Jack Thompson is an odd duck, you might say. For what other description can one give a man who, as a medical malpractice attorney, seems to spend the better part of his time berating video game developers for violence and obscene content? Well I suppose “fucktard” works too, but that’s hardly as charming…

I’ll spare you the history of the guy; suffice it to say that he’s a rant unto himself. Thompson has attacked everything from obvious targets like GTA 3, Manhunt, and Postal 2, to not so obvious ones like… The Sims 2 (“vile smut” as he put it; there’s a cheat to take off the blurs over characters in the nude, go figure).

So what’s a guy to do when ranting and raving about video games and their apparent degradation of society, doesn’t do squat? Why, propose his own game of course! The following is the full message Thompson sent on Monday to the press and Doug Lowenstein, president of the ESA (Electronic Software Association), along with my commentary to liven things up a bit (not that they need to be, given the insanity of the content already at hand). And yes, Mr. Thompson is quite serious.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The Golden Rule

This writer has been saying for seven years that violent video games can be “murder simulators” that incite as well as train some obsessive teen players to be violent.

I’ve been on 60 Minutes and in Reader’s Digest this year explaining how an Alabama teen, with no criminal record, shot two policemen and a dispatcher in their heads and fled in a police car–a scenario he rehearsed for hundreds of hours on Take-Two/Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto video games.

First off, who the hell steals cop cars THAT much in GTA? It’s no fun: You can’t listen to the radio in them, the vigilante missions are boring, and they’re wretchedly slow compared to other vehicles. Jeez, it’s like Thompson has never played the thing…

And treating teenagers like they’re damned morons is always nice. OoOoh, he knew that aiming for the head would likely kill his targets! Good thing he couldn’t have learned that from TV. Or movies. Or the Internet. Or biology. Dammit Rockstar, stop highlighting simple facts of life!

I have sat with boys in jail cells, their lives over because of murder convictions, after they, with no history of violence, have killed innocents while in a dreamlike state. Said one cop who investigated such a murder in Grand Rapids, Michigan: “The killing was like an extension of the game.”

Look, a point! Oh wait- it seems to have buggered off here. No doubt to join Thompson’s already loooong gone marbles.

The video game industry, through its lawyers, its spokesmen, and its head lobbyist, Doug Lowenstein, the president of the Entertainment Software Association, all say it is utter nonsense to suggest that what is dumped into a kid’s head hour after hour, day after day, year after year, could possibly have behavioral consequences. Cigarette ads can persuade kids to smoke, but interactive simulators in which these same kids punch, hack, bludgeon, and maim affect not a wit their attitudes and behaviors, notwithstanding the findings of the American Psychological Association, published in August 2005.

Actually, the APA found that “showing violent acts without consequences teaches youth that violence is an effective means of resolving conflict. Whereas, seeing pain and suffering as a consequence can inhibit aggressive behavior.”

Come on kids, sing it with me! “Where are the parents, ooooh where are the parents!” Everybody!

The video game industry says Sticks and stones can break my bones, but games can never hurt me. Fine. I have a modest proposal for the video game industry. I’ll write a check for $10,000 to the favorite charity of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc’s chairman, Paul Eibeler – a man Bernard Goldberg ranks as #43 in his book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America –

Beaten out by the likes of Latrell Sprewell, Howard Dean, and Michael Moore (#1). Jimmy Carter is #6 in there. That humanitarian bastard…

For crying out loud, citing Goldberg’s book as some sort of authoritative source is like wearing a “kick me” sign with big, flashing neon lights.

if any video game company will create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game in 2006 like the following:

Osaki Kim is the father of a high school boy beaten to death with a baseball bat by a 14-year-old gamer. The killer obsessively played a violent video game in which one of the favored ways of killing is with a bat. The opening scene, before the interactive game play begins, is the Los Angeles courtroom in which the killer is sentenced “only” to life in prison after the judge and the jury have heard experts explain the connection between the game and the murder.

Osaki Kim (O.K.) exits the courtroom swearing revenge upon the video game industry whom he is convinced contributed to his son’s murder. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay” he says. And boy, is O.K. not kidding.

