Hillary vs. Rockstar

Like Squidly, I picked up Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas last week. I'm not going to spend a lot of time reviewing it--suffice to say that in the short time I've played it, I've greatly enjoyed it, and everything Squidly says in his mini-review is on the mark.

If you listen to certain interest groups, our civil liberties are being yanked away from us every day by Emperor Bushpatine and the evil Republican Empire. But the fact of the matter is that laws like the Patriot Act aren't going to affect your life in the slightest--other than making it more difficult for terrorists to blow you up, gas you, or otherwise lower your life expectancy--unless you give someone a damn good reason to think you're up to something deadly on a mass scale. In point of fact, the real threat to our freedoms--and I'm talking about the ones we take for granted on a daily basis--come from people like Senator Hillary Clinton, a big-time proponent of nanny state politics who want to dictate what sorts of entertainment adults (like me) can enjoy because of the possibility that children might get their hands on it and the possibility that their fragile psyches could somehow be harmed as a result. And now Senator Clinton has gotten her wish.

Way to go, Senator. Way to perform an end-run around the First Amendment. Here's how it works: Big bad senator makes noise, and gets the rating changed. Rating change causes recall, costing studio, publisher, and retailers millions of dollars. And the next time a studio even thinks about taking a risk with their content, they'll remember this incident and decide they'd rather stay in business than create something original and edgy. And if they don't, their publisher will. And if the publisher doesn't, the retailer will. Indirectly, it's censorship wholly within the confines of the First Amendment, and in the end, we're left with watered-down, milquetoast entertainment.

Ironic, isn't it, that in the wake of Senator Clinton's calls for an investigation of this "harmful" game, a different sort of game with much more serious and real consequences has been ignored by practically everyone? No calls for an investigation here. I guess keeping kids and teens away from virtual sex and violence is more important than keeping them alive.