Do as I Say, Not as I Made Millions

Matt Welch | October 8, 2005

Arnold Schwarzenneger, a man who forged a career out of gobbling steroids and peddling cartoon mayhem to teenagers, signed laws late this week to curtail steroid use and ban the sale of violent video games to teens. Gory details from the New York Times:

[H]igh school athletes must attest in writing that they are not taking performance-enhancing substances banned by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, including synephrine, ephedra and DHEA. They can be expelled for violating the ban.

The law also requires coaches to attend a training class on how to spot the use of illegal substances and to warn students about their dangers.

The video game measure is similar to bills passed recently in Illinois and Michigan but is expected to have far broader impact because of the size of the California market and the state's role in blazing national trails on social issues.

The bill bans the sale or rental to those under 18 of any video games that "depict serious injury to human beings in a manner that is especially heinous, atrocious or cruel." Violations carry a fine of up to $1,000.

Link via Digital Warfighter.

Comments

RJT|10.8.05 @ 6:49PM|#

perhaps he has aged wisely?? sarcasm at own discretion

|10.8.05 @ 6:59PM|#

My view: Arnie's just signing these feel-good laws to appease the masses. I don't think he gives a flying fuck one way or the other about any of that stuff.

Pete Guither|10.8.05 @ 7:08PM|#

"depict serious injury to human beings"

So what's the definition of human beings? Can the games simply describe all the characters as being humanoid aliens from another dimension that happen to look just like human beings?

|10.8.05 @ 7:11PM|#

Pete:

Obviously "human beings" are whatever the lawmakers/law-enforcers decide they are.

|10.8.05 @ 7:18PM|#

Does this mean that my children won't be able to purchase videogames in which they blow the fuck out of goddamn Japs and Krauts in a WWII setting? I was able to sit by for Raich, Kelo, and the rest, but at this point I just want to know where I go to sign up for the revolution.

|10.8.05 @ 7:25PM|#

Maybe he's actually just trying to teach our children a valuable lesson about the proper use of irony. What better way to get through to them than by keeping them from buying Abe Lincoln Teaches Killing?

|10.8.05 @ 10:02PM|#

I just don't get the 'Negger most of the time. His decisions are so wildly erratic that it's impossible to make a prediction on what he might do next.

Since kids here can drive at 16 I guess what we're saying is:

We'll give you the tools to commit manslaughter but we're sure as hell not going to allow you to practice.

|10.8.05 @ 11:10PM|#

I keep tryin' to dislike Arnold...

...but then I see another commercial showing how pissed off the government employees are at him or I see a bunch of government employees picketing him, and I fall for him all over again.

All those government employees can't be wrong. If he's really pissin' 'em off like that, then he must be doing somethin' absolutely right.

...for people like me!

|10.8.05 @ 11:44PM|#

I just don't get the 'Negger most of the time. His decisions are so wildly erratic that it's impossible to make a prediction on what he might do next.

Since kids here can drive at 16 I guess what we're saying is:

Actually, what I think that knuckle-dragging steroid-head is saying is that he's a fucking hypocrite with very few principles, who supports policies on the basis of how popular they are.

IOW, he's an asshole.

Warren|10.8.05 @ 11:53PM|#

He certainly doesn't seem to be doing anything inspired whith the office.

|10.9.05 @ 12:01AM|#

�[H]igh school athletes must attest in writing that they are not taking performance-enhancing substances banned by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, including synephrine, ephedra and DHEA. They can be expelled for violating the ban.�

Being expelled is too harsh for high school kids. Some high school students depend on sports to pay to go to college through scholarships. How the hell are they going to test for these drugs? Does anybody know the chances of getting a false positive with these tests? That would be devastating for the student that gets expelled because of failing a damn drug test.
It must be close to election time in California.

|10.9.05 @ 12:32AM|#

As long as we're talking about Arnie and his evident hypocrisy with regard to performance enhancing supplements and violent entertainment, I may as well point out that he also signed into law a bill banning those under 21 from purchasing "handgun" ammunition.

Nevermind that there are any number of rifle type firearms that are chambered for the more popular pistol cartridges: 9mm, .45 ACP, etc.

|10.9.05 @ 1:30AM|#

IOW, he's an asshole.

Well if the Green Lantern doesn't like him, why, that's good enough for me.

|10.9.05 @ 3:28AM|#

how does ephedra land on the same list as roids? shit, ephedra is legal now and its the sole reason i'm awake and typing right now. i'm not dead yet and my joints aren't coming unhinged, my typing or reasoning isn't superior to the next poster b/c of it..........

|10.9.05 @ 3:44AM|#

Call me a lunatic, but I voted against the recall (I thought it wrong) and then for McClintock because I know exactly where he stands on one important issue (watching him face off against a Democratic legislature and nuke budget items left and right would have been a sight).

