GP on Joystiq: Two Governors, Two Hypocrites

Yeah, not sure they have posted it yet. Not on their RSS feed or Main site that I can find.

So? I love opinionated rubbish that I agree with.

Great article, Dennis

I have to agree with you here Dennis. Despite what the posters on Joystiq said your article was timely and it was important.

It dose raise some points that make you think...hhhmmmm...

@Vinzent

He doesn't like them, but he's more or less happy to let the industry police itself.

I wonder how Romney would feel if we waterboarded him..

Oh, I'd make an exception for John McCain though.

@King James

Always makes me think of that 'Red vs Blue' introduction to the internet...

http://www.ifilm.com/video/2778175

Yeah i loved all those Mitt Romney R movies that were made into video games, they are the best ones ever!!!

GP Disclaimer: Dennis hates Mitt Romney

how is romney not agreeing that waterboarding is torture a video game issue exactly?

GP: In and of itself, it is not. However, if you read the article - and I'm assuming that you did - I am contrasting his acquiesence to real-world torture with his position on violent video games.

And just what kind of message is that for the kiddies? That our potential leader is okay with torture? Whatever happened to the moral high ground? This country used to stand for something...

@scot

cause he (romney) says that waterboarding is something to be decided yet has said that video games are part of the sea of filth that today's youth is swimming in.

in other words, waterboarding isn't out right bad/evil but video games are.

@Zero Beat

"Remember, kids, if you attack Republicans, you’re a left-wing liberal communist"

How'd you know that..?

I'm rather torn with this editorial.

On one hand, "Oven" Mitt Romney pulls out the "those darn kids" routine, just short of shaking a cane and telling people to stay off his lawn with the "Digital Bogeyman" tactic.
I know better that most of that is just a load of hokum and doesn't win a lot of points with me, especially when I work in that "evil industry that corrupts the youth" he frequently rants about.

On the other hand, we mention torture as an example that should be reviled, and that he didn't want to outright denounce it. While it is a horrible practice, it should be viewed more or less as a necessary evil, no different than justifiable homicide.
Just the same as I'd do whatever in my power to protect my life and the lives of my friends, family and neighbors, if torturing was the only quick method to get information that could stop some horrible act of destruction out of a criminal, I'd be first in line to pull the switch.

My father told me one time why he allowed me to play all the violent video games that everyone told him would make me more anti social was because those games were about heroes. Sure, there's plenty of icky stuff in the Resident Evil games, but Chris, Jill, Leon and the others try to do the right thing. In short he taught me that "context, instead of content"- It's not what the act is, but what the act *was about*.

While harming another and taking a life are two horrible things, I'd rather have those factors over my head then to remove important tools that, when used sparsely and judiciously, ensure safety and security.

With that said, I agree with GP's closing statement, but can not agree with the method on how he got there.

I also read those comments on Joystiq. About 75% of the posters (no, I did NOT do the math) are being total idiots.

@ Gp

While it's a big stretch to say your completely unbiased dennis, you are a pretty fair guy in most cases. That being said, I can't really argue with ya on this issue, this hyporacy is rather obvious, almost to the point of being blatant.

Rommney is a self serving line towing Republican, through and through. Arnold has made a clear and vested intrest in trying to seem "family oriented" since he was elected to office, which is no suprise to me. To do so, he had to dump his violent action hero past so that he could avoid having it used against him. Lets face it, he got alot of heat for it when signed the game law, and got more when he vowed an appeal. Odds are he's gonna lose the appeal anyway, but at least it makes him look good for the Fundies and the Family values crowd.

Lets face it dennis, almost all politicains, rep and dem alike are liars and hypocrites, Hillary, Obama, Mc Cain, Bush. Not one has ever really served the People of the usa, but always focused on there own pwersonal intrested and power.

Nothing ever changes.

