How can anything in our political system pass when its reasons for existence are nothing but lies? Louisiana recently passed a bill, thanks to Rep. Roy Burrell, to keep video games out of the hands of minors. Obviously, the debate on whether or not that's our government's place is another issue entirely. The problem with this bill is how it passed.

Burrell brought in "ace" anti-video game attorney Jack Thompson to make part of his point, and this is where things begin to go wrong (no surprise to anyone who has followed this debate that has gone on for nearly fifteen years now). Thompson's absurd, ridiculous, and flat-out stupid discussion of the Playstation 2's Dual Shock controller was by far and away the biggest lie of the day:

[The controller] literally gives you a pleasurable jolt and vibration back into your hands every time you kill someone. When you take a car and you run over innocent virtual pedestrians in the game you get a pleasurable vibration as your wheels go over their skulls.

He went on to say that this was created by Rockstar and Sony, and this increases people's urge to kill. Not only has the technology been around since the Nintendo 64, Sony has even been sued over the technology and won't be using it on their next console. Worse yet, the vibration feature is used in nearly every game on every system. Sometimes it simulates a heartbeat in a tense situation (like a close 9th inning in a baseball game), a nudge in a racing game, or even when Mario plays a mini-game in the latest Mario Party game.

Thompson provided no facts, proof, or studies to show this has any extra effect on the person playing the game. His rant on Rockstar's upcoming Bully was likewise over-the-top, saying you could bludgeon teachers with a bat, when not even top-tier video game sites have anything of this nature in their coverage of the game. We know nothing of how it will play, but apparently Thompson snuck out some secret info on the game and decided to use it.

Burrell then began a misguided approach for the reasoning to his bill, condemning the game Border Patrol, an online flash game created by a hate group to make their point about immigration. A key point is that this is a Flash game on the Internet. It is in no way connected to the industry, nor would his bill have any effect on the game being created or played. That didn't stop him from going through a graphic depiction of the game:

"Immigration is a hot issue right now. Many of these young people would think they may be doing something for the United States (by shooting immigrants). This is their way of contributing." He also included how the game has players shooting a pregnant Mexican woman called the "breeder." Utterly disgusting? Sure. The question is why is this being discussed in any form at a hearing of this nature? He continues:

"They are getting ready to come out with a new series of games for gang members...they're going to be killing white kids, is basically how it's designed."