Jack Thompson's Letter To Take-Two Exec's Mother 351
debatem1 writes "Apparently, anti-violent-video-games crusader Jack Thompson is at it again, this time writing a letter to the mother of Strauss Zelnick, Chairman of Take-Two, the company that produces the GTA series of video games. In it he compares Zelnick to a member of the Hitler Youth, advocates beating the young Zelnick, and contemplates the existence of a Ted Bundy merit badge for boy scouts."
Like herpes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Like herpes (Score:5, Funny)
Just a thought.
Re:Like herpes (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Like herpes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Like herpes (Score:4, Informative)
The Florida bar recently concluded a disciplinary hearing against JT. Though they don't make it public what exactly they're looking for, it's pretty clear they're settling for nothing less than disbarment, probably permanent. However, a final decision isn't expected til sometime in July.
Re:Like herpes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Like herpes (Score:5, Funny)
You mean it is not the Aussie actor Jack Thompson?? This whole time I swear I thought it was the actor. All these fucking years I just assumed it was the same Jack Thompson until I actually for once in my life RTFA. All the jokes about the Aussie actor and I still didn't get it, I though it was him.
Let that be a lesson to all you kids out there: RTFA!
Re:Like herpes (Score:5, Funny)
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"have a character that looked exactly like Jack Thompson that a little old lady blows"
Now that'd be sticking it to him.
Re:Like herpes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Like herpes (Score:5, Funny)
My understanding is that the GTA video makes a reference to a "lawyer who dislikes violent games" and Thompson thinks it is obviously a parody of him.
FIRST -- parody's are not slanderous, particularly when they are true to the real life version.
SECOND -- GTA gets heat from many researchers and lawyers who have much better reputations then Thompson, so it is naive of him to think they would single out him for the joke.
THIRD -- It is funny, laugh. Geez... show me a guy who can't laugh at a joke about himself and I will show you a guy who'll never be the life of ANY party.
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Re:Like herpes (Score:5, Interesting)
Just a thought.
That reminds me, didn't he have an agreement wherein they don't crush him like a bug for libel and he stops mentioning them and their games, at all, forever?
Re:Like herpes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Like herpes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Like herpes (Score:5, Funny)
call jacks kids/family (Score:5, Insightful)
and see how they feel about their dads conduct
fairs fair right ?
Re:call jacks kids/family (Score:5, Funny)
Gah, I don't believe it.
Re:call jacks kids/family (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:call jacks kids/family (Score:5, Insightful)
1b) Even if fair's fair, you won't dismantle his campaign by stooping to his level.
2) I'm almost certain that because he's their father, they agree with his general opposition to violent games, and may even deny some of his conduct even happened—it's akin to politicians' kids and relatives.
I hope (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I hope (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I hope (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I hope (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I hope (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I hope (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I hope (Score:4, Insightful)
No. Make this JT's second charitable donation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Zelnick should take the letter and auction it off. He should then give the proceeds to Child's Play (or some equally ironic charity), in Thompson's name, of course. Because much as I'd like yet another quiet suit against Thompson, watching him fume helplessly as his attacks are turned against him - again - would be pure poetic justice, and that's just pure win.
Let me be the one to say (Score:3, Funny)
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Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony (Score:5, Funny)
... including, apparently, the Pope.
Go figure.
Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Did he have a choice? And was there really anything fundamentally wrong with the group that would be obvious to a 14 year old child at the time? At the time, Hitler wasn't considered all that bad in Germany. Until the late 1930's he wasn't considered too bad by most of the world.
Actually, it's claimed that Ratzinger was pretty defiant and avoided going to meetings, but I suspect that's something made up by the Vatican's PR people.
Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony (Score:4, Insightful)
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Actually, it's claimed that Ratzinger was pretty defiant and avoided going to meetings, but I suspect that's something made up by the Vatican's PR people.
I'm quite certain of it.
When Croatia proclaimed independence from Yugoslavia, many (if not all) of our new leaders were ex-members of the Communist Party. However, since communism became a snarl word much like in the USA some 50 years ago, they all started explaining how they had been defiant and subversive and always fought for a national state of Croats. Some even wrote books on the subject. Lengthy, boring ones.
I don't think I need to point out all the similarities.
