Friday, May 18, 2007

Disgusting, disgusting, and that's all you can say about it, and it shouldn't happen; it shouldn't be allowed to happen and the government should ensure that laws are put in place to stop these type of things happening.
—Noel McNamara, Crime Victims Support, Sydney (see Virginia Tech killing game anger)

I of course don't like the idea of such a "game," but I also don't like the idea of censoring people for making what is apparently a political statement of some sort (albeit, a poorly constructed one). Yeah, the game's concept is disgusting, but the United States Federal Government and State of Virginia are also disgusting for allowing Seung-Hui Cho to get a gun. Why don't we ban them?

What Noel McNamara sees to be gained from banning a mockery of something that happened across the world in a foreign country is beyond me. Even the United States isn't so authoritarian as to ban this game—at least not yet.

Then, we all have to put up with things that we find distasteful. I find most "victims' rights" groups distasteful. As a matter of fact, I find them to be one of the biggest threats to civil liberty out there. Of course, I'm not familiar with McNamara's organization, but here in the U.S., "victims' rights" groups frequently push for unconstitutional restrictions on individuals, including ex post facto laws. Furthermore, they're dangerous in that they try to treat justice as a personal matter, rather than as a social virtue (as even Plato and Aristotle saw it). Of course, McNamara probably thinks I should have my blog shut down for saying that.

The game appears to be available from NewGrounds.com here. If you don't like it, don't play it. I didn't.

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