Limbaugh: Games Aren't To Blame
CALLER: What I really think is an issue is video violence, video gaming. I will guarantee you, I'll bet my last dollar in my pocket, that this shooter will be found to have been a compulsive video gamer, and when people are living that kind of lifestyle -- and college students do this a lot.
RUSH: (sigh) Let's say you're right. Not every video gamer goes out and murders 33 people on the college campus though. There's more to this than that. We can find all kinds of societal problems and ills, but the fact of the matter is that whatever you would look at as a bad influence -- video games as you mentioned -- it may desensitize people, but it doesn't turn everybody into mass murderers.
I know it's natural that everybody wants to throw their theories into this, and perhaps come up with perhaps a unique explanation or to understand, and I think it's natural, because people have a tough time accepting a relatively simple explanation for something of this scale. But how many people are playing video games out there? How many millions of people play video games, and how many millions of people have guns?
If you start blaming the video games, you may as well demand video game control because it's the same thing when you start trying to blame guns for this. You have here a sick individual, an evil individual who committed a random act. But if you want to start blaming the video games, this guy was this or that, weeeeell, then you've gotta maybe talk about banning them because that's the same tack that's taken with guns. You got one guy who used a gun that's it. You're falling prey to the same way the Drive-Bys propagandize, and that's, "Well, we need gun control! We gotta get guns out of the hands of people."
Rush rounds up his argument by issuing the following concern to avoid knee-jerk reactions from those hoping to profit from the tragedy.
So you gotta be real careful here not to paint with broad brushes on these things. You gotta be very careful not to plug this into your own individual political prism, because then you become no different than what the Drive-Bys are doing. If you just wait, eventually we'll find out more than we want to know about this guy, and you're going to have to listen to what's reported about this guy with keen ears, and you're going to have to read with sharp eyes out there, because the Drive-Bys are going to report about this guy in ways that will advance their political agenda because that's what this story is to them.
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I agree 100%. People are afraid to believe that there might be something outside their control, or more importantly, the control of the community at large. Therefore, they blame their personal dead horse and whack away.
People are afraid to believe that there might be something outside their control, or more importantly, the control of the community at large.
ReplyDeleteThis was one of Carl Sagan's themes in The Demon Haunted World. People's fear not being able to explain things, so invent explanations that have to do with people's behavior, so then they can point fingers as well, even if at themselves.
I personally think this is why the average person so strongly believes global warming is caused by humans, and why people get so outrageously upset over it. (Ironically Sagan in his late life was one of the leading proponents of the theory). Instead of a scientific issue as it should be, it's a moral and political issue. It is comforting to think the reason the world is getting warmer is our fault, or the West's fault, instead of the much scarier idea that the climate is mostly out of our control and we are victims of circumstance.
I'm old enough to remember when scientists were saying we were going to freeze to death in a new ice age, and were coming up with plans to warm the planet. Can you imagine if we actually put those plans into action, the real mess we'd be making?
Good point, and I just so happen recently finished a paper on Global Warming for a writing portfolio. It is amazing how the scientific world plays favorites. Science is politics, and every time I hear someone defend something in the name of science I just cringe.
ReplyDeleteSo, when that other "unpopular" science comes to light, the "popular" science just downplays it. Perfect example, solar variation as the cause of Global Warming. Greenhouse Gases get all the press and politics, therefore they get all the research money. Solar Variation, based on a lot more proven facts doesn't get anything. Even though we FINALLY have the tools and data to start really looking into Solar Variation, it just doesn't get the attention needed.
Sad state.
People are afraid to believe that there might be something outside their control, or more importantly, the control of the community at large.
ReplyDeleteGot Religion?