Now, bullshitting is what politics
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One member of Swedish Parliament even thought Hitler deserved the nobel peace price [nobelprize.org]! For some reason the same MP member withdrew his nomination sometime in 1939
Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony (Score:5, Insightful)
... including, apparently, the Pope.
Go figure.
That being said, the Nazi deal just doesn't stick. He was basically forced into the Hitler Youth, and he ran away when they tried to enlist him in the army.
So please, can we just stay on target and let this stupid argument die here?
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Listen; I'm an atheist, and I understand why people hate the pope. After all, he's probably responsible for a hell of a lot children being molested and teenagers giving birth to unwanted children. That being said, the Nazi deal just doesn't stick. He was basically forced into the Hitler Youth, and he ran away when they tried to enlist him in the army. So please, can we just stay on target and let this stupid argument die here?
Oh, my.
Really, I just wanted to add him to the list like the cherry on top of a sundae, with no real intent to troll.
Though OTOH, living in a very Catholic country, I despise the guy and the organization under his rule one iota more than the average Muslim terrorist.
This, however, has very little to do with Hitlerjugend.
Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony (Score:5, Interesting)
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That being said, the Nazi deal just doesn't stick. He was basically forced into the Hitler Youth, and he ran away when they tried to enlist him in the army.
Yes, while thousands of young people of the time, including Jehovah's Witnesses, gave their life or were forced into concentration camps for refusing to have anything to do with fascism.
Now, I'm not a pope fan, nor even a fan of most religion, but this is an absurd remark. I find it in extremely poor taste to fault Ratzinger at age 14 in a highly subversive state because he (along with all German boys at that age) was put into the Hitler Youth; and then later adopted a spiritual life and became Pope. I'm sure you never faltered in your moral direction when you were an adolescent, right? Because, I mean, you're pretty much a functional, adjusted adult a year after you hit puberty, yes? Wit
Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony (Score:4, Insightful)
~Jarik
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The Pope can choose whether to save or planten booten to your arse
Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony (Score:4, Funny)
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What's more... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony (Score:5, Funny)
Oblig moral question (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Oblig moral question (Score:4, Funny)
Is that the only reason I can go back in time? Can I take a few periodicals and mail them to myself? Because if answer to both questions is "yes" I would definately do that. I could always buy him France later to make it up to him.
Chutzpah (Score:5, Informative)
tattletale (Score:2, Informative)
Stop submitting Jack Thompson stories. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Stop submitting Jack Thompson stories. (Score:4, Funny)
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Do you really want someone intelligent taking over his spot? As it stands right now he will never get anything done, which is how I like it personally.
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It's not a zero-sum game here -- if he's gone, there's no sign anyone else is going to take his place. It's not as if the moral crusaders of the world have been holding back and waiting for him to vacate the spot.
Glory Hole (Score:4, Insightful)
There's an advantage to keeping him around (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Glory Hole (Score:4, Funny)
Jack personifies the sort of person who objects to video games in the way that Fred Phelps personifies hardcore Christianity.
We need people like them to remind us of what people who want to micromanage our personal behaviors are really like.
Re:Glory Hole (Score:4, Insightful)
He still gets on Fox News/CNN/60 Minutes/etc. People around here have heard of him, sure, but to the world at large, he's just another guy being quoted as an expert on TV. Ignoring him won't discredit his semi-regular TV appearances.
Re:Glory Hole (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Glory Hole (Score:5, Informative)
Bully 2 (Score:3, Funny)
Mental Health (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to seriously wonder, is this man mentally ill? The only reason he receives any attention now was due to his previous work, but as the things he says and does keep getting stranger and stranger I have to wonder.
In the US, people are only forcibly evaluated for mental illness under the most obvious conditions. If you have a person who is slowly slipping off the edge no one will do anything until he becomes an obvious problem. Even then it is usually be ignored unless he harms someone.
It is quite possible that Jack Thompson is out of his mind. But no one will step in until after he has practically killed someone.
Re:Mental Health (Score:5, Insightful)
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Whatever (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure there's going to be fallout from this. I eagerly await Zelnick's reply.
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Re:Whatever (Score:4, Interesting)
Free will and GTA (Score:4, Funny)
Letter to Barbara Bush (Score:5, Funny)
Your son, as you may know (or maybe you don't know), is the President of the United States, whose most popular foreign policy adventures are killing hundreds of thousand of people. Though they are a different color, I do believe they are still people.
