Provo's "Freedom" Festival

It came to my attention today that the America's Freedom Festival (in Provo, Utah) committed has chosen to recognized Jack Thompson as a Freedom Award Recipient at the Freedom Awards Gala on July 2.

I live in Utah and generally like most things about it. I do not agree with the giving of an award to Jack Thompson for any reason, primarily because I think he is preying upon a frantic conservative populace in order to enrich himself personally for a cause he would otherwise not care about. However, I am willing to concede to any other organization the right to recognize Jack Thompson for things he's done.

What is ridiculous, however, is that he is being recognized at what is presumably a celebration of freedom. Jack Thompson is not about freedom. He is about government censorship of free expression as guaranteed by the First Amendment. Furthermore, in the opinion of at least Judge Dava Tunis of Florida, Jack Thompson is guilty of 27 different charges of inappropriate conduct from the Florida Bar, including such things as knowingly making false statements to a tribunal. In fact the Florida Supreme Court will no longer accept any filings from Mr. Thompson unless signed by another lawyer.

It is hard to believe that a festival of freedom, held in Provo, Utah, which is probably the most conservative city in the United States, holding a gala to recognize champions of freedom, would have a committee, presumably made up of locals, that would select such a person as being deserving of this award, if in fact they are aware of what Mr. Thompson is really all about. My guess is that they really aren't aware of anything other than the fact that he fights against video game companies for releasing and distributing video games that include nudity, sexual content, graphic violence, and adult themes.

I'm not advocating such games nor am I championing the cause for even more games of even more extreme natures to become available. I do find it interesting, however, that we have such strong, organized opposition to video games when there is no similar opposition of this magnitude against other media, such as books, magazines, music, or movies. I suppose each of those media went through their own battles as well earlier in their history. But I do find it interesting that we basically do nothing to prevent or curb pornography, which has a documented association to sexual deviance and violence, but some would raise Jack Thompson up as a champion of freedom for fighting against video games, which as yet have not been shown to cause violence.

It is especially surprising on another front. Consider the case of CleanFlicks, the DVD rental company that rents edited versions of mainstream movies. At least it used to; I'm not sure what their business model is now and how it is different from what it was in 2006, when they were ordered by court to cease their business model. You probably know that CleanFlicks is a Utah-based company, and you can imagine how many upset people there were around here when this ruling came down.

Apparently people don't see these issues as two sides of the same coin. Apparently, the Freedom Festival folk don't realize that it is the same line of thought that took CleanFlicks away that they are championing by honoring Jack Thompson. One cannot simultaneously champion the cause of someone to take freedom of legal expression away from one group and lament having a similar freedom removed from them.

I'm willing to grant that some video games today are inappropriate or even evil. It is one thing for an individual to make personal choices about the type of entertainment they will pay for, or that they will allow into their home. It is another altogether to attempt to circumvent the constitution in order to stop something you feel is evil, and yet another thing to decide to take the freedoms of others away for the purpose of stopping evil. Choosing to keep content that I find inappropriate out of my home is my right and responsibility; even Playboy would not argue with that position. It is when I determine that since something is wrong for me, I have the right to take away the freedoms of others to stop the evil that I'm standing on a slippery slope.

We've fought too hard to obtain freedom to treat it so lightly. And there have been too many champions of true freedom for us to so tarnish it that we would choose Jack Thompson, of all people, to honor at the America's Freedom Festival in Provo. What a shame. What a disgraceful, embarrassing shame.