In Defense of Video Games

Okay, we all knew it was going to happen.

Every time a Grand Theft Auto Game hits the shelves, video gamers such as myself have to bunker down. The Grand Theft Auto series is unquestionably the poster-child of violence in video games. Every time a GTA game comes out, the constant undercurrent of criticism for video games comes to a head.

It doesn't help that that this latest iteration is, by most sources, a milestone in video games, on all levels. The graphics are incredible, the controls are apparently amazingly tight and intuitive, and the gameplay is said to be addictively fun.

I personally am not a fan of GTA. I think that it is so realistic that it's disturbing. Even games like Gears of War are so over the top in their violence that it removes the shock factor. I just have a hard time stomaching it.

Nonetheless, the argument that video games are responsible for tragedies such as the Columbine or Virgina Tech shootings is unfounded. Yes it is true that many of the people responsible for tragedies such as these played video games.

It's also true that they ALL wore pants.

Just because a majority of prominent shooting-spree perpetrators played video games does nothing to insinuate that they caused the mayhem.

Just a simple background analysis of these killers is far more reasonable and revealing. And what do they show? The people who perpetrate these crimes are, by their very nature, outcasts of society, and are often pantently disturbed. It makes perfect sense that these people would play video games, because, unable to function properly in society, they put themselves in another world.

Now before you hunt me down, know that I am also an avid gamer and in no way believe that playing video games makes you unable to function in society. The simple fact is, video games don't make a killer. Mental instability makes a killer.

To say that someone who sees marching into a school and massacring students as justice does so because of a video game, and without said video game, would NOT have done so, is absurd.

Why is it that video games bear the brunt of this criticism, when almost all other media have more realistic, more graphic depictions of violence? Television and movies are rife with scenes of wanton destruction that make even GTA look like Andy Griffith.

Why then, do "family values" conservatives and Senators such as Hillary Clinton crusade against video games? Is it a reactionary mistrust of a rising medium? Is it because the video game industry lacks the monolithic lobbying bodies and public relations firms that the elder media enjoy?

To be clear, I always support moderation. Playing too many video games, like too much of anything, can have many deragotory effects. However, I do not see any merit in the claim that they are causing a rise in violent behavior.

Opening Salvo

Okay, so my editor tells me to keep up my writing skills over the summer, I should start a blog.
Since the purpose for this thing, at least at the start, will be for me to hone my rhetorical skills to a razor edge, I'm going to write almost exclusively about topics that involve opinions, which means a focus on social and political phenomenon.

In real life, I'm not nearly this controversial.

So to kick this blog off right, I'm going to give you a rundown of my social perspective. As the title suggests, from a political perspective, I am a radical moderate. At first, the very term throws people off balance.

Yes, it is possible to be a radical moderate. I believe strongly that the primary problem that faces humanity as a whole, and America in particular, is a decided drift towards the extreme ends of every spectrum, socially, culturally, religously, and most obviously, politically.

As long as I have been politcally sentient, the American political scene has been a warzone between Democrats and Republicans. Both parties have been dominated by extremists, and, most crucially, neither has been willing to compromise.

What does this lead to? STALEMATE. UTTER, TOTAL, COMPLETE INERTIA.

Seriously, name a SINGLE major piece of progressive legislation that has been passed recently...and by recently, I mean, in the past four or five sessions of Congress. Since nobody is willing to compromise, nothing gets done.

What ever happened to cooperation? What ever happened to compromise? Since when is it bad to be a moderate?

In the war that American politics has become, the word moderate has gotten bad connotations. To most people, a moderate is a person who rides the fence, unable to make up there mind.

Hence the title. As a radical moderate, I'm not apathetic. I'm an active advocate of a more centrist government and society, a society where people are willing to cooperate, to see the other side not as antagonistic foolishness but a valid, different point of view.

Just thought you'd like to know.