Jack Thompson Walks Out On Hearing 522
Erik J writes "Apparently Jack had heard enough.
The Florida Bar asked for an 'enhanced disbarment' in the disciplinary hearing of Jack Thompson, held earlier this afternoon. The recommendation means Thompson would be disbarred and prohibited from applying to practice law again for ten years, according to 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida spokesperson Eunice Sigler.
Thompson's disciplinary hearing apparently ended in the attorney walking out of the courtroom after saying the judge did not have the authority to hear his case."
Good ridance (Score:3, Insightful)
Hasn't he... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, just read his Wikipedia page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(attorney) [wikipedia.org]
I think he needs mental treatment.
Good thinking there (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, him being unable to practice law will unlikely stop politicians or other figures looking to ban violent video games from going to him for advice.
Now I wonder what will Fox News do? (Score:2, Insightful)
You probably don't want to hear this, but ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:fp (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a member of the bar... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ten years is unusual (Score:5, Insightful)
What Jack did was beyond stupid. Way way beyond stupid. It's the kind of stuff only people who are clinically insane do. You don't attach pornography to court filings. Ask anyone you know if they think it would be a good idea to attach gay pornography to a public court filing, I'll pay you $100 if someone honestly, without prompting, sarcasm or malice says yes. In fact I bet you could go ask the people at the state mental hospital the same question and would get the same response. That's just how stupid what he did was.
Re:You probably don't want to hear this, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really in both of those cases the reason why people hate them is that they were abusing the legal system for personal gain, being disbarred is what is supposed to happen in those cases.
First Ammendment (Score:4, Insightful)
In January 2006, Thompson asked the Justice Department to investigate the Florida Bar's actions. "The Florida Bar and its agents have engaged in a documented pattern of this illegal activity, which may sink to the level of criminal racketeering activity, in a knowing and illegal effort to chill my federal First Amendment rights," Thompson wrote in a letter to Alex Acosta, interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida.[121]
Re:fp (Score:2, Insightful)
Freedom of speech yes, abuse of due process no. (Score:5, Insightful)
As for his flagrant abuse of the legal process in order to advance his political agenda... that can and should be stopped, and it doesn't constitute gagging him either. It should be stopped because it's abuse of the law. It also should be stopped because he's wrong.
Obligatory (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We can ignore him now (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder how many times he Godwinned himself.
Bollocks. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the flip side, Jack Thompson is used as a punching bag by video gamers and rational thinkers everywhere. Those with a capacity for critical thought are not swayed by Thompson's arguments or behavior regardless of their position. Those without a capacity for critical thought have already chosen a side. Those who agree with Thompson either see him as a martyr or don't associate his lunacy with their beliefs.
Re:Hasn't he... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good thinking there (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Insightful)
>stop talking, though. He's like PETA. Some
>people could agree with his points, but he
>makes it very hard to espouse those
>positions without being lumped in with the loonies.
I for one, enjoy having a rational discussion more than having crazies scream at me.
There are legitimate questions about what sort of material should be available to minors. I'm on the side of requiring the parents to do most of the footwork to protect their children, but it might also be helpful if extra tools were provided.
In particular, what if games came with an age group flag when they were installed, and operating system users could also have an age limit specified, so that applications with a "18+" flag would not launch of a user configured as "13."
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, no. In fact, that's complete bullshit. Just how would you even going about quantifying the political health of a regime? Even if you could, how would then quantify music in a way that relates meaningfully? I suspect you have no studies or evidence to back that absurd proposition, but even if you did, it'd be obvious from the start that the methodology of the study is hopelessly unscientific. In other words, this is just complete and utter bullshit made up to support an argument that's just as bogus.
I will give you this: it's an old and persistent idea, it goes back at least to Plato. Of course, he had no evidence or good reason for saying it, either.
Re:Freedom of speech yes, abuse of due process no. (Score:5, Insightful)
No argument there.
> It also should be stopped because he's wrong.
That is where we are in conflict. If you want to present an argument contrary to his position, then fine. That is a part of civil discourse. That is a part of the freedom of speech. But let's face the fact here: a lot of people on Slashdot are arguing that JT should be stopped simply because they don't agree with him. Yet IF a hypothetical anti-JT was standing up for the freedom of expression in violent video games, and abusing the system of law in the exact same manner, a lot of people around these parts would be crying bloody murder if the anti-JT was facing disbarment.
And MAYBE a mild version of that has already happened. Remember the days of the SCO lawsuit. Remember how almost everyone was standing behind IBM's and Novell's legal teams almost without question. Remember how almost everyone was vilifying SCO, again without question. Now I'm not going to stand up for SCO because I believe that developers should have reasonable freedom to create and distribute their own work. But the point was that people were standing up for IBM and Novell without questioning their tactics or their motives.
The reason for that, and the reason why a lot of people seem so eager to see JT disbarred, is because we have an intense emotional attachment to the issue. We are letting it cloud our judgement, and because of that we have the online equivalent of a public lynching.
