Magnum, this has actually stayed surprisingly civil. That's quite an accomplishment for me since political discussions usually turn ugly pretty quickly when I'm involved unless it's with fellow left-wingers, which this one is not. There's just some things I'm way too emotional about, for reasons I won't get into here. I think everybody has at least one issue they feel that strongly about though.

[quote=mdk]That's what I mean though, too. There's plenty of people out there who think that playing too much GTA leads to school shootings -- obviously I think that's bunk, for a lot of good reasons, but the point is, 'X leads to violence' is not a good premise for making laws. Within reason. I mean we do the whole ESRB rating thing, but I'm not sure if that's taken seriously or not (no perspective, it started up after I was already like 20 or something and I don't have kids).[/quote]

It's still a poor comparison though since many racist groups tend to be more violent than other groups. Hatred oftentimes fuels violence. I'm not saying every racist is violent, but it does happen. Many people don't realize it, but there's still very much institutionalized racism against coloured people in America, which makes them easier targets in many cases. African-Americans are more likely to get arrested than white people, for example. There also tends to be higher rates of poverty in black neighbourhoods, but that's getting a bit away from the main point now.

Also, with that said, I'm not inherently against violence as I do believe it has its uses, but one of those acceptable uses doesn't include beating up a black person simply because you don't like black people.