Video Game Freedom Petition

I'm sure some of the people around here by now have heard of the man known as Jack Thompson, the self-proclaimed crusader of justice. He has done a lot to try to piss off gamers everywhere by fighting to get the Grand Theft Auto genre off the streets and is accusing Rockstar Games of being nothing but murderers. He is also acclaiming that all of games the show violence are turning gamers into violent criminals, insulting the exact same people he is trying to "protect".

I'm sure I am not the only one around here that cannot help but be offended by how he calls every single gamer a "pixelante" and tries his best to annoy the hell out of us by constantly dragging science, religion, and off-topic views into his conversations when things don't have anything to do with the topic.

He has brought up parents into the conversation just to turn around 2 minutes later to say "that is not what this debate is all about". He is allowed to change the whole point of the debate whenever he feels like it according to him.

Not only has he insulted the gamers there, he has also left very vulgar remarks and threats to the gamers in certain boards and such going under different names which has been proven. He has been insulting gamers, trying to take away what we have, and is trying to control the video game community with his own greed.

We cannot let this stand alone, we have to do something to stop all of this madness from happening. Right now, he is on a campaign to stop the game "Bully" from even reaching the shelves, which thanks to video game enthusiast Adam Sessler from G4's X-Play or Extended Play will never happen.

I have decided to do something just like I know a lot of other people are wanting to do something. I know this petition isn't going to mean much in the eyes of Jack Thompson and all of the organizations that are trying to shut down these quality video game companies down, but it will mean a lot in the eyes of the public and gamers everywhere if people sign the petition to prove that we gamers can stand together and do something resourceful.

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Eric Martindale wanted me to post it here, knowing that there is a high amount of gamers around here that would most likely support this idea, and I am hoping that a lot of you will take the time to sign the petition and help spread it among the internet. If you would like to officially affiliate the petition in any way, feel free to e-mail me. My e-mail can be found here or at the bottom of the petition as well as my real name.

I understand this whole petition is going to take a lot of work to get the voice out, and I am willing to take that work as I know a lot of people are going out of their way to defend the gamers such as Adam Sessler. He really defended us gamers real well on Attack of the Show in a direct debate with the devil himself.

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Feel free to discuss this topic.

Yeah, a little bit of background.

I did a research paper on this, and you know what the funny thing is? There isn't a shred of reliable evidence backing his claims. The best that reports have come up with is a correlation, such as violent people preferring violent video games.

Just for those who were thinking he might have a point?

If he can suggest that, I can suggest that country music lovers like listening to country music.

This man is absolutely and positively pathetic for the statement he makes to the public, which isn't even that strong to begin with. Until he comes out with a website or a book explaining his whole point of why he is ever fighting against violence in video games, I am going to continue this fight with him myself to save Rockstar Games as well as other companies that put together these games.

Justin - If you still have a copy of that paper, mind posting it?

I believe that a game defines a point of fantasy, allowing us to do things that should never be done in life. What's he going to do, have a crusade against fantasy RPGs now, claiming they promote witchcraft?

This's been something I've followed since I wrote a research paper on my own accord, to deliver it to the president of my school - it was about the misconceptions of table-top RPGs (stereotypically Dungeons and Dragons) and why they should be allowed, rather than completely banned.

Let's not let this one fall through the grates: If this country is democratic, let us take advantage of it. Some of us may not be of voting age, but that may be the best place to be. Encourage your parents to stand up for their own mentality and vote against any of this legislature. Ask them if they feel insulted that someone doesn't trust their judgement on what their child is allowed to do.

This story has been Dugg. Digg it.

Video games and violence in real life...

I play violent video games. I'm a semi-pacifist in real life, believing that no one should be violent but since violence does exist, everyone should know how to protect themselves.

Heck, it's even rare to catch me swearing...

I believe that a game defines a point of fantasy, allowing us to do things that should never be done in life. What's he going to do, have a crusade against fantasy RPGs now, claiming they promote witchcraft?

There was another lawyer that suggested a man killed another man because he got the idea from D&D - The only link?

The game has knives and swords.
That man killed the other man with a knife.

I don't know where the case went after that, haven't been able to find jack about it, considerint it was many months before I went to Fort Sill.

Ms. Thompson is striking where he believes the US is weakest at, unfortunately, when you come across a Judge and Jury that actually know there is excessive evidence contrary to his claims - the sheer lack of proof Violent Media causes social violence at all, is very little, and the evidence that proves it is funded by people like Ms. Thompson.

A recent case I remember, the judge threw the case out, citing that there is no true evidence that supports the claims that Violent Games make Violence escalate in youth.

