Responses to Reason’s Gamer Poll: Is Personal Choice Really a Libertarian Thing?

Reason’s video game-themed issue has
garnered some media attention and observations from places like

The Washington Post,
Roll Call, and
The Huffington Post (who predictably declared the
parody cover as
sexist).
Several
gamer-oriented
sites also noticed our coverage and offered some links to our
content, particularly our analysis of how frequent gamers answered

poll questions on political issues.

Comments on the gaming sites have been interesting and a bit of
a learning experience about how poll outcomes get reported. There’s
a reason we titled our analysis “What’s Libertarian About Gamers?”
instead of “Gamers Are Libertarian!” We did specifically look at
trends where gamers have a particular approach toward public policy
that differs from the main. In some cases, we point out, they’re
more liberal. In others, particularly in areas of personal
autonomy, we described them as more libertarian. Some commenters at
other sites pushed back on this representation and wanted to lump
personal choice as a progressive or Democratic position.

From
Ars Technica:

Most Gamers generally support ideas that span both parties:
better content ownership (Dems fight against), Less moral panic and
censorship (Repubs fight against), Net Neutrality from ISP’s
(Libertarians fight against).

To take the single point about Censorship (which to be honest,
both parties push for from time to time, but have historically been
more Conservative Politicians) and to make larger points about
“gamers” and how libertarian they are, is sooooo dumb.

Another:

LOL, i like the implication that the progressive platform is
more government regulations about what people can do with their
lives or bodies. Sounds like they are building up a straw man of
other political ideologies, then interpreting the poll results in a
way to bolster their own view while attacking their straw man
competitors.

That must be a Libertarian thing to do…

And from
Balloon Juice:

Since when were liberals or progressives into controlling what
people can do with their bodies & lives? Aren’t we the ones who
are for freedom of choice & more sensible drug laws? The
government regulating how much arsenic a corporation can dump in a
river has nothing to do with personal freedom.

Well, Balloon Juice commenter (and others), perhaps you should
check out our
list of dumb quotes about the evils of video games by
politicians and pundits. They are well represented by members of
both parties. In California, it was progressive Democrat
Leland Yee who pushed for a ban on sales of violent video games
to minors, a law that was tossed out by the Supreme Court (and now
he has much bigger problems to deal with). Progressive strongholds
like
Los Angeles,
Chicago, and
New York are banning the smoking of e-cigarettes in public
places, despite the fact that there’s no evidence that there is any
health risk to others in the vapor produced by these devices. The
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the current progressive
president has gone after
Four Loko for regulations, as have many states and
municipalities whose political make-up runs the gamut from left to
right. The FDA is also responsible for going after companies like
23andMe
for allowing consumers to learn about their own genetic backgrounds
and trying to ban trans fats.

And anybody who thinks the Democratic Party is that much better
than the Republican Party on drugs isn’t really paying that much
close attention. The Department of Justice (DOJ) under Barack Obama
is fighting to put
people growing medical marijuana behind bars, even in
states where it’s legal. The proposed changes in drug
sentencing and new
clemency guidelines by the DOJ, while a huge improvement, are
about achieving some sort of parity and end to disproportionate
impact of prison sentences, not any sort of recognition of
individual liberty. The administration argues that the sentences
are unfair, not the criminalization of personal behavior.

The right to individual choice extends beyond whom you marry and
what women do with their bodies. If progressives or liberals think
the left is better at personal choice than the right, they better
start contacting their Democratic officials, because evidence
suggests otherwise.

There have also been some comments wishing that the poll had
included broader questions for gamers in areas like gay marriage
recognition and net neutrality. I actually agree. These weren’t
polls specifically designed for gamers. Rather, we added a question
about gaming habits to two of our
quarterly
polls that tend to ask questions about the hot-button issues of
that moment. Then we compared the responses to those of non-gamers
in these more specialized polls. I’d love to see somebody take a
broader look at the politics of gamers to see if there are other
trends of note. Maybe the responses to our own polling will cause a
firm like Pew or Rasmussen to take note.

Oh, and an aside to those who think we didn’t know who the
characters in Grand Theft Auto V were or what
Bioshock was about: Of course we did. Even if
Bioshock were intended as some sort of commentary against
objectivism or libertarian philosophy, that would make it all the
more
important a game for libertarians to play.