GP Poll: Will Video Game Issue Decide Your Presidential Vote?

Also, I forgot to add earlier:

I also feel the censorship issue is more important, because it wouldn't just fuck up America. It wasn't that long ago that Hillary was advocating a ban of Manhunt 2, because Britain had banned it. If we start censoring our own media, it won't be long before other similar countries start following our lead and limiting their own free speech.

The stance video game issue, I think ties into a lot of other things about a candidate. It reflects their position on free speech, government intervention, the imposition of personal morals on the greater population, etc.

All of those things are very important to me, and I want the candidate I vote for to reflect my feelings about them. The video game factor is also very important to me. I love video games and am currently going to college to pursue a career in video games, so I want to see the industry flourish uninhibited and not be suppressed.

Also, the aforementioned issue tie even further into the really, really, important issues, like the war, the economy, etc. So the candidate's stance on those issues reflects how they feel not only about video games, but on other important issues.

So yes, the video games debate will influence my vote, but not just because of the issue itself, but because of the implications of each candidate's stance on the issue.

I honestly think that it really depends on how focused a candidate is on the issue. All of them have expressed some concern over video games but the real question lies in weather or not you think they will tackle the real problems facing this country first. It is obvious that Hilary has some issues with games but from what I can tell she seems more focused on fixing the main issues mentioned in this article first.

Obama on the other hand seems to really only have an issue with how much entertainment the public consumes on a whole. The only quote from him I can ever think of is when he requested that people get up and off their video games and go outside. He is not asking for censorship at this point but instead looking for moderation.

I vote because I want my beliefs and ideas represented. Video games, Net-Neutrality, and issues on technology are a large part of my life. That said, Hillary Clinton and John McCain do not represent or reflect my personal views on games, information technology, the business of such, and the regulation of such.

Obama, while not perfect (indeed, his views and reasonings are not some I agree with), does closely match what I want done.

Though we call ourselves a Democracy, I think of this as a Republic. However, I still have the power as a citizen to help decide the government body. As such, I want a representative who is juts that, a representative of what I think a country should be run. Thus, I vote for whomever best matches. They may not be perfect, my vote allows me the chance for my voice to not only be heard, but echoed.

And this, folks, is why a candidate's stance to video games matter to me. Because I care about it.

If Freedom of Speech is your first priority in selecting a candidate, consider this: The next president will likely shape the balance of the Supreme Court for years to come.

The current (conservative-leaning) court has already passed what I see as a very dangerous judgement against free speech, where they ruled that a sutdent's rights were not violated when he was forced to take down his "bong hits 4 Jesus" banner by school officials at a non-school function. The ruling said it was OK to censor his speech because of the context of that speech. This worries me.

I am neither Republican nor Democrat; I vote for candidate, not party. I actually like McCain as a politician, he has shown a willingness to compromise with his opponents in order to get work done... but I won't be supporting him in the general election because I'm too afraid of how the Supreme Court will end up under another republican administration.

Certainly he would appoint justices that would be willing to overturn Roe v. Wade, he has promised as much to his backers on the far right. Unfotunately, making abortion illegal won't make it go away, it will just make it less regulated and much more dangerous. If a video game law ever makes it SCOTUS Appeal, they may decide that it's ok to censor pretend violence or other forms of speech. We don't get to directly vote for the judicial branch of government, and I think it's important to consider that when voting for the other two branches.

Oops, I screwed up in the second sentence. Meant whoever wins in YOUR country.

Dennis,

I was just wondering are there any candidates that are not in the "big two" parties that are more supportive of games/free speach? We already know Obama and Clinton aren't friends of gamers (I don't know Mccain's stance on it though i figure with his particular generation it's not looking good.)

I know the chances of getting a third party candidate in power is slim to none, and slim left town a loooong time ago, but I'd like to at least know there's someone out there who beleives in some of the freedoms the country was supposedly founded upon.

God, wouldn't it be cool if there weren't politcal parties at all? Then there wouldn't be all those a-holes agreeing with each other just because they're of the same party.

The candidates' stance on gaming will definitely have an impact on my vote, since it's such an important part of my life. But voting the issue is for gun nuts, the Religious Right, extremists on either side of the abortion issue, etc. I like to think I'm better than voting on just one cause. (And also well aware that voting the issue is what makes the NRA the most powerful special interest group in the country...)

The current (conservative-leaning) court has already passed what I see as a very dangerous judgement against free speech, where they ruled that a sutdent’s rights were not violated when he was forced to take down his “bong hits 4 Jesus” banner by school officials at a non-school function. The ruling said it was OK to censor his speech because of the context of that speech. This worries me.

If there were school officials there, how is it not a school function? Assuming it was actually a school function, he would be in clear violation of 2 school rules. If not, he's at least guilty of encouraging others to break the law (i.e. bong hits), which usually isn't protected speech.

Oh, and was that a US Supreme Court decision, or the decision of a lower court? I find myself thinking about Tinker v. Des Moines county school district.

With all the important issues out there, I think it's a tad irresponsible to only focus upon video games as the issue in a campaign. Sure, you may have a strong opinion about it, but it shouldn't be the main reason you dislike a candidate.