According to Ms. Thompson, gamers don't have any Frontal Lobe Activity. Generally, this controls personality - so, if we have no personality, how does our personality switch to making us have a violent one? It can't, actually, without personality, you're nothing, at all. Jack Thompsons personality is that of an idiot wanting to wear a 4 size too small Lavender Tu-Tu and dance around exploiting the stupidity of the American People to get his way, unfortunately, this works.

Sometimes I just love how gamer-oriented our little corner of the web is. =D

I'll try to find a copy of that paper -- it was for an English teacher that I didn't particularly care for, so there's a strong chance it got burned. Also, as such, it was relatively half-assed, though I think it still gets the point out there. If I find it, I'll post it late tomorrow or sometime Monday.

The UK doesn't have an Admendment 1 equivalent that is sanctioned as such, yeah, you can't sell a Mature Rated game to a minor, just as much as you can't sell a T rated game to a 10 year old. Such a thing is in the United States, it has always been there, but most retailers ignored it because it wasn't good for business, and now the opposite is proving to be that way.

Figure that crock of horse crap out.

Jack Thompson kept trying to point the issue to the game having imagery that has been made in real life first before Pong was every invented, let alone the first f'in Etcha-sketch back in the 50's.

Social hostility has been around many years before even Ms. Thompson himself was every born, perhaps if he did his research, he wouldn't be so f'in stupid.

The Mob, the Mafia, the rise of Caesar and the Ransacking of the Roman Empire an 375BC. Yeah, that's violence before video games were invented.

How about tag?
How about full-contact football when bones are broken?
How about the locker-room fight between a straight guy not liking the gay guy? Hello, it's not video games causing this?

A black kid having his head dunked in a dirty toilet? That's been around since the first publis schools had recess and their own damn bathrooms. You don't like the kid, you get yourself and a few buddies to shit and piss in a toilet and then dunk the kids head into it and flush it. That's been around for a long time, a very, very long time.

Hell, that's like saying just joining the Army makes you a violent person.

I'm a non-violent person, I've played Doom up until Doom 2, I've played the original Wolfenstein, I've played Half Life, I've played Halo, and Halo 2, I've played Grand Theft Auto, I've played Unreal Tournament and UT 2004, I've played BattleField 1942 and BF2, I've played Medal of Honor and its expansions, I've played so many damn games, and a lot of them Ms. Thompson are citing I HAVE PLAYED, and still am non-violent. This, however, does NOT mean I do not have an urge to not want to kill someone. I want to kill Ms. Thompson himself, but you do not see me running off on that whim, no do you? That's because, despite being a gamer, I'm still non-violent. Would I become violent if the situation forced me into it? Most definitely. I, however, find that killing someone in a video game, brings a wanted relief to any pent up aggression from an earlier situation.

My 9th grade fight, started because some guy said I was throwing candy at him and his friends, I considered putting him in the hospital, just for touching me and trying to blame me for the candy throwing. I decided against it, because if I put him in the hospital, I would have ended up in juvy while he basically got to relax in the hospital. I did not feel a single hit on me from in while I stood there and took it. We both ended up with supervised probation, and we had the next 2 weeks off from school. What did I do? killed people in the old Wolfenstein for a while before going to kill people in MechWarrior 3, and I felt better, a lot better. I let my aggression go into the game. But that didn't stop me later on in my Junior year to floor his ass out of nowhere and go right to my class. I broke the motherfuckers jaw. I know how many saw me do it, too, at least 100 people. I know of at least 50 that didn't know him, 30 that didn't like him, and 20 that hated him - of which those 20 knew 30 other people that didn't know him to convince them to say they didn't see how it happened, of which those other 30 socialized with all the rest in the hall, which would spread the word not to say who did it. Of the original 20? I knew 5 of them personally. The perfect fucking crime. He didn't even see it coming, let alone who did it to him. If Ms. Thompson heard that one? He'd probably try to pin it on some wrestling game or some FPS game with physical combat in it.

Of course gamers are going to say Violent Video Games don't cause Violence in Gamers, BECAUSE WE'RE RIGHT THERE ON THE FRONT LINE YOU DUMBASS. You cite evidence to say violent games cause violence in kids, and it's a total lie, you know it better than anyone, because you FUND the research to go your way, while real research says completely the opposite, and is actually truthful, unlike your research.

Now, notice he's constantly going after Rockstar Games... considering Dice (Owned by EA) produces BattleField '42 and BF2, Atari produces Unreal and Unreal Tournament series, of which the UT series is really the pinnacle of violence of the senseless violence, he only goes after Rockstar. That's the only reason he is successful, because Rockstar in all truthfulness, doesn't know any better when it comes to dealing with his kind. If he went after Dice and EA, or Atari, he'd be beat down, and I'm sure he knows that, but he'll eventually go after them.

