Adding heavily to the idea that hating on video games is largely the province of old cranks, Ralph Nader has weighed in, and did so in about the most awful way possible.
Nader, of all people, should know better. Before he became a fringe candidate, Nader was one of the first consumer safety advocates, applying scientific analysis to consumer products to explain why what we were buying was killing us. One of the results of that work was the landmark Unsafe At Any Speed, one of the landmarks of modern journalism and corporate accountability. As a result, he has a lot of credibility on the far left; the kind of people who use “social justice” a lot in their Facebook updates tend to listen to what he has to say.
So watching him have a total meltdown over Obama’s gun control package, and worse, being distracted by the jingly keys of video game violence, is just really kind of depressing.
“We are in the peak of [violence in entertainment]. Television program violence? Unbelievable. Video game violence? Unprecedented,” Nader said.
He added: “I’m not saying he wants to censor this, I think he should sensitize people that they should protect their children family by family from these kinds of electronic child molesters.”
Sensitize to what? That’s really the thing. It is not at issue that children should not be playing games rated Mature; we’ve dealt with the fact that this is really down to the parents before. But if grown men and women are choosing to pay for games written and designed for grown men and women… how is this a problem?
It is worth noting that the Obama administration has asked for research into mental health and violence in the media as a move many expect will officially end this concept as a talking point. Any chance we could put a rush order in on that one?