SGC Attendees - Behaving Better than Jack Thompson

G1's, SCG attendees, parents and legal guardians, lend me your ears (or your eyes, as the case may be). If you have not yet heard the announcement, Jack Thompson has been signed on as a guest at the ScrewAttack Gaming Convention. The opportunity is surprising, considering he is essentially Public Enemy #1 when it comes to the video gaming community.

Thompson has not exactly been well-known for his level-headed behavior. His reputation preceeds him, and any gamer would love to be given the chance to give him a piece of their mind. However, it is my opinion that we must not stoop to his level of immaturity, and we must prove that gamers can be level-headed and rational (I know this is hard!).

But how do we accomplish this?

As steriotypical as this sounds, Knowledge is Power. Before you can truly win against the enemy, you must know your enemy. And so it is important that you not only know who Jack Thompson is, but also what he stands for (as well as what he stands against). This way, when the Debate and the Question and Answer session rears its head come July 4th, 2009 you will have everything you need to know to ask the best questions and prove yourselves better knowledged and behaved than the man himself.

Before I begin, allow me to immediately link to a few of my sources:
http://www.jackthompson.org - This site has not been updated since May 7th, 2007.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(attorney)
http://kotaku.com/5054772/jack-thompson-disbarred
http://www.gamepolitics.com/category/jack-thompson

JACK THOMPSON FACTS:
Full Name: John Bruce Thompson
Age: 57
Religion: Born-again Christian (Presbyterian)
Current Status: Disbarred Florida Attorney

TIMELINE OF IMPORTANT EVENTS:
1951 - Born

1975 - After college, looking for a job, meets Janet Reno

1988 - Sues Neil Rogers show on radio station WIOD for playing offensive parody music over air waves as well as claiming on-air harrassment in homosexual ways and mentioning his name over the course of 8 months over 40,000 and sued $5,000 per time his name was mentioned.

Janet Reno denies the suit, and at one point places her hand on his shoulder, and Thompson files police report claiming battery charges. Charges are dismissed, and Thompson is called a "kook".

1990 - Campaigns against Switchboard of Miami, a social services support board of which Janet Reno was a member, claiming the group placed "homosexual-education tapes" in public schools. Florida Supreme court subjects Thompson to a psychiatric exam, which he passes.

Thompson pursues rap music, investigating 2 Live Crew's album, "As Nasty As They Wanna Be" (the record company had previously produced music promoting Reno's campaign against Thompson). Martinez and Reno refuse investigation of the album, yet Thompson still gets albums removed from shelves. Thompson sends paperwork with photocopies of his license pasted over with a picture of Batman, claiming it was as though he were Batman and Luther Campbell was the Joker.

For this event and others, Thompson is sued by 2 Live Crew. Thompson later states, "I won't stop till I get the head of a record company or record chain in jail. Only then will they stop trafficking in obscenity."

1991 - Complains about the sexually explicit material in the N.W.A. album "Efil4zaggin". Criticizes the Republican party for inviting N.W.A. to a public function.

1992 - Looks into persecuting Time Warner for issues such as "advocating overthrow of government" for promoting Ice-T's song "Cop Killer".

Thompson claims Miami Film Festival was promoting pornographic material. Thompson is then awarded with "Art Censor of the Year" by ACLU. With threat of disbarrment for lying about accusations about another lawyer, Thompson admits to claiming he contacted people that, in reality, he never contacted, and paid a $3,300 fine.

1993 - Claims the Florida Bar is unconstitutional, discriminating against him for his religion, disagreeing with the Bar's pro-gay, humanist, liberal agenda. Accepts a monitary settlement instead.

1996 - Writes letters to Viacom after MTV's airing of Madonna's "Justify My Love" claiming it supported "objectification of women".

1997 - Attempted to file claims against video game and movie companies after a high school shooting for not promoting warning labels on their products that would keep easily influenced children from seeing the material. The case was dismissed for holding no real legal ground. The case was appealed, but dismissed again.

1999 - Represents the parents of an 11-year-old child who had accidentally hung himself, blaming it on his viewings of Kenny from South Park, and insisted that the show and its products stopped being marketed to kids.

2002 - Writes a letter against the Florida Bar's actions, which the Bar took as a legal claim. Later, before anything could happen, Thompson voluntarily dismissed the claim.

