Discrimination

Has anyone else noticed the fact that "discrimination" is of the root word "crime"?

Let's begin:

In the aftermath of a recent school shooting in Germany, the regional governments of Bavaria and Lower Saxony have proposed new legislation that could punish those who make, distribute, or even play video games featuring "cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters" with a fine and up to a year in prison. The newly drafted bill is scheduled to go before the upper house of parliament next year.

I don't mind the bill. It's a good idea. Kids see far too much violence in the modern world. But this is where I disagree:

The 18-year old shooter, who according to an online report from MSNBC was an avid player of the popular first-person shooter Counter Strike, attacked the Scholl secondary school on November 20 in the western German town of Emsdetten, and wounded as many as 37 people before killing himself.

It's as if they went "Aha! He plays Counter-Strike! He must be a bad seed..."

Let's look at Counter-Strike. It's a team-based, round-based game where a group of terrorist group needs to protect hostages or plant a bomb (depending if they're playing offensive or defensive) and the counter-terrorist team has to rescue hostages or prevent the bomb from being planted or worst case scenario defuse the bomb. If any team is eradicated the other team wins by default. So, except for the fact that it's a computer game and you have real guns... It's simply paintball. The characters in the game don't die in any realistic manner, they never cry for mercy nothing. How can you blame such a lame game with graphics from the late 1990's and gameplay similar to a classic teenager pastime for a guy buying a gun and massacring in school?

The same thing used to happen with suicide and metal music in the late 1980's during the new wave of American Metal. In many cases that the government and Tipper Gore were unaware of metal actually saved lives because children (teenagers) realised that they weren't going through those things alone.

You really start to think "Where do they come up with this stuff?"

Slayer is an "openly satanic band and a detriment to society", according to a musicologist I shall not name. Slayer's lead vocalist is a devote catholic.

My point: People are very quick to judge you by what you do as recreation and stop listening when they find what they are looking for, not when they find the truth.

I fully understand that you cannot get to know a person fully, few people know themselves that well, before making up your mind about them, but try not to use your personal judgement and damaged history to decide why someone else did something.

OK, I'll stop now.