That emotial response is what I'm opposed to. Ever the more so because we are saying that our sense of morality takes priority over his.
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good ridance (Score:3, Insightful)
No ?
Then you'll be hearing a lot more of him, now that he's no longer bound by the Bar's regulations. He's going to be on every inbred radio show, spouting his filth in bulk. His "job" will be to get paid to talk, which is insulting easy to do in the U.S.A.
Re:fp (Score:5, Insightful)
Fox already hires nutjubs, crack cases, and quacks. Why stop at disbarred lawyers?
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ten years is unusual (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't like the dems much myself, but I have yet to see anything from the right leaning media that is much more substantial than "ooooh they are evil boogeymen socialists!". And people follow that crap right along, so... Stands to reason there are enough people that this fool could gain some traction. King George was elected twice afterall. Never underestimate the power of fundie loonies when they get motivated to a cause.
Though, I don't think much of this is terribly likely (I hope), and otherwise ol JT is a genius comedic actor on the stage of life! Hardly a moron, he gave the gift of laughter to people everywhere with that stunt.
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was thirteen, I was playing violent videogames - actually, IIRC, I was addicted to Solar Winds [wikipedia.org] - and jerkin' off to Playboy, Heavy Metal [wikipedia.org] magazine and whatever I could find via NNTP [google.com]. Oh, yeah, and trolling chatrooms... starting every conversation with "asl?"
Let kids be kids. Jeesh. That means getting obsessed with ninja gear, jerkin' off until their wrists are sore, and blowing things up with crudely made homemade explosives that only work a quarter of the damn time.
Phelps is pure evil (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good ridance (Score:3, Insightful)
Now there's a stupid comparison if there ever was one.
Thousands of people make lots of noise about video games, what has made Jack such a problem is all the damm lawsuits. Now that he would have to spend money on legal fees, just like the game companies he constantly takes to court, he will likely become much less relevent without a license. (I'm sure he'll still give press releases, and that Slashdot will still post them, but his ability to damage the industry has just gone way down)
Dr. Phil was just another shrink before he lost his license, it was because he lost his license that he started working in other areas, first as a consultant to lawyers, and a public speaker and then later (read, after meeting Oprah) moving into the things I'm guessing you hate him for. While losing his license was not directly responsible for his current status, if he had never lost his license, he likely would never have done anything more than be a local shrink.
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Insightful)
This gives me an idea. Let's devise a way so that parents could somehow know what video games their kids were playing. That way they could choose what they felt appropriate for their child.
This could work for other influences in the child's life, like friends, TV, movies, etc.
If only there were a way for a parent to get involved.
Re:Good ridance (Score:3, Insightful)
How long do you think it would be before a crack was out that removed the age requirement from the game, or, better still, a simple method of changing the user age variable was found (and if it was implemented by microsoft, it would have a simple hack. Microsoft has made some notable strides forward in their security, but they're still one of the most venerable if you have physical access and a user account (the numerous 'Get Administrator access without a password' hacks show this). If it's that easy to gain Admin access, how hard would it be to gain user-age access. Better still, wouldn't that be changeable to an Admin, thereby requiring exactly 0 new hacks?
Re:Good ridance (Score:3, Insightful)
There are legitimate questions about what sort of material should be available to minors. I'm on the side of requiring the parents to do most of the footwork to protect their children, but it might also be helpful if extra tools were provided.
In particular, what if games came with an age group flag when they were installed, and operating system users could also have an age limit specified, so that applications with a "18+" flag would not launch of a user configured as "13."
And who decides what's allowed for what age groups? Probably better to have well-defined ratings from 1-5 on various categories, that at least would let the parent (instead of some quasi-official regulatory body) do the deciding and just use the computer to help enforce that decision. Something like "No, little Johnny doesn't need exposure to this extreme violence. But a little minor nudity never hurt anyone." probably wouldn't work so well with US age-based ratings.
Re:Good ridance (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a best of all worlds scenario from my point of view, as it helps parents monitor their kids useage (you can refuse to buy it, but what if a friend lends it?), whilst not preventing the parents themselves, or any other adult in the house, temporarily lifting the restriction for their own use.
The biggest problem with this "Save the children!" mentality affecting America and, lately in particular, my own country, Australia, is that it seeks to remove responsibility from the parents. Every time something is banned to "save the children" the government is effectively saying "You aren't responsible enough to decide if your children are old enough to play this."
We all suffer for the sake of people who are too fricking lazy to raise their own children. They want the government to do it, and in its wisdom, it decides banning it for all people is the best way to "protect the children.".
I guess it's just a coincidence that the people making these decisions hold strong moral views that see perfectly legal things that some adults enjoy, such as sex, pornography and simulated violence, as evil and wrong. We should all respect the views of our new moral overlords.
Re:Good ridance (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, that's too sensible.
Re:Good ridance (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't let your kids use the computer that has this game installed on it.
or
Keep an eye on your kids while they're using your computer. This way you can prevent them from accessing all sorts of "mature content", not just the stuff that's stored on your hard drive.
or
Let your kids play the damn game if they want to. No one ever died from being exposed to "mature content".
