Imp-Chan wrote:
Sylvarius wrote:
Look, if you want to remove a rating system you have to be prepared, as a country, to tell parents that they cannot educate their own children or decide what is best for them.
How? All it does is tell a parent to research the material and decide for themself whether or not they feel it is appropriate for their child. It does not tell a parent they aren't allowed to educate their children or decide what's best for them... it in fact places the responsibility for doing so squarely on the parent's shoulders, where it belongs.
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And if you cannot slap that label on it, what is to stop a 12, or 5, year old from buying a porn magazine?
Presumably in the absense of labels just as in the presence of labels the end result is still that a responsible parent will stop their child from buying inappropriate material by overseeing their child's purchase, or at least hiring someone they trust to do so. Also, until such time as the child is able to legally work and secure funds, a parent has simply to deny their child money to prevent the unsupervised purchase of anything of which the parent disapproves. It is the responsibility of the parent, not society, to enforce the rules which they feel are most appropriate for the upbringing of their children.
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It is as much a part of our choice as consumers to want to have an idea of what either we are about to see, or what the people we're buying it for will see.
This is absolutely true. However, there is a difference between wanting something and being entitled to it. As a consumer, you indeed have a right to purchase something or not based on its label, lack thereof, or any other criteria that you choose. You do not, however, have an entitlement to conform the product to your wishes, nor do you have the right to require that those products which do not conform to your desires be made unavailable. If something does not meet your criteria for purchase, simply choose not to purchase it. Do without. Don't demand that the rest of the world change so that YOU feel better.
>,<'
Sorry, most of my post was made with the presumption that children can find their own money/time to buy products. Basically, if a child can get their hands on whatever they want as long as they are resourceful enough, which most kids are, something which shocks a whole lot of parents, it means that it signifigantly impairs a parents control over what their child has access to. Meaning, with the current system(that it is illegal to sell innapropriate material to minors) there is at least a check on what children buy (that they have to have their parent approve, or at least be present during the process, signifying approval.
The point you have to keep in mind is that it is much easier for a store to restrict what a child buys than it is for a parent to restrict it, because stores simply have to say no to the kid, whereas parents have to watch the kid 24/7 and make sure they don't have any money that they can spend on innapropriate things.
And Impy, I am not demanding that anyone conform to my standards or censor their products. personally, very, veyr few things offend me. I am merely saying that information should be readily available on the products we are buying. People should not be expected to see a product in a store, run home to research it, then come back to the store to buy it. A product should clearly inform consumers as to exactly what it is, so they can make educated decisions then and there. This makes the system much more efficient.
The point of my entire post was that it is currently a parents responsibility to educate their child, and that removing a labeling system makes this more difficult for most people.
Slamlander, it goes like this... Parents educate their children, and labels help them do this-> removing labels restricts a parents control over what their child is exposed to -> knowledge of what you are buying is vital to understanding what impact your purchase will have -> therefore slapping labels or descriptions on things is helpful to a consumer, and if these labels prevent people from buying something, they are exercising their right to not buy a product. Sure, it may scare people away from a product, but only if they are too close-minded to accept its message in the first place.
In all honesty, slapping a mature label on the Errant Story books probably would lower sales, but better that than a lawsuit, eh? And best of all, Poe's story would still be in its original form.
Ok, the real world example, like I said.
Imagine, for a moment, that I'm a parent and my child wants to buy a video game. So, I go to the store and look at two games, Kingdom Hearts and Diablo II. Now, Diablo II has a rating right on the front that says it is rated M for Mature, because it has severe violence and nudity. Because I have been a responsible parent and read up on what my labels mean, I know that at some point in this game my child id going to see boobs when he plays it, and that enemies can die in ways that are supposed to represent fountains of blood or organs. I know this because I know what those two things under the rating mean, and I don't have to say, read a transcript of all of the text in the game, look at all of the sprites in the game to see if any of them are scantily clad or nude, and playtest every skill to see how violently enemies die. It saves me a whole lot of time because all I have to do is understand what the damned rating means.
Now, lets say, for a moment, that I am a bad parent, and I do not understand what the rating means. I can still look at it and think that maybe I don't want my kids to see this. I don't buy the game, I don't get angry, all is well.
If I *do* buy the game, and *do* get angry? Hopefully, I'll get laughed out of a courtroom when I try to sue, but that isn't always the case.
Now, if I decide to look at Kingdom Hearts instead, it is rated E for everyone, because of violence. Again, being a responsible parent, I know that this simply means that you run around and hit things with the oversized key the main character wields, or whatever his weapon of choice happens to be for whatever game I am looking at. No blood, no visible signs of injury, no gruesome death scenes. I decide that this is ok for my kid, so I buy it, no fuss needed because I knew what the label was. Again, alternatively I could fuss over exactly what is in the complete transcript of the game, but this is much simpler and covers the same grounds, because I can also see that the label doesn't include things like mature themes, sexual content, etc, so I can be assured that such things aren't in the game.
Again, alternatively I could be a bad parent, see the world violence, and not buy it. Not the bets situation for the kid, but at least I don't become an uppity bitch because I was too dumb and bought a game I objected to.
Yes, I realize that legally such a parent would not actually have a case, bt that doesn;t stop them from getting media coverage and causing a lot of shit for video game companies, and attempting to sue and wasting everyone's time. I didn;t make the system, eh?