I understand why a candidate would be a little bit scared to show support for video games, since they'll instantly be labeled the "family hating" candidates. Little do parents realize that when games are marked as "harmful to minors" without good data and research to support that idea, it can lead to infringements on their rights to decide what their children view. Hell, even if it is true that games are bad for kids, it's still better than having them become stupid or nutty from a lack of idea flow. That's the kind of shit cults resort to.

I forgot to mention, Games fall under Free Speech. Like others have said, I use that issue as more of a barometer than an actual issue. I do, however, place more emphasis on it than most, since I am planning on working in the industry.

It's funny to read people complaining about the U.S.A.'s presidential candidates being "too" conservative or liberal, when (according to the rest of the world having any semblance of a party system, and history and study of international and other-nation politics suggests they're right that we're merely educated not to believe this), we only have centrist candidates with so little difference between them that we might as well only have one party because there isn't a real left-wing or right-wing candidate in the dual-party bunch.

I agree, though, that videogames are (or at least, should be) a HUGE issue in this election. Not because of videogames per se. But because, do we really want somebody whose judgment is so poor they would wasting federal tax dollars on unconstitutional laws that dictate to parents (outside of immediate safety/health issues) what their children can and cannot watch/read/play/do? Or, more specifically, do we want somebody running our nation who believes such Big Government control is really better for the nation; or that parents are really so ineffective and children so malleable as to demand the government step in, but only for videogames because they are scary; or who is so unfamiliar with the constitution and with a passtime of 75% of the nation that they believe videogames' violence actually doesn't have any redeeming values and is the single most important determining factor for children who will be criminals or aduls who already are?

None of the scenarios for "reasons a candidate would support federal [or even state] legislation against videogames" are acceptable; all hint at a lack of knowledge about the state of the nation and the media so common within it; and most suggest a liberty in meddling with affairs better left to parents to deal with, as well as a frightening insouciance about spending our tax money in pursuit of "feel-good" legislation at the cost of things like health care, the economy, Katrina aid, and little trivialities like supporting the huge population of (soon-to-be 75% of) veterans suffering from PTSD and the far-too-many suffering from physical ailments.

That would be far too close to Big Brother's thought control, and definitely too constitution-ignorant and/or elitist to be the position held by a good president following a couple of terms that have attempted to bring the executive branch as near to ignorance of and derision for the very checks and balances that make this government worthwhile as we ever need to get (well, far nearer, but eh, too late now). Anyone who could, at some point within the past several years, look at the problems within the realm of education, housing, veterans care, and so on ad nauseum, and decide that legislating videogames was more important than all of these things, is either too crafty or too stupid (or both at the same time, even worse) for me to want in charge.

Coravin is partly right: compared to the western world's average of political views, our candidates actually lean more towards the right.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2008

Look at Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, those are the only guys that lie out of the "main sequence".

Dr. Ron Paul is in the race guys...Go read up on what his is.

www.ronpaul2008.com

"...we only have centrist candidates with so little difference between them that we might as well only have one party because there isn’t a real left-wing or right-wing candidate in the dual-party bunch."

I agree. The last Right-winger we had in office (on the American political scale at least) was Ronald Reagan, and the last Left-winger was LBJ. Just about everyone else we've had in recent memory has been so spinelessly moderate that it's quite disgusting. Every 4 years, they all do the same political dance. First they sway the the left or right depending on what party they belong to. Then they swing as far to the middle as they can during the general election.

I'm against government censorship of anything, no matter how offensive it might seem to a random person. The government's job is not to shield the people from each and every thing that might offend them, or even do them harm. People shouldn't look to government like a nanny. The government isn't your caretaker, it's at best a necessary evil. On the other hand, I'm also against having children exposed to things they aren't able to handle. I'll try to make my points clear in this regard.

First, let's address the violence issue. I believe that children are largely not damaged by depictions of violence. War games and "cowboys and indians" type of play has been common throughout history. Cartoon characters drop anvils, pianos, etc. on their enemies' heads with no large-scale consequences for millions of people who have grown up to lead perfectly normal lives. Contact sport are organized violence, yet we wouldn't suggest banning football if one little miscreant couldn't determine that it wasn't appropriate to tackle random people in public. More realistic, graphic violence needs more attention, but not from the government. I was perfectly fine watching Robocop and Highlander in Middle School, but I know that other kids might not be. Parents need to accept the responsibility of training their own children. It's shameful that so many parents today are abrogating that duty and are trying to foist it on government or "society". If "it takes a village" to raise your child, you're too damn lazy.

Then there's sexually explicit material. We have age of consent laws and pornography laws already on the books. If someone's legally not supposed to have sex, and also not supposed to possess certain classes of sexually explicit material, doesn't that logically cover what's necessary?

What I don't want is to have violence or other types of speech to carry the same legal status as pornography, where it's illegal to present it to a minor. While parents have the right to know the content of something, it's their prerogative to allow their child to access such material if they so choose.

The bottom line is that the government already intrudes into our life too much for our supposed "safety". The whole lot of them should stay out of our lives as much as humanly possible. I want them out of our living rooms, bedrooms, gamerooms, gun safes, and whatever else they have a mind to screw with. Oh yeah, and while they're at it, I'd wish they'd lay off of my wallet alot more too.