Has anyone else noticed that over the years people have been actively against the spread of various forms of entertainment targetted towards younger audiences? In the early 1950s the US attempted to ban comic books. In the 1980s people wanted to get video games banned but Ronald Raegan made a speech on television condemning the act of banning video games.
Unfortunately, these people who attempt to get video games banned, only served to increase the sales of those video games in question because of the contraversy around it. People become more and more interested in it as they hear more and in turn increases the sales of the games. Video games like Grand Theft Auto only sell more because people make a fuss out of it. In fact, Grand Theft Auto largely remained in the background until Grand Theft Auto 3 was released and banned in several countries. As a result people wanted to know why it was being banned to sell more. Well if you’re a fan of video games you’ll probably hate Jack Thompson.
More recent figures who took a stand against video games were Eliot Spitzer and Jack Thompson. If you haven’t been keeping up with the news, Eliot Spitzer is the New York Governor who resigned after it was discovered he was involved in a prostitution ring. Jack Thompson is the former lawyer of Florida who is now disbarred for questionable practices (mostly lying). Despite this, he continues to act like he is a lawyer and has continued to file complaints against people he had to go up against when he was a lawyer. The most notable of these Spitzer wasn’t a big name against video games but he worked with some senators (one of which is Andrew Lanza) and representatives in an attempt to combat video game violence which was ironically only targetting Grand Theft Auto. It was one of the cases that led Grand Theft Auto to become something infamous throughout the world in the video game industry. Jack Thompson on the other hand is infamous for his insane prosecution of video games. Jack Thompson has attempted to link every high profile case to the latest violent video game being released regardless of time frame including creating false evidence. On several occasions he attempted the equivalent of what would be slander on the people involved in the cases and using the first amendment (free speech) as a defense while at the same time preventing others from exercising their free speech rights through anti Jack Thompson merchandise such as “I Hate Jack Thompson” t-shirts because it was hurting his name. I don’t know about him, but George W. Bush Jr. seems to do fine with all the Bush hate, Iraq hate, Anti Bush merchandise in the US and the mannequin burnings and US flag burnings in other countries. Seung Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter, played Counter Strike about 4 years before the shooting and was reportedly playing Sonic before the shooting. Ironically, no one seems to really mind that the US Army does in fact provide training through America’s Army which isn’t that far off from where Counter Strike is. Jack Thompson also believes that the Bible doesn’t advocate killing of people (see The Crusades for more information) and that the Quran does. Ironically both believe in the single omnipotent god but the focal dispute is as to who the followers are and who their successors are. REMEMBER, the Bilbe says stoning is just fine so the next time you meet someone who disobeys their parents or IS NOT a Christian, it is your right to stone that person to death if desired.
For more information as to why people hate Jack Thompson, see “A Modest Video Game Proposal” and the results of it.
P.S. Sorry to those who are devoted followers of Christianity, but many people unknowingly follow a religion blindly without knowing much about it. The Bible is one of those because many people don’t read their Bible enough to know what’s in it and at the same time they want to “update” the Bible to take out these uncivilized practices. If MMOSITE gets a notice receiving something like a cease and desist order from Jack Thompson, sorry about that in advance but he will probably get around to this if he ever sees this. I’ve received death threats for things far less serious than this before too.
Enjoy anonymous comments!!! Jack Thompson is a fun subject when it comes to arguments against video games because he makes so many mistakes.