Free speech and the nose of the camel ~ By Phil Elmore

Phil's excellent column discusses a case being considered by the Supreme Court of the United States, involving a California law that is meant to prevent minors from purchasing "violent" video games. However, it really is quite a bit deeper than just the discussion on banning violent video games, as the Supreme Court would be deciding on where to draw the line on "Freedom of Expression," which refers to the free speech and free press clauses of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. As I read on findlaw.com, there are many different philosophical differences concerning the freedom of expression:

Probably no other provision of the Constitution has given rise to so many different views with respect to its underlying philosophical foundations, and hence proper interpretive framework, as has the guarantee of freedom of expression -- the free speech and free press clauses. The argument has been fought out among the commentators. "The outstanding fact about the First Amendment today is that the Supreme Court has never developed any comprehensive theory of what that constitutional guarantee means and how it should be applied in concrete cases." Some of the commentators argue in behalf of a complex of values, none of which by itself is sufficient to support a broad-based protection of freedom of expression. Others would limit the basis of the First Amendment to one only among a constellation of possible values and would therefore limit coverage or degree of protection of the speech and press clauses.

How the Supreme Court decides in this case could have significant impact on future interpretations of the free speech and free press clauses. Here is a case where the court will decide if society can depend on it's own ability to use the free market system to protect civilization from violence, or if we must depend on the government (Federal, state or local) to protect us. To use the free market system to protect ourselves, it will depend on parental supervision and our liberty to decide for ourselves what is moral or immoral, and safe or dangerous. To depend on the government to do that for us is to invite the camel into our tent.

In the video below, a lady is taking on the maker of a video game that she feels offended by. If you listen closely, she is suggesting NOT a government ban on the game, but instead, asking for the company to pull the plug on the product. This is an example of what the free market method of protecting ourselves would be, and where we "vote" with our pocketbook:

Video provided by CommentCrazed

In my humble opinion, the nose of the camel is definitely already in the tent. We already have a large number of things that the government controls "for our own good," or "for the children." You know, things like San Francisco banning "happy meals." That may be a case where the camel stuck his rear end into the tent (and it ain't a pretty smell, and in fact, it just plain stinks). Just sayin'...

I have used before the phrase "the camel's nose in the tent." If you've never really thought about what this means, you should. When a camel pokes his nose into your tent, it's only a matter of time before the rest of him follows.

Upholding the constitutionality of California's vaguely worded video game restrictions would serve only to force the camel of censorship under the tent-flap of society. Such a ruling would clear the path for further infringements on freedom of speech, not the least of which is to empower your government to decide, arbitrarily and capriciously, which expressions of art and entertainment are somehow legitimate. If this issue is to be decided at all, it must be decided by the voters, who collectively could choose to alter the protections of the First Amendment.

Absent so significant an intervention by the citizens it protects, the Constitution and its Bill of Rights should be respected. The courts have no business regulating the creation or sale of art. Video games are art. If they are not, a host of other artistic expressions become fair game for regulation – and millions of American citizens are about to find out just how large and foul-smelling is an entire camel standing in their living rooms.

Free speech and the nose of the camel

By Phil Elmore

Posted: November 04, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010



I remember the day my father brought home our first Atari game system. It wasn't long before we were engaged in furious gunfights, as stick-figure cowboys hurled pixel blocks at each other. I could not know then that two decades later it would be possible to engage in immersive, first-person firefights with real people from around the world.

Games so simple they can now be played online in Web browsers or on the tiny screen of your wireless phone, games with file sizes so comparatively small that a handheld plastic game unit can hold a library of hundreds of "classic" video games, have been supplanted by serious "games" whose complex graphics and high-fidelity sound border on virtual reality. To examine the history and development of video games is to be at once nostalgic and awed, as the now-quaint pastimes of thirtysomethings' childhoods have become the juggernaut of an interactive entertainment industry. That industry is poised to overtake worldwide music sales through 2011, worth nearly 50 billion projected dollars.

Your government can't have that.

As PCWorld reported Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court is poised to rule on whether your government can "protect" you – or "the children," who are so often invoked as a category to histrionics, hand-wringing and the strains of tiny violins – from "violence" in video games. As J.R. Raphael wrote:

According to [the wording of a California law forbidding sales of "violent" video games to minors], a violent video game would be defined as one "in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being" in a manner that's "patently offensive," appeals to a person's "deviant or morbid interests," and lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." ...

