Once again I find myself cheering for Jessie in his latest post on the GTA thing o'er at Pandagon:

I know we want to get in on the moral values debate like the nerds of Zeta House want to get in on Kappa Omega Kappa's kegger, but if we need to disingenuously stand up to a videogame marketed to adults in order to find our moral backbone, we might as well just start screwing the sheep and giving the kids heroin now.

His reasoning was near and dear to mine. To wit, we agree that it's disengenuous to grandstand against a problem you're not really going to make an attempt to solve. However, Ezra also weighed in again, making more clear his point that there are people who are concerned with violence in culture, and in videogames, and that the Democratic party would be well adviced to somehow address their concerns. To my mind his advice remains tactical:

I'm tired of ceding all cultural ground to the Republicans. We have our demoestic message, we have, unfortunately, our foreign policies. But we don't even enter the cultural conversation, except to tell people to turn the channel, or not play the game, or not get the marriage. It's laissez-faire morality, and it leaves our party looking spineless and remote in the affairs that, rightly or wrongly, occupy much of the mental space in America. And it helps us lose elections. And that is why we should care.

He's right that the complete and utter lack of cultural message on the part of the Democrats is an issue. I just think he's coming down on the wrong side of the debate. While saying "video games where you can fuck and murder prostitutes is something we should find offensive enough to oppose" may be an ok soundbyte, it's essentially spin, and the direction it takes you will lead you away from what you really believe and cost you more votes than it would win.

What the Democrats should do is develop some culturally-relevant message that goes beyond laissez-faire morality but doesn't establish itself by condemning certain cultural products. This is more difficult, but more broadly appealing as well, not least of all because it will help distinguish D's from R's on the cultural issue. You don't win the culture war by being Republican lite...