One sees constantly interviews with people who find themselves in violent situations, even war, saying “it was just like a movie”. Even though on some level we know that what we see on TV is not real, I say “why watch it if you are unwilling to suspend disbelief?” On some level there is no difference.
I don’t think you can understand an Anders Breivik without factoring in his video games. He calmly shot dozens of screaming children who posed no threat to him, and did so without any apparent cognitive psychosis, or even outwardly apparent rage and anger. He reached a conclusion he deemed valid and acted towards his fellow humans as if they were images on his screen, literally. The evidence is clear that repeatedly watching acts of violence makes them less morally objectionable in the real world, and even FUN. And most all of our children live in this world. A barmaid at a bar I go to took her 3 year old to the Avengers. This is ridiculous.
These same tendencies could easily be turned by a would-be totalitarian towards the repression of cultural others–political opponents–in any form the regime deems fit. We have kids growing up getting sexually excited by torture. I saw Hostel for sale in my local Books-a-Million, with I doubt ANYONE caring if kids under 18 bought it. Eli Roth SAID it was for the 13-20 demographic.
I remember saying to myself several years ago that Obama can get his army. He can find mutated, morally febrile, sadistic children to do anything he wants. All he needs is the pretext and the opportunity.
In that regard, it is my hope that all of our Armed Services have contingency plans for betrayal by our President. I have been saying for years that it is legally and morally important that our Service Members swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. As Commander in Chief, the President is in theory the chief guardian of our Constitution, but at the precise moment he fails in that duty, and seeks to arrogate power to himself, particularly through an emergency, it is my hope that the military acts decisively to protect our Republic. Obama has no love for it. It is only a question as to how much space he can carve out. These people think long term, so even if he is not able to pull this thing off, we still must look to all the long term patterns around us.
It is my sincere hope that in a Romney Administration the Surgeon General could begin speaking out about the long term deleterious effects of media violence. I watched the movie Contagion the other night, and could have gone my whole life without seeing a facsimile of Gwenneth Paltrow have the top of her head sawed off, and this is small change by comparison with what is out there.