"Of course you realize, this means war."
Written by Mark Osborne
Published on 04/17/2007
Originally from Binary Culture / [the-lowdown.net]
http://www.binaryculture.net

Wise words, from a wise rabbit. Earlier today, I ressurected my "Fly on the Fourth Wall" column to fire a warning shot of sorts, my reaction to hearing that Jack Thompson has already appeared on Fox News spewing his usual rhetoric. A few minutes ago, I was given the link to the video.



Apparently in the world of Fox News, Thompson is an "expert" on school shootings. If he's such an expert on the subject, then why doesn't he ever discuss anything other than video games?

Probably because he doesn't want to admit that there are far more variables in these events than just people playing video games as Adam Sessler said in the AOTS debate. The very first thing he mentions in the conversation is that supposedly the Secret Service discovered this link between the perpetrators of Columbine and all the incidents previous about how much violent media they were in possession of.

It's very telling that it was the only direct citation regarding Columbine, especially considering the fact that with only a minimal amount of research I discovered some much more interesting findings back in 2005 when I wrote "Blood, Guts, and Japanese Schoolgirls:"

There is however, an Eric Harris in Battle Royale, a teenager that was not in the class at all but volunteered with the intention of winning. The reason I say that he�s an Eric Harris is that the character fits the same psychological profile as Harris. There are several myths surrounding the Columbine Massacre, and chief among them was the conceit that Harris and Klebold acted out of revenge for mistreatment. In the case of Harris, this couldn�t be farther from the truth. Following the murders, an analysis of Harris� videos and journals by the FBI revealed that he was in fact a psychopath, likely a sociopath as well. His hatred for his classmates was not resentment but disdain and contempt. Columbine was not to be a simple shooting, but a bombing on the scale of Oklahoma City. Fortunately for everyone involved, the bombs did not go off as planned.

It's also incredibly important to note that my source, which details the results of a high profile summit to determine the motivation behind the Columbine massacre, never once mentions video games or other violent media.

By continuing to use these insane tactics he's only distracting from the real, important issues. The truth behind his agenda was laid bare when he made the mistake of quoting Peggy Noonan about how Columbine woke parents up to the fact that pop culture is raw sewage or something equally inane.

It's ironic that neither Thompson nor Noonan really understood what that quote actually underscores, which is that there's never been any kind of an excuse for parents to not be engaged in their childrens' lives and aware of what media they're consuming.

Let's consider the facts rationally. With the exception of the most recent incident, "school shooters" are ostensibly minors who live at home with their parents and get the vast majority of their disposable income directly from said parents. So really, any video game, movie, or album entering the house has to get past the parents. If violent media is kept out of the hands of children that shouldn't have it, then there's no reason to start casting wild accusations about what it does to them. As soon as intelligent and engaged parenting becomes involved, the entire issue becomes moot.

Of course Thompson and his ilk will never say that, because their entire raison d'etre is to find any kind of solution that doesn't involve personal responsibility.

Consider this annectdote and the fact that there's no possible explanation for it than lazy, disengaged parenting:

There's a little image board on the internet you may have heard about before called 4chan, and it's sub-board /b/. /b/ is ostensibly the "random" board for the site, but over the years it's developed into the self proclaimed asshole of the internet.

Last week a group of /b/tards (as they call themselves) executed a raid on Stickram in which culminated in the raiders convincing a fifteen year old girl to show her breasts over her webcam, pictures of which were posted on /b/. One of the /b/tards figured out who she was and (reportedly) sent the pictures to her school principal.

Clearly, there's an epidemic in America, but it's not pop culture. It's responsible parents, or rather the lack thereof. Mind you, this is only the beginning.