I could not believe that the Supreme Court of our land ruled that extremely violent video games for children are protected by the First Amendment! This is an extreme libertarian position on a par with those who advocate the legalization of illegal drugs, nonpayment of income taxes, etc. Both of the dissenting judges, Breyer and Thomas, made allowance for the common sense need of parents and government to take responsibility for the effect of that which is allowed. One of the fundamental responsibilities of government is to show some responsibility for the shaping of the future, at the very least, for the avoidance of destructive influences. We are willing to do this in areas involving safety, pornography and obscenity, it seems to me that inciting violence –which is what these games do — is definitely an extension of safety. The writer of the following article agrees with me. We as a country seem to be moving more and more in the direction of freedom without the balance of responsibility.
As Alexander Solzhenitsyn observed, “It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.” We want to be all about rights, but we don’t want to hear about responsibility or morality. We want complete freedom of choice but no accountability as to the consequences of those choices whether it is our own choices, or the allowances that government makes. This is license not true freedom.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/06/scalia-wrong-thomas-right-violent-video-games
