Tv ViolenceEssay Preview: Tv ViolenceReport this essayBrice MitchellLeslie WalkerWriting 10218 October 1999It is human nature to try to solve every problem that comes up. Humans just do not feel comfortable saying, “I dont know,” so we work long hours searching and studying to find solutions to every problem that needs one. So when kids started torching cars, shooting students and teachers at school, smashing windows, assaulting bus drivers, and even decapitating each other, where did parents and law enforcement officers look? This is not an easy question with a definite answer, but after researchers studied hard, they found an answer: television. Could that little box that places images on the screen really affect the behavior of people so drastically? People now blame television for everything. Irresponsible parents who do not spend enough time with their kids and law enforcement officers who do not want to investigate to find a real cause to a problem are quick to blame television when their kids do something wrong. Instead of taking responsibility for their own kids, these parents lobby for restrictions to be placed on television and ruin things for everyone else. I see two problems with that. First, it is constitutionally wrong for someone to try to limit someone elses free speech. The constitution does not specifically mention television, but it does not mention any other form of communication so it is assumed that television is included. Secondly, it does not make a lot of sense for a few angry people to try to control what everybody watches. I love to watch television, and I would be very angry if I could not watch what I wanted because it contained too much violence or if the producers of one of my favorite shows changed it to decrease the amount of violence in it.
It seems like everyone has his or her own opinion on this subject. The two most obvious are that people think television violence is bad and something should be done about it or they think violence on television does not affect peoples behavior and nothing should be done. Jeffrey Klein, the author of the article “Fire Fighting Little,” believes television is causing problems everywhere in the world. In his article, he examines the causes of the rise in juvenile violence, not only in America, but worldwide. He tries to find the answer to the question, “Why is juvenile crime erupting worldwide at a time when adult crime is diminishing and there is much less violence among nations?” (Klein 3). All of the fingers point to the rise in violence on television. Klein sites several studies that show a fourteen percent rise in violence on primetime television and also shows that there is no punishment for seventy-five percent of the violent acts shown on primetime television. These studies also point out the fact that the people that commit the crimes rarely show any remorse. He tells of stories in France and Japan where teenagers, sometimes younger children, have committed violent crimes ranging from stabbing teachers to decapitating other children. Both the French and Japanese governments blame violent movies, television and video games for there rise in crime (Klein 2).
Up until this point, Klein places all of the blame for the rise in worldwide violence on television, but here he rebuts his own argument by stating that both the French and Japanese governments also place the blame for their rise in crimes committed by minors on problems in their society. The French blame the vast unemployment rate for their problems. In Japan, the cause of the problem seems to be the extreme difficulty of their school system (Klein 2). Here in America, studies were conducted on seven American boys who went on rampages. At first, the critics blamed television violence for their behavior, but the study revealed all of the boys lived in a home that had many problems, and they usually keep to themselves (Klein 3). The second part of Kleins argument seems to weaken the total argument. By stating that these two governments admit television is not totally to blame for their problems, he lessens the effectiveness of his total argument.
Klein is then attempting to paint the entire United States in a different light:
“The media, from the beginning … has been responsible for the violent increase we have had in young people. During the first term of the Bush presidency, as we’ve seen, the media and many of the conservative papers, TV and newspapers – and even the Washington Post – made it appear as if … the entire conservative political spectrum [is] behind the Bush administration, and he has had the support of the Bush administration.
