[Professor S]

The government has always come across very stern in such hearings as Lieberman held before the ESRB and even the Gore music debacle of the late 80's, they have never outright banned anything.

The message they have made in each case has been quite clear: Regulate yourselves, or we will do it for you.

And in each case the entertainment industries in question have made concessions to help keep inappropriate material out of the hands of children (even if the Parental Advisory warning is a joke in practice)

The problem I find is that while the industries have made rating systems, the only one I see consistently enforce them is the movie industry. I've been purchasing videogames and CDs for a long time now, and I have NEVER seen anyone get carded for a CD or game.

Here lies the issue. If the rating system has no enforcement, then its just lip service and more and more activists will figure this out as time goes on. Once again, the industry will be left with another choice:

"Regulate yourselves or we will do it for you"