@Wirebrain
A Necessary Evil... i find that to be rather questionable when it comes to torture. I mean, when i think about it, it does not seem to be at all a good method of getting accurate information. If the Prisoner truly knows nothing they will say so... but ofcourse such an answer is not satisfactory and as such they would be tortured until they spoke... but since they know nothing they only thing they can say is "i don't know" or outright lie; and i'd imagine they would lie just to end the torture. If the prisoner does know something, then the question is how to get the truth out of him... you have no way of verifying what they say in the short term so much like an innocent prisoner they can just lie to get out of it in order to protect the information... and after you find out they lied you try to torture them again and they lie again... eventually it gets to the point where you don't know if he's telling the truth, feeding you lies and covering the truth, or if really doesn't know anything; if he gave you the truth could we even tell that it really is truthful?... All in all, in either case, torture sounds like it could be very ineffective at gathering information and sounds like it would only throw us off track with false information instead of helping us better protect our people. Maybe torture might work out in a few cases, but i'd imagine it failing in most cases.

Really in the hypothetical situation of needing "quick information" to stop an act of destruction that was soon to happen, you'd probably spend to much time sorting through the lies to actually make it in time...

Necessary evil i would say can only really be considered necessary is if their were no alternatives and if the the method was actually effective... i may be speaking out of ignorance, but it sounds very ineffective to me...

@ some jabroni calling himself "hugh hefner"

The game ratings are being enforced, you ignorant fool. The Federal Trade Commission's last study(and the FTC has more credibility than the NIMF) showed that a minor was able to purchase a M-rated game 42% of the time(and 35% of the time at major retailers like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Circuit City, and Target), while at the same time, a minor was able to purchase R-rated movies 71% of the time. So much for "the movie industry understanding that no one under 17 can get any of Arnold's R-rated movies."

Arnold is a hypocrite for making his millions of dollars making violent movies(and even his so-called "family-friendly" movies like Jingle All The Way and Kindergarten Cop have violence), yet whining about video games.

Mitt Romney is nothing but a flip-flopper, as he's changed his opinion on every major campaign issue in the last twenty years he's been involved in politics.

There's no hypocrites in the ESA or the ECA either. They want game ratings enforced, but not when the game industry's unfairly targeted while the movie and music industries get free passes.

@ hugh hefner
page not found.
Torture only works well if you have many prisoners that your tortureing and they all give the same story (give or take).
Now lets follow the snakey road of my logic. Now torture can give some good info. But the flipside it gives terrorists more recruteing power. Like in Iraq where 1 civilian killed by american forces while fighting terrorits helps recrute 10 more to the terrorists side and killing the terrorists does little to nothing. Now torture just tarnishes the US's image (more). The tarnished image makes other nations less likely to want to help or support said nation, and gives unfriendly nations (and let us not forget about groups) more reasons to be unfriendly (or downright hostile). Plans the unfriendly nations (and groups) are going to get more likely to succed. Why? Because the people involved in the plan are not going to want to be tortured, but they do want to strike a blow against the "vile" torturer's (Ahem, if anyone remembers "___ has WMD's" to "___ tortured his own people" (yes you have to fill in the blanks)).
And thats my logic as far as I want to type (or can my mind jumps about alot and then I forget the logical path that I took to arrive at the comclusion so at times it seems fragmented but somehow it all should tie together).

In short:
Tourture can help stop one plot but the fact that you torture people helps recrute more people for other and later plots, and when they act out the plot they are just going to be more cautious, more aware, and more determined to see it through (or die so as to avoid torture).

To use a quote from another of my hobbies "Thought for the Day: Hate Enriches." Warhammer 40k rulebook 4th Edition, page 7, bottom right corner. (ps yes I went and looked for a quote to use thou to be truthful I wanted something more profound)

Now it wouldn't surprise me if this 'Hefner' really IS a JT alt... then again, we've had a couple of fakers over the past week or so...

@monte'

Then let me ask you this- Do you think terrorists will just hand out information out of the goodness of their hearts if we say we're not going to torture them?

I'm not saying let's yank any average guy off the street and reenact a scene from a Saw film. But to just say that "no, we're not going to do it at all" is stupid. The bad guys do indeed watch what our leaders and news centers say.

Honestly, I'd love to see intelligence representatives EXAGGERATE in hearings on what interrogation techniques are used to help inspire criminals to spill the beans quicker before they are even touched.