SharkJumping

In a mad rush to match the Christian right wing's Family Values approach, Democratic Senators (all mysteriously Presidential hopefuls) Clinton, Lieberman and Bayh today introduced the , attempting to make the Federal government responsible for regulating the sale of violent or sexually explicit video games to minors.  I realize that yesterday I blogged about the parental issues regarding video games - however not once did I suggest that this is a Federal issue since it's NOT - it's a parental issue, and maybe, a state or local issue.  I completely agree that AO & M games should not be sold to minors, but I fail to see why this is any different than other products which are regulated primarily below the Federal level.

I looked for the entire text of the bill, but could just find the on Senator Clinton's site.  Even in 5 minutes of thought, it looks like it will ignore the following issues:

• these legislative attempts are routinely overturned by various court systems as unconstitutational.
• there is no Federal law surrounding movie ratings (it's voluntary), which one might logically think is a similar issue, but which apparently doesn't require the focus of these 3 senators
• liquor and cigarette sales to minors are regulated primarily by states, but I guess the societal impact of video games is a much larger issue, so the Feds should regulate it
• that the Federal government might actually have better things to do with its time, such as spying on its own citizens

I realize the jockeying for 2008 is beginning - I just foolishly hoped that we would focus on more substantial issues such as the War in Iraq, Off-shoring, our Education System, etc.  I suppose the only good news is that this focus shows the increasing impact of video games on the country - it's now truly become the 4th leg of Entertainment, along with Music, TV and Movies, and it now requires that video game producers become as big a political donors as the RIAA and MPAA if they wish to receive equal rights.