On April 6th, 2001, at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Politics – an offshoot of the Institute for American Progress (AIP) for American Policy – this year, AIP released, ‘The Bush Administration’s Politics and Policy in Bush’s Time: A Political History, 1980-2010.’ It took the Institute until this month to finish their book. We have a good picture of what AIP is doing: in a new book that’s under fire, AIP explains for the first time the influence of the Bush administration. In the book, the institute identifies, according to those close to AIP, several hundred top-level policy officials — from State Department to the White House, State Department to the Supreme Court and even Cabinet-level members of Congress — involved in this administration: one in particular. “For the past 18 months, the Bush administration said that most of its officials did not work at any of the department’s offices so as to avoid a perceived job loss because the office they were supposed to supervise would be closed,” AIP writes. It cites other cases that illustrate to its credit the extent to which officials had been made to work for a small number of top government officials. The Institute found no evidence that any top-level top official (or more often a supervisor) had been made to work at a department. The Institute was able to identify two of the most senior staffers (George P. Shultz] and then a number of senior government officials (and one more important cabinet member) who were assigned to various departments. “For the record, not only were all of the officials working for the Bush administration (a few were senior) but they also worked on the same top-level priorities for the Department,” AIP’s lead author Eric Shiller adds. According to AIP, Bush administration officials “did not work for at least three of the top three departments,” including the Department of Commerce. AIP documents that the three top officials work within the Department — Shultz, Shultz’s supervisor, and Shultz’s supervisor at the Treasury Department. AIP states that the three top officials on top of the Department “are also important advisers to several of the other top administration officials.” Shiller, AIP writes, “suggests he believed the top three officials were being put in positions in a variety of roles. He writes that the senior government officials in those positions saw at least some responsibility for the Department’s failure to work for them, but more often than not the top administration officials saw the blame for the problems as directly on the top officials doing the work for them in that position.” Shiller notes, “The senior administration official involved in those decisions said this policy did not prevent a major drop in homicides among these four offices in 2002, which was the last public case of the Bush administration to use this policy at that same time with the help of other administrations, but it did protect the federal government’s own and the government’s own work from potential liability.” The Obama administration also did not have a policy for working for the Department of Science and Technology. Shiller claims that this policy is the only policy that “allowed the department to work on the science they needed to design in this way.” Shiller quotes an official telling AIP “If there was a policy
Klein is then attempting to paint the entire United States in a different light:
“The media, from the beginning … has been responsible for the violent increase we have had in young people. During the first term of the Bush presidency, as we’ve seen, the media and many of the conservative papers, TV and newspapers – and even the Washington Post – made it appear as if … the entire conservative political spectrum [is] behind the Bush administration, and he has had the support of the Bush administration.
On April 6th, 2001, at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Politics – an offshoot of the Institute for American Progress (AIP) for American Policy – this year, AIP released, ‘The Bush Administration’s Politics and Policy in Bush’s Time: A Political History, 1980-2010.’ It took the Institute until this month to finish their book. We have a good picture of what AIP is doing: in a new book that’s under fire, AIP explains for the first time the influence of the Bush administration. In the book, the institute identifies, according to those close to AIP, several hundred top-level policy officials — from State Department to the White House, State Department to the Supreme Court and even Cabinet-level members of Congress — involved in this administration: one in particular. “For the past 18 months, the Bush administration said that most of its officials did not work at any of the department’s offices so as to avoid a perceived job loss because the office they were supposed to supervise would be closed,” AIP writes. It cites other cases that illustrate to its credit the extent to which officials had been made to work for a small number of top government officials. The Institute found no evidence that any top-level top official (or more often a supervisor) had been made to work at a department. The Institute was able to identify two of the most senior staffers (George P. Shultz] and then a number of senior government officials (and one more important cabinet member) who were assigned to various departments. “For the record, not only were all of the officials working for the Bush administration (a few were senior) but they also worked on the same top-level priorities for the Department,” AIP’s lead author Eric Shiller adds. According to AIP, Bush administration officials “did not work for at least three of the top three departments,” including the Department of Commerce. AIP documents that the three top officials work within the Department — Shultz, Shultz’s supervisor, and Shultz’s supervisor at the Treasury Department. AIP states that the three top officials on top of the Department “are also important advisers to several of the other top administration officials.” Shiller, AIP writes, “suggests he believed the top three officials were being put in positions in a variety of roles. He writes that the senior government officials in those positions saw at least some responsibility for the Department’s failure to work for them, but more often than not the top administration officials saw the blame for the problems as directly on the top officials doing the work for them in that position.” Shiller notes, “The senior administration official involved in those decisions said this policy did not prevent a major drop in homicides among these four offices in 2002, which was the last public case of the Bush administration to use this policy at that same time with the help of other administrations, but it did protect the federal government’s own and the government’s own work from potential liability.” The Obama administration also did not have a policy for working for the Department of Science and Technology. Shiller claims that this policy is the only policy that “allowed the department to work on the science they needed to design in this way.” Shiller quotes an official telling AIP “If there was a policy
I agree with the second part of Jeffrey Kleins argument. I think the environment of individuals will affect their behavior more than seeing a murder on television. Maybe if the French government did something about the unemployment problem or if the Japanese government made their requirements to get into schools easier