Your son last week was reported to have said the following about Iran: "A nuclear Iran must not be allowed."
Taking your son's thought, I would encourage you either to join the Marines, or encourage all of your grand-children to join up, especially Jenna and little Barbara.
What you will see in the next war, if this iteration of war is anything like its predecessors, is incredible interactive violence aimed at everyone (whom you can shoot in the head and see the blood spray), innocent bystanders (whom you can run over with your Humvee or tank just for the heck of it), and of course the plentiful indigenous female prostitutes you can have sex with and then filet with a knife or stomp with your feet in order to get your money back. Experts note that the recent plethora of killings is caused in whole by your darling son's Administration and philosophical flunkies. There are four thousand dead soldiers in Iraq, and perhaps almost a million dead civilians. No, really - it was on 60 Minutes. I hope Bush has provided you with a flat screen TV to see the grief of the bereaved families that fills the screen. I mean, if reporters were allowed to say such things.
The violence that your son trafficks in is the kind of stuff that most mothers would be ashamed to see their son putting into the hands of other mothers' children, but, hey, your son Bush has recently assured the world that he is "a Boy Scout, everybody knows that." I'd love to see the merit badges that Scout Troop handed out. Is there a Colonialism merit badge? If so, your loving son deserves one now.
There's hundreds of thousands of mothers you would do well to talk to. They have a grief they carry every day that only a mother can know. There are other such mothers in the heartland of Iran whose inhabitants your son simply sees as commercial targets.
Your son, this very moment, is doing everything he possibly can to sell the new Iran war, to "defend" a country in which your son claims you raised him to be "a Boy Scout." More like the Hitler Youth, I would say.
Happy Mother's day, Mrs. Bush, which this year is May 11, and who knows how soon until your son or his predecessor unleash actual death and violence upon other mothers' boys. I'm sure you're very proud.
Re:Letter to Barbara Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
Payback (Score:2)
I don't know if you've noticed it or not, but your son is a real asshole.
Also, I believe that he has an object roughly the size of baseball bat crammed up his ass, seeing as this is the only possible way that he could be this fucking annoying. I suggest that you get it removed as soon as possible (if not for his sake, than for for ours).
I would wish you a happy mothers day, but I think this a probably a time of mourning for you, as you must constantly be reminded of the terrible choice yo
So what? (Score:2)
I don't see what all the fuss is about (Score:5, Funny)
Sheesh, can't Jack Thompson do nice things every once in a while?
Have you no shame, Jack Thompson? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are certain limits you don't cross. There are certain things you don't do, no matter what your agenda may be. Writing the mother of one of the people you 'fight' against and likening her son to Baldur von Schirach is one of them.
If this proves anything, it's not that computer games, no matte what content, are bad, but that Jack Thompson is on a witch hunt. It has become obvious that his agenda isn't anymore to protect anyone. This isn't an attempt to end the sale of violent games. It is a direct attack on a person which isn't even in any way connected to the problem he allegedly has with those games. He claims he tries to protect people from psychologic damage these games allegedly do, but he himself caused psychologic damage to a person who doesn't even partake in the whole process of creating those games.
So far, I didn't care too much about Jack Thompson. So far, he was a nut that tried to stop games from being sold. So be it. Whether those games exist, I don't really care. Now he is causing emotional harm to people who don't even have a connection with the game industry, except through some relative. Should we start harrassing his kids about their father's witchhunt?
I wouldn't go down to that level. Punishment for the sins of your kin have been abolished in Germany since... well, given his choice of comparisons, Jack Thompson seems to know since when.
+1 (Score:2)
Re:Have you no shame, Jack Thompson? (Score:5, Funny)
Jack should learn alternative ways to work out his agressive impulses without hurting others. Perhaps video games could help? There's nothing like a violent video game to get that sort of thing out of your system.
The real problem (Score:5, Insightful)
What I have a big problem with is the mentality shared by him and anyone else who thinks they know what's good for us: the unstated assumption that I am unable to decide for myself whether playing a video game is in my interests, and the unstated assumption that parents are incapable of deciding on their own whether their children are mature enough to handle the content of a video game. Basically, he's assuming that we are all mindless zombies with no choice but to imitate anything we see on a screen, and he's also trying to tell parents how they should raise their children, implying that they are unable to handle the job without his input. I assure you, no one who wants to do these things has a pure motive.
