Those silly Brits are at it again.
People in Britain no longer have guns to kill each other, so now they’re using knives. The excuse this time (note that no one wants anyone else to assume responsibility) is that violent video games are making them do it. That’s right, boys and girls. Great Britain wants to have a tax on violent video games to get funds to help them combat knife crime. Here’s an idea–why don’t we put a tax on watching cooking shows when you buy a box of twinkies? It’s the same “impeccable logic” at work.
Let me put on my quality engineer hat for a second and make one point. This is so simple that it defies any sort of embellishment or further explanation:
They’re missing the root cause of the problem.
That’s it. It’s Occam’s Razor.
The root cause of the problem is that no one is taking personal responsibility. Parents aren’t assuming responsibility for what media their children consume. Children aren’t being held responsible for their actions, and parents aren’t being held accountable when their children turn into little monsters. In steps the benevolent, wise, and helpful government (who also needs money in an economic downturn). Using a tragedy, the British government has concocted an entire house of cards that allows them to villify video games, take broad aim at future knife control, and slur America with broad generalizations. They also make a little bit of money, too.
(If I go to Britain next year, will I even be able to cut my steak, or must a licensed government official, trained in the safe use of a knife, cut my meat prior to me consuming it?)
Video games are this generations version of misunderstood youthful recreation, like comic books, science fiction, and Dungeons and Dragons before them. I find it laudable that the leaders of our governments are such poor students of cultural history that they don’t recognize the same cycles being perpetuated over and over again before their eyes. Tying this new “medium” to a murder really stoops to a new low, even for our government.
![Let’s Kill Hitler [HD]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51hESmStH-L._SL160_.jpg)
Ssshhh! Don’t mention Occam’s razor… or they’ll be liable to levy another tax.
So let me get this straight, Brittian wants knife control because people are killing each other with Occam’s Razor? Good find, BTW.
Steak in Europe? Thats pretty funny…
Perhaps we should all wear giant hand thimbles.
Stupidity. It’s not just for Americans anymore.
Taking a cue from Vince… Well, we went through our own ridiculous restrictions… remember how, after 9/11, fingernail clippers and tweezers were banned from carry-on luggage on flights in the US? I remember several business-class flights wherein I was served meals with metal forks, but plastic knives. The irony caused me to shake my head in disbelief. Everyday news seems to confirm for me an old adage (Voltaire, I believe) that “common sense is not very common.”
This article reminds me of how the NRA was blamed for Columbine, D&D and Judas Priest were blamed for teen suicides, and (in the 80′s) explicit lyrics were blamed for the corruption of American youth. The question of personal responsibility of the individual was never addressed, and only lip service given toward parental supervision and responsibility. The decisions of individuals and the consequences of those decisions became lost in causes directed at incidental political and social scapegoats.
And, as in those cases, the Brits are trying to fix the blame instead of addressing the problem… an ancient problem. Perhaps they may come to find that acts of violence and murder are not dependent upon a particular weapon. I recall Medieval Chinese and Japanese history… Where did most of the classic martial arts weapons come from? When peasants were banned from using swords and spears, they developed equally deadly weapons from common farm implements, such as flails, rice grinders, scythes, staves, etc. as well as unarmed fighting styles such as karate, taekwondo, etc. Trying to stop violence by taxing video games is like trying to stop the dawn with an umbrella.