2003 - Thompson attempts represent the parents of a 16-year-old boy who was accused of murder, claiming that Grand Theft Auto 3 trained the boy to be a murderer. After two months, the judges did not pass approval, and Thompson dismissed himself from the case.

Thompson files suits against Take-Two Interactive, PlayStation 2, and Wal-Mart after two boys commit murder and blame Grand Theft Auto III for their inspiration, and claimed that the defenders should have know it would cause copycat violence. The case was removed from court.

2004 - Thompson influences a police department to take out a search warrant on a 29-year-old murderer's home, who has previously had a copy of The Getaway found in his motel room. Other games in his home included State of Emergency, Max Payne, and Dead to Rights. However, the defense chose to go with the insanity plea.

Complains to the FCC regarding the Howard Stern Show and gets it removed from a Florida radio station.

Thompson is asked whether or not he thinks a 14-year-old boy who prayed to God should have his murderous tentancies blamed on Christianity. Thompson then goes on to list other religions as well as Grand Theft Auto that promote killing, and certainly not Christianity.

2005 - A teenager kills a police officer, and the teenager is proved to be a compulsive Grand Theft Auto player. Thompson represents the families of the killed officer, but had violated a gag order, among other things deemed unethical, and when Thompson tried to withdraw from the case, his request was denied and his admission to the Alabama state bar was temporarily revoked.

Thompson tries to find out whether or not another "cop-killer" had ties to Grand Theft Auto, but officers could find no ties to video games.

Best Buy sells Thompson's 10-year-old son an M-rated video game, and Thompson convinces Best Buy to publicly state that they will enforce the already-in-effect policy to card underage individuals buying adult games.

Thompson sued Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target, Circuit City, GameStop, and Toys 'R' Us in attempt to stop Rockstar's game, Bully, from being sold from their shelves for its bullying violence, to become the ultimate bully such as Klebold and Harris from the Columbine incident.

Thompson urged politicians to investigate The Sims 2 due to codes that could be entered that would make the characters visibly neud. EA, however, stated that there was no real anatomy to their characters, and that they were essentially Barbie dolls.

Thompson proposed "A Modest Video Game Proposal" in which a game should be created portraying a man whose sons were killed by video games goes on a murderous rampage at E3, and if a company made the game he would donate $10,000 to charity. Many games were made, but Thompson claimed his proposal was satire, and has not donated any monetary amount to any charity. However Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade stepped in and donated $10,000 to their charity, Child's Play, with a check stating in the memo, "For Jack Thompson, Because Jack Thompson Won't." Thompson then claims criminal harrassment.

2006 - Thompson files lawsuits against Sony, Take-Two, Rockstar Games, and Cody Posey, stating that if it weren't for the murder simulator known as Grand Theft Auto, three people in one particular murder case would be alive right now. The attorney on the case refused to bring up the issue in court because it held no legal merit.

Thompson makes a request for an early-release copy of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City before it's released on Xbox 360, stating if it wasn't looked at before it was released then it would be too late. While Thompson filed the public nuisance complaint against Wal-Mart, Take-Two Interactive, and GameStop to demand an early copy, Take-Two offered to directly hand over a copy. A judge, however, found no reason to do this, and dismissed the complaint.

Thompson sends a cease and desist letter to Midway demanding that they cease the sales of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon because in Kreate a Fighter someone could make models that look like Jack Thompson. Midway did not cease sales.

Thompson helped draft a Louisiana bill that would keep minors from purchasing violent games, however they chose an incredibly loose definition of "violent". Before the bill could be passed it was presented to a judge who was shocked that so much of their tax payer's money was wasted trying to pass the bill.

While researching the death of an idividual who had been beaten and shot to death, Thompson stated, "nobody shoots anybody in the face unless you're a hit man or a video gamer."

Two gamers send Jack Thompson floral arrangements along with a letter with hopes to open discussion between Thompson and the gaming community. However, Thompson turned around and sent those flowers to his enemies within the gaming industry saying, "Discard them along with the decency you discarded long ago. I really don't care. Grind them up and smoke them if you like."

Thompson again requests that the Justice Department investigate illegal activity of the Florida Bar.

