CDR: Re: censorship rears its head

[David Marshall]

Tim May <tcmay at got.net> writes:

> I will look forward to watching the coverage. Do you plan to take out 
> just the censorious bitch Lynne Cheney, or also her censorious 
> husband and VP candidate?
> 
> And then there's Al Gore (RAT) and his running mate (JEW RAT).
> 
> (Subliminal messages brought to you by the Republican Party).
> 
> Interesting that 3 out of the 4 top rats--Cheney, Gore, 
> Lieberman--have their own censorious attacks on speech, or have 
> spouses who lead such attacks. Lynne, Tipper, and   Lieberman 
> himself. I wonder why Bush is being left out? Maybe it'll be like 
> Nixon in China: the only one of the four not calling for repeal of 
> the First Amendment will be the one who pulls the trigger.

Some attorney (RAT) has filed suit against the entertainment industry
over the shooting in Peduchah, Kentucky. Right now he's doing the talk
radio circuit, trying to drum up support. (I suppose to cause such a
public outcry that the judge feels strongarmed to rule in his favor,
and to taint juries.) 

The central argument appears to be that the entertainment industry has
marketted their products, which happen to contain violence and sex, to
the people who are their biggest consumers: people under 18. But
because they're under the magic age of 18, they apparently aren't
responsible for blowing away their classmates; the computer game
companies are.

The quantity of bogus claims, lies, distortions, and general bullshit
the guy was spreading is too large for me to list them all, and after
a while they kind of blend into one big blob of bullshit anyway, but
I'll go over some of the more notable ones.

1) Contrary to whatever this attorney and other power-hungry censors
   would like us all to believe, the fact that most of these school
   shooters have played violent video games and seen violent movies
   does not mean that the movies were to blame. "But *ALL* of them
   have!" Yeah, and all of them probably ate chicken at some point in
   the month before their rampages too. The fallacy is obvious. As far
   as I know, nobody has bothered to counter the obvious question:
   Isn't it more likely that the people who have a predisposition to
   violence just tend to be drawn to this media, especially
   considering that there are millions of people out there who use it
   but *aren't* killing people?

2) He quickly tried to make some point that when a child (again,
   defined as someone under 18, or 17, as the case may be) sees
   "violent or sexually-explicit" images, there is some change in the
   brain. So he mentions some Harvard University study, but doesn't
   bother to give a useable citation (journal name, author, date...),
   which, he claims, showed "increased blood flows to the amygdala"
   using MRI in "children," but not in adults. 

   A) I have "increased blood flows" when I have a pulsating headache
   too. I have "increased blood flows" whenever my heart rate and
   blood pressure increase. I'm not a neurologist, but I'd figure that
   that doesn't mean anything neurologically. It dosen't even mean
   that there's enhanced activity in that region. 
 
   B) Wouldn't it make more sense to just slip the subjects
   radioactive glucose, wait a few minutes, and then do a PET scan?
   That way you can actually tell which neurons are firing? (When a
   neuron generates an action potential, it doesn't use any
   energy. It uses it when it recovers. So when a neuron fires a lot,
   it sucks in a lot of glucose, which means that the radioactive
   glucose winds up in the neurons, which means that it's held there,
   which means that you can see it on a PET scan.)

   C) Neurological structure changes *do* occur. They occur when I
   watch violent and sexually-explicit movies. They also change when I
   sit on the toilet, eat food, do a math problem, listen to music, or
   walk across the room. It's called learning. The fact that
   neurological structure changes in people exposed to this is
   meaningless. Do a behavoral study, then it might have some
   validity. 

   D) Why would you use an MRI in this case _at all_?

   E) Even increased activity does not imply psychological or
   neurological changes. It means that the neurons are firing. That's
   all. 

   This indicates that either:
     
     A) The researchers were purposefully trying to obscure data.

     B) The stupid attorney, and by extension probably the stupid judge,
     is trying to pull one over on the intentionally-stupid jury and
     voluntarily-stupid public, by distorting a biomedical study. 

3) When another attorney called in and challenged him with the obvious
   statement that it isn't the entertainment industry's problem but
   rather the shooter's and the shooter's parents, the plantiff's
   attorney retorted with a purposeful and direct distortion and
   asked: "It's the fault of the parents of the three little girls who
   were shot?" What happened after that was fairly unintelligable,
   while the plantiff's attorney proceeded to talk over the
   caller. 

4) Why can't people accept that shit happens and that sometimes you
   *can't* go blame everyone in sight? I don't hear of anyone suing
   any of the following:

    * The public school system in the area: The shooter most likely
      had a history of behavoral problems, yet they put him in the
      general population. Therefore, along the same line of thinking
      that this guy is using (but at a position closer to sanity) he
      should be suing the public schools.
    * Anybody who ever passed laws restricting the ability of the
      students who were shot at to themselves have a gun. (No, I don't
      necessarily think that they should have had one, but even *this*
      would be saner than suing the movie and computer game
      industries.) 

5) His ethical justification for filing this lawsuit, which he knows
   is ridiculous, is that if the movie industry isn't found at fault
   and sued, the government will impose what he calls "draconian
   censorship laws."

6) If violent and sexually-explicit imagery and games are *really* so
   inherently dangerous, then why aren't the millions and millions of
   *other* people out there who have watched it or played them out
   there killing people? 

7) Why can't we place the blame where it belongs: On the shooter?