Vice President Joe Biden believes there is not a legal restriction to taxing violent media. His statement was made in response to statements by the Reverend Franklin Graham at a summit of religious and political leaders. This violence in media tax could stretch to video games, movies, TV shows, and to comics. This is something we should nip right now before it gets out of hand. We need to band together now to get the point across the politicians that our types of entertainment do not cause violence.
Vice President Joe Biden
When the horrific violence happened in Newtown, many politicians and religious leaders were quick to point figures at who was responsible for the atrocities. In true political fashion, guns, violent video games. and other forms of violent media were pointed to. Instead of pointing to a person who had severe mental issues, society was blamed because politicians find it important to be politically correct when discussing evil. In their minds, there are not evil people in the world…just people who have been influenced by evil in inanimate objects or moving pictures.
Vice President Joe Biden believes there is not a legal restriction to taxing violent media, but we should work together now to make sure there becomes one. Taxes should be based on logic and believing that video games and movies would cause someone to shoot up a theater or a school is not logical. If that were true, this country would have devolved many years ago when the generation after mine grew up on games like Doom.
Yes, the portrayal of violence is getting stronger in video games, in movies, on TV, and in the pages of comic books…but that does not equate to why there is more violence in the world. There are more stresses now with the economy still being in the toilet, people still being out of work, and more threats of wars on foreign soil.
Blaming the violence in media is an easy way out. It gets constituents riled up and gives them a target to go after in witch-hunt formation. This is the same type of riling that went on in the 1950s when politicians blamed comic books for the increase in childhood rabblerousing and crime. Instead, they should have been looking at the psychology of teenagers growing up in a post-war society in which many of the fathers, uncles, and cousins had been killed overseas. Instead of studying the psychology of someone who snaps, politicians want to point to entertainment.
Vice President Joe Biden is a lost cause right now if he cannot come right out and say that taxing violent media is wrong. Instead, contact your representatives in Congress to let them know how you feel about the issue. Send word to the entertainment industry to point out how you will stand with the industry on this issue. We should not have to pay extra taxes because some clown in Washington wants a few extra votes from closed-minded people.