Ratings systems are limited. (Score:4, Insightful)
Clearly, however, if you accept the need of a parent to evaluate a product legitimately, you cannot exclude all of the significant and potentially disturbing material from that evaluation.
Ergo, you need multiple scales. Perhaps a pair of values for violence (degree and realism), same for sexual content, and so on for whatever other factors child psychologists in general (not just the ones on the payroll of a pressure group) consider areas of genuine concern that can also be reliably quantified in a game setting.
These would replace the ratings system entirely. Parents who go by biological age ignore the individuality of needs, thereby not really evaluating but chickening out of their responsibility by blaming time. Evaluation has no place for blame and no time for those who betray their responsibilities. But what responsibility is there if elapsed cell divisions is not considered worthy of notice? The responsibility of understanding the person they are supposedly evaluating for. If a parent does not understand their child, their child's own specific needs and vulnerabilities, then the parent is far less mature and adult than the child themselves, and the child should be provided with a rational means of determining their limits and their comfort.
Re:Good ridance (Score:2, Insightful)
My mother caught be yelling "kill him" excitedly while watching a game of Last Ninja when I was 10 and subsequently forbid me to play that type of game. I obeyed that one command at least until I was 17 even though she had no real possibility to check that I was doing so.
Of course even in my family us siblings obeyed our parents to different degrees but I still belive that this would be less of a problem if more parents actually raised their children and not only let them grow older.
No, not really (Score:4, Insightful)
No, not really. I for one want him stopped because he's a fucking lunatic, and I don't see why such lunatics belong in a court of law. He's still free to rant on his own time, to whoever listens to him, but I genuinely don't see how he's fit to help determine if someone's guilty or not.
It's not just about games, but about all his surrealistic antics. Seriously, read even the sample on Wikipedia, and you tell me if it doesn't sound like someone clinically insane.
Nope, sorry. In fact: good grief, no. When I have something to say, I want it said in a professional way. The last thing I want is my position to become associated with raving lunatics, idiots trolling for attention and abuses of the judicial system.
He's acting like a troll fanboy, or what we'd call one on any forum. And that's something some people don't seem to understand: annoying fanboys and zealots don't actually help get your point across. Regardless of whether it's "Linux is ready for the desktop" or "games are good for you", you want it to come across as a helpful and even-handed opinion. You don't want it to become a case of, basically, "oh, heh, it's those trolling fanboys again, blowing stuff out of proportion." Annoying people for attention is bad too, because if you've annoyed them, they're automatically inclined to _not_ listen to anything you have to say.
In Slashdot terms, you want advocacy to come across as +5 Informative or +5 Interesting, not as -1 Flamebait.
It's not even as much a personal opinion. Read any advocacy faq, and it will tell you the same. People like JT are _not_ the kind you'd want as advocates, for any domain or idea. JT is the kind of obnoxious troll that the real advocates wish would STFU already and stop polluting the channel. _Especially_ if they profess to be on your side.
Re:Hasn't he... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good ridance (Score:3, Insightful)
I did, of course, make the point that she should have paid attention to it *before* he played it to start with. It is, however, likely that hell just go play at a friends anyway.
Re:fp (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good ridance (Score:2, Insightful)
venerable: made sacred especially by religious or historical association
You sure that's the word you meant to type?
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, and there are definitely those who don't want you to be able to easily make that distinction. There are a disturbing and depressing number of Americans who really do believe that not only is watching a woman take her shirt and bra off more damaging to a child than watching someone get shot or beheaded, but it is their duty as good Christians to make sure that everyone believes that—or at least has that standard enforced on them.
Dan Aris
Re:Freedom of speech yes, abuse of due process no. (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me state this again, your point is fine but you can't remove all context from the situation. After one of the shooting sprees, he came on fox news and said that the kid was sure to have been playing "murder simulators" like counter strike. This turned out to be completely false...the kid didn't even play video games. You are trying to tell me to have civil discourse with this man? Civil discourse is a two way street. JT is incapable of being civil, honest, or reasonable. Your fact is false:
Re:fp (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't enforce the law by breaking the law any more than you can fix a broken arm by smashing it with a brick. The Constitution is the supreme law in the US. Break that law and all other laws are worthless.
"better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer", expressed by the English jurist William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in the 1760s. [wikipedia.org]
In the US, you are innocent until PROVEN guilty in a court of law. If you "got off on a technicality" you are innocent. PERIOD.
You are NEVER going to have all the criminals in jail. No innocent man should EVER be put in prison. And nobody should have their rights abused by government.
Re:Good ridance (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, I don't know why people think this stuff is so dangerous. You know what's going to happen to this kid if he plays GTA a few years before his parents think he's "ready" for it? Nothing. He's going to grow up to be a well-adjusted individual, most likely, just like everyone else. To think otherwise is to buy into Jack Thompson's bullshit ideas about games turning kids into murderous zombies.