I find that a lifetime of playing video games, even games of the was-that-a-bloody-eyeball? variety, does not seem to have made me especially violent. The debate over violent video games, however, never fails to put me on the brink of a rampage. That’s why this piece made me happier than a Pac-Man at a blue ghost party:

Dear Sen. Clinton:

I’m writing to commend you for calling for a $90-million study on the effects of video games on children, and in particular the courageous stand you have taken in recent weeks against the notorious “Grand Theft Auto” series.

I’d like to draw your attention to another game whose nonstop violence and hostility has captured the attention of millions of kids — a game that instills aggressive thoughts in the minds of its players, some of whom have gone on to commit real-world acts of violence and sexual assault after playing.

I’m talking, of course, about high school football.

And it only gets better from there.

There has been so much hype on this topic since Doom came out (12 years ago!) that I can’t believe that there are still people left who think of video games as childrens’ toys. Are people my parents age still having kids somewhere? I’m so conditioned now to think of video games as violent, sexual adult entertainment that when I heard my 7-year-old cousin had gotten a PS2, I let out an alarmed little cry.

But my cousins don’t play Grand Theft Auto; their parents have at least that much sense. When you look at their collection, all you see is EA Soccer and Hockey and Quidditch and probably something involving rapping, dancing monkeys. Every game they own is rated child-friendly, and those kids are still criminal masterminds. Not because they’re allowed to play with video games, but because they’re allowed to play with fireworks on the screened-in porch. In fact, the PS2 bores them. I think they’d be a lot better kids if they would just sit down and play some video games. At least take the bow and arrows away.

This has been going on my whole life. Phil Donahue went after video games back when they consisted of vaguely spacecraft-shaped red blocks shooting asteroid-shaped green blocks. (In fairness to Phil, I did need counselling in third grade to overcome my uncontrollable urge to shoot rocks.) They might as well have protested that asteroids weren’t really green.

On the subject of the new Grand Theft Auto, which I must disclose I own (as perhaps the best wedding gift ever) but still haven’t had time to really get into: Sen. Clinton and her ilk are upset about some sexually explicit code that was wisely abandoned by the developers (or possibly added as an inside joke) and that is literally inaccessible to the player. Some Danish guy found it accidentally by hacking into the ones and zeroes. As far as I’ve heard, there isn’t even a cheat code that can be used to get to it; you would have to use an outside device and play the game for more than four straight hours to see the smut. If your impressionable youngster has gotten himself to this level, make him save the game and submit it to the dean of your local university’s CS department; you may have a prodigy on your hands.

All that aside: am I actually hearing the complaint, “My children could play that game, in which you can shoot innocent bystanders and police officers in the jugular vein, and see people having sex in it!“? At that point, it becomes upsetting?

Oh, right. America. I forgot.

Every time something like this arises, there is one issue that sticks out like a floating block with a question mark on it. This latest carnal carnage killing and whoring video game that’s going to break into your kids’ room and make them go to juvey costs over fifty American dollars. If your nine year old has Grand Theft Auto and you don’t know about it, you have more serious things to worry about because he is selling cocaine at his school. “But he can rent it.” Yes he can, if you got your nine year old his own Blockbuster card.

To say nothing of how he got to these stores. I grew up in suburbia, with its subdivisions and distant strip malls on dangerous, pedestrian-hostile roads. My friends and I tried riding our bikes to K-Mart every now and then, and we felt like the Fellowship of the Ring by the time we made it down Lindbergh Blvd. If your kid has this game, a) you helped b) your kid has sh*tty friends, and you haven’t noticed c) you and your child are engaged in a “Hogan’s Heroes”-esque game of cat and mouse, and he is going to grow up to be Lord Voldemort. Be on the lookout for mysterious injuries to your pets.

America: I am sick of your f***ing kids. You put TVs in their rooms, you don’t pay any attention to who they hang out with, you treat them like your goddamn pets, and then any time you find out adults are doing adult things near where you last saw them you go on a rampage trying to babyproof the planet. The entire planet does not need to be appropriate for children; I live here too. Ooh, it makes me so mad I could just shoot you and steal your car.