There is an article on the nytimes website about children and media.  As usual some of the candidates (for those outside of the US, I mean the candidates for US president) seem to be reasonable and some are just scary.  The fairly reasonable, Senator Edwards and Senator Obama and Governor Richardson basically said they were inclined to let the gaming industry police itself as a first step, but if it couldn't police itself well enough then they would want the federal government to step in.

Governor Romney on the other hand had this to say: “we get serious against those retailers that sell adult video games that are filled with violence and that we go after those retailers.”  Um, are we still talking about children and violent video games or is Romney just trying to get rid of violent video game altogether?  Either way do we really want the government to be the ones that say what OUR children are allowed to play and what constitutes violent?

On another note, an article over on Game Politics talks about Romney lumping media violence in with drugs and internet porn and calling the group of them as an "ocean of filth".  This is what really scares me about the federal government passing laws about video games.  I think some movies, tv, video games, etc. are inappropriate for children, but I wouldn't make a blanket statement about these and call them filth.  Just because they aren't appropriate for a particular age group doesn't make them filth.  Even when simply talking about the issue he is going too far, what happens if he was elected and starting pushing for real laws?  Another issue I have with this statement, violent media is placed into the same group as drugs and internet porn?  Are you really serious?

You can see the candidates full responses to the question at Common Sense Media

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