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Added by Jeff on Sept. 25, 2008 61 comments

"I'm not a lawyer, but I play one in captions written on Giant Bomb."

GamePolitics has the story--after what seems like years of proceedings, the Florida Supreme Court has disbarred anti-game crusader Jack Thompson. That means he'll be unable to practice law, at least in the state of Florida. JT will have 30 days to clear up any existing cases.

It's easy to want to jump all over this and dance on the still-warm grave of Thompson's legal career, but that'd be sort of messed up.

...

OK, fine, feel free to dance a little. But don't be so crazy as to assume that you'll never hear from him again. He's already filed paperwork with the next-highest court to prevent the order from taking effect. And you can bet that he'll probably try to keep an even higher profile now that he can't take a shortcut through the courts to ensure his voice is heard.

Thompson's first big national exposure as a culture warrior came in 1990 when he took on Miami-based rap group, 2 Live Crew. This resulted in me having to ride my bike to the independent music store on the other side of town to buy my music, as the controversy surrounding 2 Live Crew and most other explicit rap made the local Wherehouse in my neighborhood stop selling explicit-labelled music to minors.

If you are interested in hearing Luke and the 2 Live Crew say the F-word a number of times in a track dedicated to Jack, you're looking for track 11 on Banned in the USA.

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62 Comments

Daveyo520 is online
on Sept. 25, 2008

BEST DAY EVER!!!!!

coonce
on Sept. 25, 2008

absolute comedy!

Leon31
on Sept. 25, 2008

YES!!!!!!

carzy
on Sept. 25, 2008

ROFL

ddensel
on Sept. 25, 2008

Remember folks, you don't have to have a degree in law to go on to Fox News and talk up the evils of video game violence, if anything Thompson will have more time on his hands!

Good news though, good to hear he's no longer a public defender, it's people like him that give the American Legal System a bad rep.

DrDemon
on Sept. 25, 2008

he had it coming

MasterOfPenguins_Zell is online
on Sept. 25, 2008

Could we make this into a national holiday for people who play video games....

dcpc10
on Sept. 25, 2008

yup, i saw this on GS, WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111

Bo17
on Sept. 25, 2008

It's about sodding time.
For what it's worth, I used to respect Thompson. His main ambition was making sure that minors were safe and that stores were following rules.
But then he started to mess with developers lives, and started saying shit about the games themselves, rather than focusing on his original goal. He could have been great, but he burnt out long ago, whilst refusing to fade away...

Player1
on Sept. 25, 2008

Thompson- 0

Gamers - 1

HTTenrai
on Sept. 25, 2008

September 25th - National Disbarment Day

Never forget...they rode his ass out on a pole...

Branthog
on Sept. 25, 2008

Someone elsewhere had said we should still respect that the poor man has just lost his livelihood. My response to that is - fuck him. Do you feel sorry for a teacher who rapes or beats one of their students, because as a result they lost their career? And do you really think this guy isn't going to get a job pitching for one of those idiotic "Family Values" committees?

albedos_shadow is online
on Sept. 25, 2008

We've only made him stronger....

xionpunk
on Sept. 25, 2008

Took long enough...

kboy
on Sept. 25, 2008

Said the gamer community collectively: "About goddamn time."

You know he'll just end up trying to practice in another state. But at least, it's one less state.

Meatsim
on Sept. 25, 2008

This guy was a hater in the early 90's too? ha.

PlasmaBeam44
on Sept. 25, 2008

I only fear that this will make him even crazier and get on Fox News.

Anderson
on Sept. 25, 2008

Justice is served, finally. Well, I guess we'll see how his appeal works out, but given his poor track record, i cannot imagine that it will work out in Jack's favor. I also read somewhere that his appeal was incorrect because he had filed it himself and the disbarring papers explicitly said that only another lawyer, on behalf of Thompson, could file. Not sure if that's correct, but that's what I read.

GalvanizedNails is online
on Sept. 25, 2008

I liked hearing about jeffs youth more than hearing about JT................

Trilogy
on Sept. 25, 2008

And gamers across the world exclaim at once... "PWNED BITCH!!!"

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