The only thing more repugnant to me that the immediate onslaught of blame-laying in the wake of the Virginia Tech killings is the ill-timed resurrection of the silly 'video-games cause violence' meme.
First Jack Thompson runs off at the mouth about a supposed connection, and now none other than the most intelligent human being on Earth and solver of global problems *cough* Dr. Phil joins the fray.
You cannot tell me - common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they’re on a mass killing spree in a video game, it’s glamorized on the big screen, it’s become part of the fiber of our society...
We’re going to have to start addressing those issues and recognizing that the mass murders of tomorrow are the children of today that are being programmed with this massive violence overdose.
This garbage comes from people who've never played anything more violent than Freecell. Ok, maybe minesweeper, but that does nothing to bolster their argument for sure.
I grew up on Doom, Duke Nukem3D, the gloriously over-the-top Rise of the Triad, etc. I've stormed the virtual beaches of Normandy and sent more digital Nazis to their virtual graves than I could ever hope to count. As someone intimately familiar with gaming and gaming culture, these pop-icons speaking out about a topic about which they obviously are completely ignorant is insulting. Not only insulting but dangerous. First they blame video games and music. Then books, movies, art...where does it end. This is a slippery slope there is no need to scale.
Instead of whoring themselves out for TV face time with their stupid, uninformed theories, wouldn't it make sense to stop with the bogus speculation and needless insinuations and do something novel - like trying to find out exactly what snapped in this kid to make him do something like this?
Dr. Phil should be ashamed of himself for adding his voice to this chorus of stupidity. There are a thousand other things that need to be addressed now. The political maneuvering, posturing, and self-promotion needs to stop. People have died. Living, breathing humans are gone, never to see another sunrise and the first thing he sees fit to add to the discourse is laying blame on video games.
I find that disgusting.