I'm waiting for the crime that gets commited, and he says it was a gamer that got the idea from a game, finds out the guy NEVER touched a game in his life because he didn't want to be a geek.

Adam Sessler was right, it's not games, it's the poor condition of the poorer-90% of this fucking country that causes it, the poor condition of schools, let alone teachers aren't paid enough to give a flying fuck about actually teaching you.

The only way to really get rich is:

1) Drug Trafficking
2) Career Criminalism
3) Acting
4) Politics
5) Lawyerism
6) Musician

Drug Trafficking is the most risking of the ventures, Career Criminalism is a second.

Acting is hard to get into. You really have to have talent, and often have to go to school for it, same with Politics and Law. Go fig, like people are going to take the HARD WAY for it, you stupid dipshit. Going into Drug Trafficking and Career Criminalism are by far the easiest there to do.

Becoming a Mucisian can be easy, but generally, it's rather hard. Why? If you can't lip-sync or even audio-sync, then you have no hope. If you can't sing or even play an instrument, you're still screwed, this is the harder to do than the former.

Blaming games for violence has been proven a fallacy, more than once, more than 100 times, more than 1000 times and even more than 100,000 times. Look at history before you start blaming something unique to the 20th and 21st centuries, violence has existed long before the Video Game.

There's reasons for violence, and none of which are actually caused by Violent Video games or Violent Movies.

That's really well put and it is right out there. Jack Thompson claims he knows about the violence in video games, and yet doesn't even play the games just so he can attempt to bash them? I find that sick and disturbing, it's like telling everyone what happens in a movie without even seeing a movie, a commercial, or even reading a review. He looks at SCREENSHOTS and says he knows all about the game. Wow, the dunking of a black students head into a toilet, it's kind of funny that it seems he is also trying to bring the racial card into the whole argument.

Let's talk about racism. It's something this country has always had, still has, and is trying it's best to get rid of, but nothing is ever perfect in this country, nor any other country. Perfection is something that we lack, and it is something that would be impossible to gain for any country in this existance.

Yes, there is a lot of violence in the towns and places that are located where the African American population is located, and some people see them as dangerous and under-educated, and yet if you were to put the same African Americans that they are claiming the be under-educated, I bet they would find their IQ to be lower than the ones they are claiming against.

Thanks to racism and stereo types, African Americans have been somewhat forced to follow this persona that every black person in this country has to be violent to be cool and to make money. It's not just them that are basically forcing this upon them, it's this entire country's view of them and their expressions towards them. There is a lot of racism in this country, and a lot of people are afraid to admit it because they feel as though everything has been fixed in the US. Well, it obviously hasn't been because there is still a lot of crap going on in this world, just ask Jack Thompson.

Now, I'm not sure if I would consider this irony, but in 1990 Jack Thompson was the one that was trying to shut down Rap Artists because of the lyrics and because of their appearance. So, not only does he hate gamers, he specifically hates music that appeals to a single race more than multiple races? Around the 1990's, the rap industry was based around the african americans of the country to help entertain them.

Jack Thompson is only attempting to harm people in the best way he can make himself look, he is not trying to help this country in any way unless he feels pissing off a whole bunch of people is going to make everyone happy, which is just plain stupid. We, the gamers, are the ones affected by this, not anyone else. We aren't in denial, we are a LOT smarter than he is by many different measures since we know how to pick up a controller, a lot of us know how to program on the computer, and 3 our of every 5 gamers have great grades in school thanks to learning how to read and do match from video games.

I know myself, I had straight A's in my first four grades of school. Did I study a lot to get me those good grades? No, I played video games all of the time. Final Fantasy for the reading part, Casino games for the math part, and for history stuff and such I would talk to my grandfather a lot, god rest his soul.

I've played a lot of the violent games that are out there, Doom 3 and San Andreas to only mention two of them, and if he were to meet me in real life, being of only 16 years of age, he would probably realize that I am really intelligent. I could easily debate this topic with him on public television, and I would do it to. With all of his arguments, I know I could throw them back at him calmly, with a smirk on my face. I know I don't have to make things up to win a debate, which he so obviously lost against Adam Sessler during the debate on Attack of the Show.

Jack Thompson is a monster that doesn't care about who he hurts in the process, he is power hungry and is driven by the need to only make change to make himself known in this existance. He wants people to just know who he is, which is why he doesn't really care how he is known. He is easily going to be known as one of the most hated lawyers to ever live in the United States, and the second he writes a letter to me explaining that i'm an idiot and such is the day he gets a letter from my attourney explaining that he is threatening a 16 year old and is being pressed charges of harassing a minor. Let's see if the Florida Bar association likes that.

Hey look! I'm a 16 year old that did some research about him!!! What does that say about our generation!?!