INTRODUCTION OF LAW

Prompt: The final Progymnasmata exercise asks you to attack or defend a specific law that is timely and relevant to your topic for the course. This longer exercise (at least 500 words) requires you to use extrinsic proofs and the other rhetorical strategies we have been studying in order to support your claim for why the particular law should be justified or repealed. Think carefully about how data, facts, and the testimony of authorities might be used strategically to influence your readers for or against your cause. All extrinsic proofs should be attributed and qualified in your writing. Overall, you should use this exercise to prepare for the research-based action essay that will be our final project for this course. Topic: Looking at the consequences of video games in contemporary American culture. Thesis: A California law banning the violent sale of video games to minors was justly struck down by the Supreme Court. Had the law gone into effect, it would have violated the freedom of individuals to choose their own standards of entertainment, and it would have been a costly mistake to enact. Exercise: The U.S. Supreme Court made a vital decision to protect the freedom of gamers to choose their own entertainment when it struck down a California law that would have banned the sale of violent video games to anyone under 18 years old. According to a CNN story on the decision, the ban was designed to protect the legal obligation [of the state] to protect children from graphic interactive images when the industry has failed to do so (CNN.com). Fortunately, the Supreme Court recognized that the protection of freedom and choice are more relevant in this case than the protection of irrational fears about violence. Neither the state nor any other government entity should be allowed to decide that games designed for entertainment are universally bad for children. The California law, if enacted, would have stepped over a line between government and business by attempting to regulate an industry that is already regulating itself well. As the technology website TGDaily has reported, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has already been working with the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) to monitor levels of violence and sexuality in video games. The ESRB offers the most robust entertainment rating system available, claims Michael Gallagher, CEO of the ESA. Gallagher, whose record includes work with a national Educate to Innovate campaign as well as service as the U.S. Department of Commerce's Assistant Secretary for Communications & Information, points to the California law as troubling because it attacks not only violence but also creative expression (TGDaily.com). Gallagher and others who work on the legal side of the video game industry have already attempted to take a more proactive approach to offensive material by including ratings on games and with descriptions of the types of potentially offensive material the games contain. This rating system is the best law available: it allows for gamers to make their own choices individually about the types of games they want to play while still alerting consumers to material that they may want to avoid. In addition to its impingement on freedom and choice, the California law would have been extremely impractical. Policing sales of video games would require significant expense, presumably involving undercover officers and costly

sting operations. Although details of these expenses were not considered by the Supreme Court, the effectiveness of such measures are worth considering. According to a 2011 report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the violation rate of tobacco sales to minors rose from 9.9 percent in 2008 to 10.9 percent in 2009 (SAMHSA.gov). This increase was registered in spite of attempts by state and federal agencies to coordinate efforts to prohibit illegal sales of tobacco to minors. The failure of measures similar to those that would have to be enacted in California suggest that the proposed ban on video games would be difficult, if not impossible, to actually put into practice. Overall, then, the California ban would have been a restrictive, costly, and ineffective mistake if it had actually been upheld by the Supreme Court decision. Fortunately, in this case, the Supreme Court saw through the claims that this law would be a victory for parents and educators. Protecting choice and freedom, the Court recognized that the more important argument was the security of the right for parents with varying standards to choose their own policies towards video games.