Thompson again files suit against the Florida Bar, stating that complaints made by his opponents violated his constitutional rights. He was quoted as saying, "I enjoy doing what I do and I think I've got a First Amendment right to annoy people and participate in the public square in the cultural war." The Bar stated that, for many frivilous reasons, the case should be dismissed, and after further pushing the suit, Thompson willingly dismissed his own case.

2007 - Take-Two sues Thompson to keep him from preventing sales of Grand Theft Auto IV and Manhunt 2, and despite Thompson's joy at Take-Two's "stupidity", the issue is settled outside of court, and Thompson agrees to not follow through with any lawsuits.

Thompson suggests, even before a suspect is identified, that the shooter in the Virginia Tech incident probably practiced on Counter Strike. Thompson wrote a letter to Microsoft stating that their game could hold them potentially liable for creating a killing simulator, despite the fact that Microsoft did not create the game, only publish the Xbox version. Cho, the shooter, was stated to play games such as Sonic the Hedgehog.

Thompson sued a Nebraska-state Police chief stating he should reveal information about all video game materials owned by a murderer in a mall shooting. The officer stated that the incident was still under investigation and that it was not a public matter.

Thompson submitted "gay sex acts" to the Florida Bar with no real reason, and when his reasons were questioned, the case was dismissed with Thompson promising not to file anymore gay pornography.

The Florida Bar files for Thompson's disbarrment due to multiple parties claiming that Thompson made defamatory, false statements and attempted to humiliate, embarrass, harass or intimidate them. Thompson, however, stated that this was unlawful and violates state religious protections because his actions are motivated by his Christian beliefs.

Thompson complained about Judge Larry Seidlin, stating he violated judicial canon and was unethically accepting expensive gifts.

2008 - Even after Thompson's settlement with Take-Two, when Grand Theft Auto IV was released he called it "the gravest assault upon children in this country since polio". He insisted that retailers including Target and Best Buy be pursued with criminal charges, and writes a letter to Tim Paulenty's mother, calling her game-developing son a "Hitler Youth" rather than a "Boy Scout". He complains about poster ads for the game at Chicago bus stops.

After a Northern Illinois University shooting, Thompson demanded that the school reveal all documents that revealed the shooter to have been a violent video game player, convinced he must have played Counter-Strike.

Florida Supreme Court demanded to know why they should not keep Thompson from filing more claims without the second opinion of another lawyer, stating his filings as "repetitive, frivolous and insult[ing to] the integrity of the court." Thompson says the order infringes on his 1st Amendment rights. The Supreme Court decided to go ahead with the decision to keep him from filing cases unless signed by another member of the Bar, and that the character of his responses were "bizarre" and "idiotic."

A Miami-Dade judge suggested Thompson be found guilty of 28 of 31 charges against him, was then recommended for 'enhanced disbarrment', and was finally permanently disbarred and fined over $43,000 to the Florida Supreme Court.

SINCE JACK'S DISBARRMENT

You can keep up to speed with Jack's crazy antics over on GamePolitics.com. Most recently, Jack has attempted to have a video game and movie bill passed in Utah, which would hold retailers responsible for selling inappropriate video game and movie material to minors, among other things. While the bill came close to passing, as of just a few short days ago the bill was vetoed, once again keeping Thompson from successfully injuring the video game industry.

Now, fanboys, I implore you to know thy enemy and to be on your best behavior. As the diagram above shows, you are all full of hot air. When you attend the Jack Thompson events at SGC, please attempt to keep this hot air to yourself, to prove yourself better than the disbarred attorney. After learning a bit more about him and what he stands for, please create well-educated questions for the Question and Answer session and keep your eyes and ears open for some truly interesting and entertaining answers. Also, during the debate, PLEASE leave the debating up to
Mark Methenitis, and try not to cry out or join in. Your disturbance is not necessary, and we will get more out of the event if we are able to listen to a quality debate.

Over the next day or so, I would also like to write a bit about Mark Methenitis and his influence on the gaming community. Please be on the look out for that as well. And if you found my blog in any way enlightening or entertaining and felt that it helped your decision to attend SGC, I would be very appreciative if you could register your badge under me: http://www.sgconvention.com/register.php?ref=MarzGurl
Thanks all the same for the consideration, and I can't wait to see all of you there!