[ExI] the what race?

[Lee Corbin]

Damien B. writes

> At 11:53 AM 9/13/2008 -0700, Spike wrote:
> 
>>OK, so it is FoxNews that is propagating this whole Islam = race 
>>business.  The story contains the following quote:
>>
>>"Take control of the American hero and wipe out the Muslim race with 
>>an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons," the "Muslim 
>>Massacre" Web site says.
>>
>><http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,422122,00.html>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,422122,00.html

Looks like good clean fun to me.

> Eh? The Fox site headline is:
> 
> " 'Muslim Massacre' Video Game Has 'American Hero' Avatars Wipe Out 
> Followers of Islam"

Once again, Fox News escapes condemnation by a hair.

> It's the morons who make and sell the game who misuse the term 
> "race." After all, they're Australians; what can you expect?
> Meanwhile, expect attacks to increase against the Atheist Race and 
> the Scientist Race. Sorry, that's the Western "So-called Science" Race.

I would not mind a game called "Kill the Geek" in which one is
to go to Silicon Valley and try to hunt down and kill as many
men wearing pocket protectors and glasses as possible, nor 
would I especially mind "Massacre the Transhumans". In fact,
I'd in fact be positively delighted to see the emergence of a game
called "The Brights Must Die"  :-)  where you get to go after
Richard Dawkins (one of the purveyors of that stupid and
silly phrase).

But to hedge, often I do think that such things are *not* "good clean fun".
Almost the definition of a conservative is someone who is always
worried about society's morals, and fears and loathes nihilistic
artistic works. Any television rougher than "Leave it to Beaver"
excites in them (us) a feeling that one thing will lead to another,
and before long the standards of conduct will go all to hell.

Having my outlook firmly grounded in the fifties, I happened to
be one of those "innate conservatives" who was revolted by the
anomie and lack of respect for tradition of the sixties that took
place during my unfortunate teenage years.

On the other hand, I do not think that I and my little 11-year-old
friends were at all harmed by shows such as The Rifleman or
even The Untouchables, where every week at least two or three
in the former, and maybe a dozen people in the latter, were routinely
mown down. And it wasn't simply that they had it coming, were
bad guys who needed to be killed anyway---no, not only that.

I just finally came to believe decades later that folks are pretty good
at distinguishing fiction from reality, and that the same guy who
has slain thousands of people while playing "Doom" or any
realistic appearing game sporting immense amounts of blood,
does not have his true life behavior affected one bit, and if he
saw someone up close get bloodily killed, would have just as
great a chance as the rest of us has of throwing up.

Lee