Ready for another round of ...
"Ill-Informed Politician Tries to Misrepresent a Video Game As Sexual Trash"
...because this guy, Kevin McCullough makes a strong effort to make an ass out of himself by being as uninformed as possible. I'll just post the whole article because you just have to read it for yourself it is so outrageous.
From: http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/KevinMcCullough/2008/01/13/the_sex-box_race_for_president?page=full&comments=true
I know that they all probably assume they have better, much more important, urgent, timely, things to campaign on, but I sure would like to get their individual takes on the new video game that one company is marketing to fifteen year old boys.
It's called "Mass Effect" and it allows its players - universally male no doubt - to engage in the most realistic sex acts ever conceived. One can custom design the shape, form, bodies, race, hair st-yle breast size of the images they wish to "engage" and then watch in crystal clear, LCD, 54 inch screen, HD clarity as the video game "persons" hump in every form, format, multiple, gender-oriented possibility they can think of.
The objections to such filth should be simple to understand.
Starting with the disgusting idea that one can "create" their own versions of what people look like, removing warts, moles, and bald spots while enhancing - shall we say - the extended features of the game's characters tends to objectify women, sex, and human relationships. Right? We can all agree on this?
Then there's the dishonesty behind the game' title. "Mass Effect" sounds like a war game with a deadly virus that is spreading unless the GI-Joes are able to defeat the evil and deadly substance and it's covert war plan. By it's design, kids could ask for it, or for their parents' Best Buy Card to go purchase it with nary a raised eye-brow. Generic, non-descriptive, and relatively harmless.
But it IS marketed for the X-Box 360, perhaps the most visually stimulating gaming system ever made. The software for such allows the blending of DVD video, component graphics, and the manipulation of actual pictures so that an alternate reality engulfs the fifteen year old boy playing it without much objection.
Now if I have trouble with my son taking his James Bond 007 games a little too emotionally, imagine the powerful effect that hormones add to the mix when the player's own character is copulating like jack rabbits with super-models, actresses, and anyone else they can spend the patience to create, name, and "put into play."
I hear the libertarian Ron Paul's answer already, "Government has no business censoring freedom of expression." Figures, he's a libertarian.
In the race for President there has been a lot of discussion about faith and it's impact on the lives of the individual candidate. Some pretty inane ones like Carl Cameron's less lucid moment this past week when he posed the inquiry about marital submission to Governor Mike Huckabee.
Yet here's a question that deserves to be asked, and in all likelihood will not be: "How much moral judgement should the President push into legislative issues that are likely to severely damage our children's innocence, function, and capability?"
I hear the nay-sayers claiming I'm being the wild and crazed Bible thumper I've always been - but its a worthwhile question isn't it?
If a pre-teen, teen, young adult, or adult male plays such a game in which the women DO submit without choice, are made to appear as Barbie streetwalkers, and perform whatever act can be imagined, what's to stop that same male from assuming that the women in his "other world" shouldn't be forced to do the same.
We now know because of the lengthy track record of serial killer after another that addictive use of pornography was prevalent in case after case - long before the switch got flipped and what their masturbatory imaginations have given into became what they were forcing real live human beings to do.
And because of the digital chip age in which we live - "Mass Effect" can be customized to sodomize whatever, whoever, however, the game player wishes.
With it's "over the net" capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away.
Yes there will be many snickers that I decided to bring this issue up in the Presidential cycle of 2008 but how refreshing would it be for a President to prove to the nation that his own manhood was not in question and put his pen and signature to a bill that dealt with such simulated sex excess in a way that was punitive to its creators to such a degree that they would never recover from it?
As technology continues to push the limits of imagination and interaction more and more the brain, the emotions, the feelings will integrate with physical responses in reality. And while the makers of such trash seem to be pushing our next generation of young men through the gates of hell as fast as is humanly possible, it needn't be that way.
Here's hoping that as the next President will be forced to deal with this continual emerging reality - and enemy that has set its site to our destruction from within - that we will have elected a man of such character that he will have precision in the clarity of his response.
How would that be for a bold and uncompromising "Mass Effect?"
This is the kind of person who we should drop into Basra or Hebron andlaugh atwhat al-Qaeda does to him.
Thankfully, several people posting comments actually DID their research and realized this guy's a complete a-hole. One guy even said he sent it to a friend who worked at BioWare, and that they got a good laugh out of it. Sadly, the other half don't take the time to research the game themselves and listen to this guy. But, geez, this is the kind of guy you just want to [insert vile act here]. Seriously, we don't need politicians like this...I mean he's probably one of those alleyway child molestors you see on L&O:SVUI hate to go on a rant, but the 12 year olds you find on Halo and CoD4 and what not have a couple more pounds of grey matter than this guy. I now announce the Most Unresponsible And Ignorant Politician Of The Year Award, and it's only three weeks into 2008! Can't wait to see what the rest of the year holds in store!
This also goes into a controversial topic that is very popular right now, The Credibility of Journalism. Now this is a much, much more extreme and outrageous form, but it still brings up the issue. Since that is a political site, the majority of site users will not have played Mass Effect, if they even play games at all. Mr. McCullough is therefore able to corrupt the views of others. Of course, while this may give him the publicity he wants, I'd like to seem laught when he's getting 'virtuallyraped'himself by three lawsuits.