Even if you accept the "video games are different" argument, opening the door to government-controlled content regulation is asking for trouble. Do we want to make the First Amendment a medium-specific form of protection? … If this law is green-lighted, we'd better brace ourselves for an awful lot of asterisks under America's "free speech" header.

Raphael correctly points out that this isn't about video games at all, but rather the nature of freedom of speech. What is a video game? It is, when it is sold for profit, arguably a form of commercial speech. In and of itself it is also (and primarily) an artistic expression. Regardless of whether you consider it so, the average video game (particularly today) is the product of a tremendous amount of artistic input and merit, from the design of its characters to its music and voice-acting to its often cinematic interactivity, its pacing and its overall presentation. All of this is true before we even begin to consider the hours of effort in coding, debugging, play testing and implementation of the game's software.

Whether that artistic merit and those hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of effort produce a serene, puzzle-solving, picturesque classic (remember "Myst"?), a light-hearted adventure series (the name "Monkey Island" comes to mind), or a visceral and blood-soaked survival-horror game in which players shoot zombies in the head (or become zombies themselves), there is no denying the tremendous industry and art involved in such a production. How is it, then, that we are repeatedly told that blasphemous, offensive and outrageous "art" (a crucifix submerged in urine, the Virgin Mary rendered in dung, dead animals sawed in half, morbidly nude statues of Paris Hilton and other abominations that have figured in news reports over the years) is protected free speech ... and yet far less offensive but "violent" video games must be rebuked, restricted and regulated?

Worryingly, Businessweek's Jesse Holland says the Supreme Court has "expressed sympathy" for the California law. Holland did note, however, that "Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy ... noted that entertainment forms like comic books, movies, rap music and even children's fairy tales can also be violent but are not regulated by the state." Those justices, Holland reports, have said the California law might be too vaguely worded to pass constitutional muster. The key to the justices' debate seems to be whether the law draws "sensible distinctions" among the forms of entertainment it seeks to regulate.

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Artistic parasites ~ By Patrice Lewis

A question for Nancy Pelosi: Do bloggers qualify as artists? Gee, I'd love to leave my work, focus on blogging, my talents and skills, and.... Oh, wait, I can do that at work... Never mind. 

I think I will go along with Patrice on this one. Seems to actually make sense to do it on my own, doesn't it? I LOVE the FREE MARKET of the blogging world. And yes, if I could eventually make it on my own in that world, I would feel much better about myself, and I wouldn't be spending YOUR hard-earned tax dollars, and it will only make what I do all the better by developing my talents and skills - on my own dime in my own time. The government should not be diminishing quality through subsidizing ANYTHING. Just sayin'...

But on an individual level, the artists I most admire are those whose art is honed in the crucible of the free market, not artificially propped up by your tax dollars. When Nancy encourages would-be artists to "leave your work, focus on your talent, your skill, your passion, your aspirations because you will have health care," she is virtually guaranteeing the output will be inferior to those who aren't subsidized. The art world as a whole is dragged down.

But hey, maybe that's her intention. After all, she's dragging everything else down, too.

By Patrice Lewis

Posted: May 29, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

Recently, while attending a crafts show, I had the pleasure of meeting a regional artist named Andy Sewell. I've admired his work for years, so I broke down and bought a small print and hung it in my office. One of the reasons I admire this particular artist – besides the fact that his paintings are outstanding – is because I see him everywhere. Any time there is a craft fair or sidewalk gallery or any other excuse for artists and crafters to show their work, he'll set up his booth and display his pieces. He works hard to market himself and make a living. Isn't that nice?

This artist honed his talents and created his niche while supporting his family working in the corporate world. Only when he felt he could make an honest living did he launch himself full-time into art.

Since my husband and I are entrepreneurs ourselves, we admire others who pull themselves up by their bootstraps and make it on their own through talent, grit and business smarts.

Now contrast this with a statement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said that "thanks to the new health-care reform law, musicians and other creative types could quit their jobs and focus on developing their talents because taxpayers would fund their health-care coverage."

(see video below)

"We see it as an entrepreneurial bill," Pelosi said, "a bill that says to someone, if you want to be creative and be a musician or whatever, you can leave your work, focus on your talent, your skill, your passion, your aspirations because you will have health care."

"Creative types" in this case merely signify those members of society who produce pointless things at government expense.