O.K. is provided in his virtual reality playpen a panoply of weapons: machetes, Uzis, revolvers, shotguns, sniper rifles, Molotov cocktails, you name it. Even baseball bats. Especially baseball bats.

O.K. first hops a plane from LAX to New York to reach the Long Island home of the CEO of the company (Take This) that made the murder simulator on which his son’s killer trained.

Well I suppose it’s no less contrived and boring than Rockstar’s storylines are… But a baseball bat? Not exciting. A baseball bat with spikes? Exciting.

O.K. gets “justice” by taking out this female CEO, whose name is Paula Eibel, along with her husband and kids. “An eye for an eye,” says O.K., as he urinates onto the severed brain stems of the Eibel family victims, just as you do on the decapitated cops in the real video game Postal2.

And hey, who DOESN’T love playing games blatantly ripping off other’s originality?

O.K. then works his way, methodically back to LA by car, but on his way makes a stop at the Philadelphia law firm of Blank, Stare and goes floor by floor to wipe out the lawyers who protect Take This in its wrongful death law suits. “So sue me” O.K. spits, with singer Jackson Brown’s 1980’s hit Lawyers in Love blaring.

With the FBI now after him, O.K. keeps moving westward, shooting up high-tech video arcades called GameWerks. “Game over,” O.K. laughs.

Of course, O.K. makes the obligatory runs to virtual versions of brick and mortar retailers Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, and Wal-Mart to steal supplies and bludgeon store managers and cash register clerks. “You should have checked kids’ IDs!”

Structured. Boring. I’d rather be speeding around aimlessly on a crotch-rocket with GOOD music blaring in San Andreas about now…

O.K. pushes on to Los Angeles. He must get there by May 10, 2006. That is the beginning of “E3″ — the Electronic Entertainment Expo — the Super Bowl of the video game industry. O.K. must get to E3 to massacre all the video game industry execs with one final, monstrously delicious rampage.

Boooring. Even with the Source engine, killing things that don’t shoot back gets dull real quick.

How about it, video game industry? I’ve got the check and you’ve got the tech. It’s all a fantasy, right? No harm can come from such a game, right? Go ahead, video game moguls. Target yourselves as you target others. I dare you.

Alright look, you twit: I’m sure you feel real clever for having read “A Modest Proposal” and likened your own insane, idiotic and misinformed babble to such classic literature. But unlike Jonathan Swift, YOUR proposal IS NOT poignant. Some contrived, B-quality game would solve no developer’s economic plight (can’t see this crap making them much money), nor would it soothe the pain of parents mislead by halfwits like you into believing gaming companies are at fault for any of this crap.

Firearm crimes are down, violent crime among teens is down, and hell, even violent crime in GENERAL is down. And that’s according to The U.S. Government! Fucking hell, it took me 5 minutes to find that information and yet people, usually spineless parents 40+ years of age, still listen to low-lifes like Jack Thompson who spout off fallacious garbage like the above and think “wow, this guy is onto something!”

This is called fear mongering, and perpetrators of it like Thompson need to writher away to some small hole in the ground where they can die a slow- and hopefully very painful- death. That may sound harsh, but piling on bullshit like this to confused and grieving survivors of tragedies like the case of the aforementioned kid in Alabama, school shootings, and generally anytime a teenagers gets pissed off and finds a gun, is a crime of equally disgusting proportions.

So I’ve got a proposal for Mr. Thompson: How about a first person shooter in which the player roams the country (in no defined path) in search of politicians like Senator Lieberman, Mary Lou Dickerson, Jim McCune, Jim McDermott, and Jack Thompson himself, in order to kill them by whatever means necessary: Guns, bombs, piano wire, office chairs… You name it. Think of it as the ultimate “free-form” game, and unlike Thompson’s asinine idea, there are HEAPS of gamers that would play it. Not only that, Thompson and the rest of them would have something really special to whine about in public, thus boosting their name recognition and fulfilling every politician’s wet dream of being “known”.

A modest proposal if ever I saw one.

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