He's still stuck playing the character too often (the girly men remark when the Dem's played hardball and campaigning for Bush in Ohio last year come to mind as examples). Yet, I don't feel like he's been a total failure. Just not my idea of moderate success.

Arnold's spin on union funding of political funny money does seem wrongly placed to me. Had he attacked the whole damned system and laid out all the issues that plague Sacramento, that would have been fine. Instead, Prop 75 attacks a wart on the ass of a buffalo.

Lobbyist spending is out of control everywhere. Why start off by picking on the little guy unless that's the whole point?

|10.9.05 @ 3:58AM|#

Slow down there, anonymous coward - what about the Eyeties? Why does no-one ever lament not being able to kill them?

|10.9.05 @ 4:32AM|#

Ya know what's great about this? The fact that I don't live in Cali.

Had this been a federal law, I'd be pissed. However, states are the laboratories of democracy and all that. Whoever was hoping that Cali was going to become Libertopia was just a little bit misinformed.

And anyone wanna put money on whether or not the L.A. and New York Times newsies editorialize on how wonderful it was for Arnie to sign this bill?

|10.9.05 @ 10:25AM|#

Don't blame me, I voted for Larry Flynt.

EyeDoc|10.9.05 @ 10:31AM|#

I'm sick of this whole "I took drugs so I can't tell other people not to take them " motif. I took drugs growing up, so that's supposed to mean that I can't get smarter as I grow older and tell my kids not to do the same stupid things I used to do?

|10.9.05 @ 10:55AM|#

Actually, what I think that knuckle-dragging steroid-head is saying is that he's a fucking hypocrite with very few principles, who supports policies on the basis of how popular they are.

Oh, a politician, eh?

|10.9.05 @ 10:57AM|#

EyeDoc

There's a world of difference between giving advice and using the power of the state.

|10.9.05 @ 12:52PM|#

I'm sick of this whole "I took drugs so I can't tell other people not to take them " motif. I took drugs growing up, so that's supposed to mean that I can't get smarter as I grow older and tell my kids not to do the same stupid things I used to do?

It depends on whether or not buying into the bullshit our puritanical government tells us about drugs and drug use is any indication that you're "smarter."

There is nothing worse than a penitent sinner, they think everyone else has to beat the Bible along with them... or else.

|10.9.05 @ 1:06PM|#

Hear me now and believe me later, Ahnold is a girly man, with all of his money and liberal wife, I would crush him like a little grape and then he would start crying.

EyeDoc|10.9.05 @ 1:32PM|#

Okay, but there's a difference between kids using steroids and adults using steroids, although steroids are not legal for either of them without a prescription. I'll agree that expelling kids for steroid use is too harsh, and I'm not saying the government should be in the business of protecting adults from themselves.

What I have a problem with is the attitude that if you tell someone not to do something that you yourself has done, that you're being hypocritical and you shouldn't be doing it.

|10.9.05 @ 2:51PM|#

That would be devastating for the student that gets expelled because of failing a damn drug test.

Not to mention for participation rates in extracurricular sports. Talk about your disincentives.

Incidentally, it's Schwarzenegger. Why not make an autoformat/-correct for it? Or you can remember it by breaking the spelling into clusters: Sch-war-zen-egg-er.

|10.9.05 @ 3:50PM|#

Your trainer gives you exercises, he gives you lifestyle hints, he recommends certain health foods, then he recommends dietary supplements.
You listen. You win. Then later you learn.
Just because he grabbed your wife's ass doesn't make him a bad man. I would have prefered McClintock, too, but McClintock didn't know who his friends [KSFO] were.

|10.9.05 @ 10:00PM|#

For German release, the authors of war games will give everybody a robotic skin so they don't look like people and get past anti-violence laws.

Then, I'd imagine, some hacker releases the original skinset on the net.

|10.10.05 @ 12:02PM|#

He certainly doesn't seem to be doing anything inspired whith the office.

Like FDR and LBJ? Yay.

nmg|10.10.05 @ 12:12PM|#

Eyedoc: [i]What I have a problem with is the attitude that if you tell someone not to do something that you yourself has done, that you're being hypocritical and you shouldn't be doing it.[/i]

He's not "telling someone not to do " steroids.
But he's threatening them with punishment administered by the state. Until he goes and serves time for all the steroids he's used, then yes, he's a hypocrite.

If he were just "telling somoen not to do "steroids", that would be perfectly reasonable, and appropriate. Although his message might be hard to believe considering it has worked out so well for him...


nmg

Larry A|10.10.05 @ 1:17PM|#

Stupid questions department:

If participating in organized sports is one of the best things we can encourage children to do because it builds character, why do we have to keep passing laws that presume none of the people involved have any?