Ideological Whiplash and the Treatment For It

Siddown, kiddos. Uncle Salem's got the whiskey back, and the white collar's going back on. The Reverend is in. 

I have been asked a few times my thoughts regarding the recent noises that President Trump has made regarding violence and video games.

I am, frankly, unconcerned. This is hardly the first time that video games have been put through the government ringer. I'm old enough to remember the Family Entertainment Protection Act and its sponsor. I've heard the tales of Tipper Gore and the PMRC.

I'm only surprised that it took this long for Trump and Hillary Clinton to align on an issue. I'm also aware that, after analyzing (that's not something that you pay Stormy Daniels not to talk about, in case you need it pointed out) the situation, that it's more than likely this is a giant cloud of hot air that Trump is pushing to distract from the NRA.

What perturbs me about the situation is the moral vanguard of defenders that have arisen to defend the poor, defenseless art form against the big scary cheeto man.

Such as Polygon.

 
Or Feminist Frequency.


Or Vice's Motherboard.


Or any number of examples that I could dig up with a marginal effort.

See, there's something you should realize as you pull an ideological 180 so quickly that your scraggly beards crawl up to cover your prematurely-balding heads: that you're no longer welcome to defend an art form after you spend the better part of the decade bashing it.

You don't get spend five years vacillating between implying and outright declaring that video games will turn you into anything from a rapist to a murderer because the pretty Armenian girl with the teleseminar background bats her eyelashes approvingly at you, then turn around and pretend to be strident defenders of artistic freedom when the mean man in the big house on the hill says the same things she did, albeit not nearly as artistically.

It rings incredibly hollow and lends an inordinate amount of credence to the Trump Derangement Syndrome theory. You truly are pivoting on a position just because he said something you agreed with 10 minutes ago.

Video games survived government overreach once before, and yes, you played a part in that. You're not needed anymore. The internet exists, and gives a voice to each and every person that chooses to use that voice. Even people you don't like. Especially people you've spent the last 5 or so years painting as the most dangerous villains on the planet.

There is the road. Those are some rocks. Kick the rocks. At least the rocks won't kick back.