Jack’s Dynasty
Now that we know that our friend, Jack Thompson, has been given the legislative “fuck off” by his peers in the Florida Bar, what’s next for our anti-game marauder? In case you don’t want to read the link, Jack Thompson has been awarded, for all his troubles of taking on violence and sex in video games, a disbarment from practising law in the state of Florida - with the option of re-applying in 10 years time. This basically means his career as a lawyer is over. But I hardly believe his ideals are now dead as a result. In fact, I reckon he’ll be around for quite a while yet.
Considering the median wage for a lawyer, and Jack has been practising it for quite a while, it’s not a fair stretch to assume he’s alright money-wise, and now because of his disbarment, he’s now been given a time bonus, so if he’s the Jack we’ve all grown to know and love (like a person loves telling an annoying person to shut their trap), I feel he’ll only up his endless quest to sanitize all the games out there until they are peachy and even God himself would feel glad to play a bit of multiplayer. He’ll be able to focus all the time he would’ve used for work-related purposes to letting everything that moves know that violent games turns you into a Terminator.
The big question is: Will anyone take notice any more? Well, yes and no.
A lawsuit is a big thing. You cannot help but notice a lawsuit, no matter how frivolous the lawsuit it. It’s always there, like an annoying itch that doesn’t go away no matter how hard you scratch it. Jack played that game very well, making game developers know that they have a lawsuit filed on their collective asses. With Jack now unable to file lawsuits himself, I would imagine the game developers would take great pride in ignoring his ramblings. And so, Jack has lost his main target audience.
But he still has other cards. Jack has friends in American politics. I would imagine that he would still have influence with those politicians who believe Jack has the right idea. Politicians and public representatives still have a voice that attract attention, mind you, a lot of people tend to not listen to the ones that are associated with our friend.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out. I don’t think we have seen the last of Jack Thompson.
