US Senator wants health warnings on video games
This article may increase your risk of high blood pressure and depression
The blogosphere is understandably up in arms today at democratic Senator Joe Baca's proposal that video games carry health warnings, like cigarettes.
The proposed Video Game Health Labeling Act of 2009 aims to forestall the kind of violence that occurs when a child plays a video game without his parents on hand to explain to him the difference between killing goombas and killing their IRL friends.
The health notice, should the bill get passed, would read: “WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior.”
The key part of that sentence is ‘has been linked.’ Because, of course, any old hack can link something to something else.
The evils of the world have been 'linked’ to homosexuality. Saddam’s regime was ‘linked’ with Al Qaida and WMDs. James Blunt is occasionally ‘linked’ with the term 'musician.' Just because somebody has made a link, that doesn’t mean a link exists.
And, as his linguistic slithering suggests, Senator Baca knows this all too well.
