allowed.  In the real world, in the real ol USA ... this is not the case.  It simply can't be.

The struggle then ... is to decide what should or should not be actioned against.  A healthy society is the one that constantly reviews and checks and balances itself.  It would be ~easy~ to say "Everything is allowed!" ... It is also very easy to say "Nothing is allowed!"  Neither is very healthy, nor right.

I think the primary distinction between video game violence and child pornography is the existance of and intent to harm a victim. If your speech is meant to hurt someone, the child for example, it's illegal. Free speech does not give you the right to commit sex crimes on minors. Distributing child pornography is also a crime because it's a direct incitement to commit the same crime. Telling people to shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre is also illegal.

If a violent video game actively advocated you stop just playing a Sniper, and go to your school and became one for real, it would be pulled from the shevles so quickly the developers head would spin. But games don't, so they require a person to go from abstraction to formulation to execution all on their own. You can get the same level of violent antisocial content from reading the right book, but we don't go after everyone that reads about Holden Morrisey Caulfield.

Free speech is not as simple as 'say whatever you want' and I don't think it should be. I don't think, however, that it's wise to get into determining when a form of speech might cause certain people to independently execute crimes that the speech did not advocate them taking. You're examining the thought processes of someone whose already demonstrated that their hold on reality is a little south of 'so-so.' Without the intent, there's also no crime on the part of the person that generated the speech in the first place.

In the end, I still hold the position that the little bit of safety Germany thinks it's gained is illusionary, but the real loss of liberty their free speech has taken is very real. There will always be people willing or crazy enough to go on violent rampages, this has been proven again and again in history. Video games did not create this. Video games are in a sense, Art. Art reflects Life, and vice versa. If the human animal lost it's capacity to desire violence, then violent images would go away on their own.

I'd just like to add that nowhere anywhere did I say government, politics, or legislation should enter into it anywhere.

True, but the first post in this thread was about Germany's increased censorship of violent video games. That's why it's relevant, even though you did not bring up the issue yourself.

The problem with debating it on the simple grounds of morality is that, as Peri pointed out, morality would be impossible to enforce. The moral code of each and every person in the world is different, usually only slightly, but sometimes wildly. You may think you know the standards of the area you live in and maybe you do, but value systems will be different for someone living in, for example, the slums where GTA isn't even considered violent. They see people get shot every day, anyway.

The ultimate equilizer though, is what XO said: "personal responsibility and teaching the next generation the same." Rockstar games is in business because they have enough people out there that enjoy their product to continue making that product. You do have the power to stop them, one game sale and one child at a time. You also have just as much right to say that you think what they make is wrong, and morally repulsive. If they can use Free Speech, then so can you.

[ElektroViking]

~tosses two pennies on the table~

Instead of Policing the developers, Police the parents of the underage consumer.  Why am I to be punished, because some punk kid from a dysfunctional family may have gotten an idea from a video game (which i might add could be seen just as common on the New Release Movies section of Blockbuster).  I would like to point out that Video games seems to be a easy scape goat.  Before we had real video game violence what was the excuse for people commiting mass murder?  Couldn't the same reasons before be attributed to the minors now? Everything else is happening earlier...puberty, sex, pregnancy....why not mass murder? Why couldn't that child have been just as messed up as Manson, or Dalmer?  No...it's all the Video game's fault. 
...I like FPS.  I like graphic violence.  I like sighting a humans head through a scope and blowing their pixelated brains out.  that's the key...Pixelated.  I'm normally a violent person.  I have a temper, i mosh, I fight, i play aggressive characters well....but i have no outlet for this violent tendencies....except for my video games...my Role Playing games...and my dancing. And i'd like to think because of these...i've not been in a violent fight in many MANY years.  Even when Bouncing...i'm very good about getting people out the door without altercations.

[Sagacity]

More fuzzy lines...

[Namae Nai]

That's not so fuzzy. They will lose, because you can't control the internet like that. It's naive for them to think they could. The only way to be sure sexualied imagery doesn't make it's way to your populace is to outlaw the whole 'Net.

Or do you mean the line between some artwork and child pornography is fuzzy? The only real acid test I can think of is to produce a victim... if there never was a victim then the crime didn't happen. What do you think?

[PinkRose]

That would mean that any art that was conceived without a model.
And I've seen art that was ultra-realistic.
That wouldn't work either.

[Peri]

I know it is sick.

But it isnt fuzzy to me.

I do not think the government should be in the business of choosing what we see and hear.

Even if it is filth.