Illinois Violent Video Games And Wasted Tax Dollars

Once again our lawmakers are wasting our tax money rather than trying to solve real problems. Illinois lawmakers are pressing on with a bill that will restrict the sale of violent video games to minors. They are doing this depite the fact that in several states similar bills have all been ruled unconstitutional because video games are a protected form of speech in the same way as other media such as movies or music.

Our state has some serious problems, so why is Governor Blagojevich, who authored the bill, wasting time and money on this? The law, if passed, will be challenged and most likely found to be unconstitutional at the cost of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of taxpayer dollars. In a state that is struggling with budget short falls, wasting money like this makes no sense. This is just politics as usual. Politician A proposes a law that he/she knows is probably unconstitutional, but which will score some points with the local crowd. Politicians B through N go along with it and use their support to make the usual deals, again knowing that there’s no cost because the Judiciary will strike it down. When it is found to be unconstitutional, everyone gets bonus points by railing against the evil Judicial branch.

If they must waste time and money, why not propose a law that would impose fines and jail time on lawmakers who pass stupid or unconstitutional laws? Ironically, such a law would probably be unconstitutional. Damn Judicial branch! Bonus!