Microsoft, EA, and BioWare truly deserve to file several lawsuits against Mr. McCullough. And not just the those companies, but everyone involved! I know for a fact that Seth Green and Keith David certainly didn't sign on for a rape-sodomy porno game... For one thing, there's intentional or unintentional misrepresentation of a product, not to mention slander, I'm sure you could come up with a few more. It may seem silly, but this bothers me so much, I'm going to take it right to BioWare, because they SHOULD do something about it. I am willing to stick up for my favorite game dev, and I'm not going to let some two-bit liberal slander their excellent product. Ugh, I'm done. There goes my political rage for the day... Now, how to vent my anger...
Edit: I found another disgusting article relating to Mass Effect, and in some ways, this one is worse, just because these people know what the game is about, but outright lie anyway...
From:http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200801/CUL20080111a.html
Sex in Video Game Makes Waves Through Industry
By Evan Moore
CNSNews.com Correspondent
January 11, 2008
(CNSNews.com) - A new, best-selling video game, Mass Effect, made for the Microsoft Xbox 360 console, allows the characters to engage in explicitly graphic sexual intercourse. Some game experts and pro-family analysts say Mass Effect is marketed to young kids and presents a moral danger to them and that the companies making and marketing the game should be prosecuted.
The game is "clearly marketed to minors," Cathy Ruse, a lawyer and senior fellow for legal studies at the Family Research Council, told Cybercast News Service.
"There are cultural implications for feeding porn to kids in this way," and "when you do this, you're teaching them a distorted lesson about human sexuality and human dignity. These are lessons that they will take with them into adulthood and ultimately society," Ruse said.
Mass Effect is made by BioWare Corp., in Alberta, Canada. The game has a strong, plot-driven storyline reminiscent of the Star Wars films or television shows like Babylon 5.
As part of that story, the playable character can become romantically involved with a woman, if playing as the default male character; a man, if playing as a woman; and an alien that looks and talks like a woman, for any play-through. This storyline culminates in a cutscene in which the characters copulate in full digital nudity.
The game is rated "M" for mature, as are many video games, and was banned in Singapore last year, though the decision was later reversed. Mass Effect has sold over 1.6 million copies since its release in November 2007. The game scored "Best RPG" in the 2007 Spike TV Video Game Awards, and it has been nominated for Game of the Year.
Critics blast
Bob Waliszewki, media specialist with Focus on the Family, told Cybercast News Service, "We never shy away from sexuality in the media. It's just a question of how is that sexuality portrayed. One can use the media to portray some very healthy forms of sexuality. And when done wisely with taste and age-appropriateness, it can be done well."
"Unfortunately," he said, "Mass Effect doesn't do that and even goes so far as to allow homosexuality to be on par with heterosexuality and heterosexuality outside of its proper context of marriage."
Ruse said, "I don't know if people are really aware about what's in this game, but [the people who made it] should lose a lot of money, and they should lose consumer confidence, because this is a stupid move."
She noted that "when you expose children, whose brains and personalities are still developing, to degrading and harmful material, you've got to believe that's going to have an effect on the way that they view themselves, others, and the world."
"People try to raise a straw-man argument and say that people from my perspective are saying that everyone who views something is going to go out and become a serial sex killer. Nobody's saying that," Ruse said.
"But, it is profoundly naive to suggest that feeding children graphic sexual material is going to have no effect on their psyche. That's just stupid to think that," she added.
Waliszewki noted that numerous reputable studies from firms like the RAND corporation have emerged over the past four years that show causal links between exposure to sexual images, profanity, smoking, and violence to a higher degree of sexual activity, greater use of profanity, higher smoking rates, as well as higher aggressive tendencies and violent action.
"This is about money," Ruse said. "This isn't about a First Amendment debate. This is about [BioWare] making as much money as it can. It's putting elements in its games which they think will help them sell more games. They don't care about what they're doing to kids."
She concluded, "This is unethical, and they have a duty to be good corporate citizens. There's no First Amendment right to exploit children ... They're making money at the expense of children in America, and they ought to be vilified for that."
The state of the industry
Calls made to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) for comment were not answered by press time. However, a report from the ESA says that the game player population is older and diverse than conventional wisdom would assume.
According to the ESA, the average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years. Also, 38 percent of all game players are women. Women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (31 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (20 percent).
The voice of the video game industry also says that parents are strongly involved when their children buy or rent games. Eighty-six percent of game players under the age of 18 reported that they get their parents' permission when renting or buying games, and 91 percent say their parents are present when they buy games.
Furthermore, the ESA reports that the field of choices available to consumers is very family-friendly. Eighty-five percent of all games sold in 2006 were rated "E" for Everyone, "T" for Teen, or "E10+" for Everyone 10+ by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).
Cybercast News Service also sought comment from BioWare Corp but did not receive a reply.
Preventing exposure to children
"When parental involvement is at a high level," Waliszewki said, the warning labels provided by the ESRB could deter children from being exposed to inappropriate material. But he warned that "in many cases, where parents are less involved and oblivious to the world of entertainment these days, an 'M' rating is almost a badge of endorsement."
"Parents really just need to be involved in [their children's] entire entertainment world," he said. "There's just too much gunk out there for parents to be 'hands-off.' They have to be involved. They have to know ... what their kids are into in today's entertainment."
Ruse noted that "most states have what's called 'Harmful to Minors' laws on the books that say that selling sexual material that a jury would deem 'patently offensive to minors, which lacks literary, artistic, political or scientific value.' ... might be prosecutable."
However, she also noted that these laws are "very likely not enforced." Rather than new laws, "we need state and local prosecutors with spines and backbones to prosecute some of these companies that are violating the law" in order to prevent children from being exposed to indecent material, she said.
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