The whole thing is an insult. It illustrates yet again the attitude that "it's not good enough that I choose to abstain from something; everybody else must do the same as me." It also assumes that no one is capable of distinguishing a fictional video game from reality, which is ironically more likely if we stop expecting people to know the difference.
I am very thankful that my parents (within reason, of course) did not try to shelter me from every little objectionable thing in the world. Instead, they explained to me why something was right or wrong and equipped me to deal with an imperfect world that contains many things I might not like. If the Jack Thompsons of the world had their way, no one would be able to actually grow up into an adult human being who can deal with the world the way it is and perhaps try to make it a better place because every potential source of controversy would be censored. What he is advocating is really a form of cowardice, which is generally the motive behind those who would tell you how to live your life.
Blaming Zelnick's parents?? (Score:5, Insightful)
There does seem to be a certain irony in writing to Mr Zelnick's mother to complain about his upbringing when Jack Thompson's main argument, as far as I can gather, is that violent media, including video games, are primarily responsible for violence in young people and society.
If that's the case, why does he expect that she had anything to do with it? Surely she's as much a victim of a free state as all the other parents whose children are running wild and uncontrolled.
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Re:Silly troll (yup, IHBT... *sigh*) (Score:5, Insightful)
GTA isn't for kids, and I certainly think that cases where children are playing it are troubling (particularly for hours and hours on end, but that's true of any video game regardless of content), but the whole violent-videogames-cause-RL-violence meme is silly. It's much more defensible that individuals who are violent in nature are attracted to violent video games -- but I don't see how that's an argument for any kind of a ban, certainly not a strong enough argument to overcome the first-amendment counterpoint. Any rational individual knows that actions taken in real life have real consequences attached to them, and so evaluates such actions using a completely different metric than one might use in playing a game.
So -- I won't complain about the consequences of violent video games being available for sale to adults, because I honestly believe that there are no substantial negative consequences on the scale described. If my family is (against all probability to the contrary) murdered in a random act of violence, I'll do the rational thing and blame the person who pulled the trigger, rather than searching for scapegoats. That said, violent videogames have permeated our society to the point that any real effects on the level of random violence should already be highly visible -- and while there's a highly publicized shooting spree here or there, (1) there's no clear causal correlation, and (2) the death rate from those isn't even close to background noise in the grand scheme of things; it's far, far more likely that my family will die in a random traffic accident, and that's a risk we willingly accept every time we get in the car to watch a movie or go to the store.
Keep your fearmongering. If you want to live in a world where you're afraid of every kid who owns an Xbox, you're welcome to -- but me and mine prefer to go about living our lives (and facing much more real and present challenges), unworried by your imaginary and unrealized fears. I imagine those who were afraid of D&D or rock-and-roll felt similarly to you earlier in this century -- every generation finds some reason to worry needlessly about their youth -- but history proved those fears out as unfounded, and will do so again.
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Jack Thompson should try out this new technique called "parenting" it's worth promoting!
Re:Silly troll (yup, IHBT... *sigh*) (Score:4, Insightful)
There certainly is such a thing as acceptable risk in return for entertainment -- remember that people are killed in car accidents going to the movies or out to buy toys or games or such, and nonetheless rational individuals choose to take such actions. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if more people are killed driving to and from movies in a year than by game-inspired gun violence. Would you ban movies or require that toys and games be purchased mail-order to reduce the instances of car accidents?
Also, the whole bloody-mayhem thing isn't exactly new. The most notorious example in the city I currently live in is that of Charles Whitman, dating back to the late 60s. I'd argue that mass media loudly publicizing such events has more to do with any recent surge (the existence of which I'm not presently ceding) than any other factor -- who doesn't want to be a household name?
Re:Just face it guys (Score:5, Insightful)
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I really don't see what your point is. We know this is true, and we still have plenty of fun doing it.
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Who says that, exactly? In the UK all the GTA games have been rated 18. I gather that in the US, they've normally been rated 17 - which was why the Hot Coffee thing was so controversial over there, since a sex scene would have upgraded the game to an 18. Either way, it's not as if very many children are being sold these games. No sensible parent would buy little Timmy such a game, any more than they would sit them down in front of a DVD of 'Scarfa
Re:I say contact the ADL (Score:4, Funny)
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He that spareth his rod hateth his son.
And it refers to physical discipline.