This means all of us – you and me and Cousin Mabel down the street – are forced to support artists. But wait, there's more. What happens if an artist doesn't produce art you like? What if he douses a crucifix in urine and calls it art? It doesn't matter. You're forced to support him regardless. Isn't that nice?

So on one hand we have hardworking, talented folks like Mr. Sewell whose livelihood is solely determined by how well people like his artwork and are therefore willing to pay for it. On the other hand we have, let's face it, artistic parasites who are mooching off the rest of us because they can't make a living with their dingbat ideas.

As Joseph Farah pointed out, "In [Pelosi's] dream world, artists and photographers and writers have a right to lead some privileged existence free of the burdens of ordinary working people to support themselves and their families."

And from this kind of subsidization, we get artists who do not have to depend on anyone actually liking their art. This is how urine-soaked crucifixes come about.

Subsidizing artists, I suspect, has its roots back in Victorian Europe when artists found rich patrons to sponsor them while they produced their oeuvre. Let me emphasize those were private rich patrons. If the Duke of Earl wanted to keep an artist in residence, more power to him. It's his money.

But in a weird modern twist, today many artists depend on government money. That means you and me. We're all pitching in to make sure those urine-soaked crucifixes get made.

It's not just the U.S. that is afflicted with the artsy-fartsy crowd. Consider this English sculptor who came up with the brilliant idea of throwing a million handmade clay pebbles into the sea. Clever, isn't it? The aim, he said, was "to create a handmade monument to the people by the people for the people." How lofty.

He spent 16 years making these things and estimates "it has so far cost tens of thousands of pounds, with funding from the Arts Council, local authorities and sponsors." But with no more money coming in, the artist will "trudge down to the beach tomorrow and throw the last few buckets of his pebbles into the sea."

Ah shucks. My heart bleeds. (Sniff.)

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Why 'Rogue' is a better book than 'Dreams' ~ By Jack Cashill

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Jack Cashill Posted: November 19, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 A few weeks back, the new head of the National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman, said of Barack Obama, "This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln." Landesman was not alone in his praise. This month's GQ has a faux-exhaustive article on "the untold story of the first man since Teddy Roosevelt to serve as author in chief." In truth, however, if Teddy Roosevelt came back to life today, he would find that he would have much more in common with Sarah Palin than Barack Obama, both as a fellow adventurer and as a fellow writer. I am not being ironic here: Palin's new memoir, "Going Rogue," is superior to the 1995 memoir that made Obama's reputation, "Dreams From My Father." A clue as to why can be found in one choice moment from "Dreams." At the time, 1988, community organizer Obama was contemplating law school, and he announced his potential choices as "Harvard, Yale, Stanford." What makes any narrative compelling is when the protagonist confronts obstacles and overcomes them through force of will and character. But when a mediocre student with LSAT scores too humble to reveal can casually limit his law school choices to Harvard, Stanford and Yale, the reader winces. It is as if the good witch told Dorothy to click her heels together on day one and skip the damn yellow brick road. There is no drama here. In fact, Obama's career has been greased by affirmative action and its bastard offspring – "diversity" – from prep school on. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]

Never Give Up

From The Jolly Rogers blog

"One day, we will wake up in a perfectly constructed cage – a completed and operational dictatorship. If you think this is impossible, history is the proof."

Sunday, November 8, 2009 Louisiana Congressman Anh "Joseph" Cao sells out the nation allowing government controlled health care and government control of our lives, to go to the next step. Cao was the only Republican to vote in favor of the Democrat bill today in the House of Representatives. And what did he sell his vote to get? Cao actually wrote in a statement following the vote, that he obtained a commitment from President Obama so Louisiana citizens will get special attention on health care issues and community disaster loan forgiveness. All this is seemingly promised in return for backing the vote. And just recently, Scozzafava turns traitorous on the Republican Party and squirms out of the race in New York - but in leaving her name on the ballot, took 6,000 votes away from the conservative candidate, allowing the Democrat to win. And of course, there was the Republican failure, which started this all off – the one, which allowed Obama, and all his people into office to begin with and brought about the one-sided congress we now have. Lastly there’s the "lick and kiss" media, the National Endowment of the Arts being converted into a propaganda machine through huge pay-offs and of course, the corruption of the voting processes through big pay-offs to industry and community groups. And the final cog, re-education of the young which we’ve seen occurring through introduction of political bias in the classroom. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]