JT Strikes Back With Fistfulls Of Crazy
A certain litigious Floridian responded yesterday to Take-Two's first amendment suit against him with an approach that is...original, if seemingly demonstrably false. Thompson accused Take-Two of both criminal conspiracy, extortion, and racketeering under the RICO act (used to snare organized crime networks after someone has already committed a criminal act) in collaboration with game sites such as GamePolitics and GameSpot. More on that after the jump.
Perhaps grasping at straws, JT brings the Bully "non-troversy" back into focus as the final bullet in his affirmative defense:
Take-Two was also found, after the release of Bully homosexual sex in the game, which Take-Two "forgot" to tell the ESRB and Judge Friedman about. Thus, this affirmative defense rests upon the specific instance of Take-Two's deception in the context of a lawsuit that Take-Two seeks to prevent the filing of.
The logical inconsistencies here appear to be numerous. The fully-clothed, light-hearted, utterly non-explicit scripted kisses between a handful of boys in a game where kissing girls is part of the game mechanic is hardly, by any stretch of the imagination, "homosexual sex." If so, then the game necessitates having repeated "heterosexual sex" to play at all. To boot, the content had already been considered by the ESRB in assigning Bully's rating. Also, God of War II sex minigame, just for context.
Thompson's counter-countersuit includes a long, bombastic prelude, which incorporates mutually-exclusive concepts such as Thompson's portrayal of himself as a defender of civil rights and opponent of racial stereotypes just before this sentence:
"What else would one expect of Scottish sociopaths sipping their single malt Glenlivet in between brainstorming software programming sessions?"
He continues to mention September 11, and asks the seemingly delusional question:
"What is America's rebuttal to the Islamic Fascist recruitment call? This counterclaim is the rebuttal, not just to these terrorists but to Take-Two."
The relevance of this particular stretch of the imagination seems, at the very least...difficult to support rationally. As does JT's following comparison of himself to Big Tobacco whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand, as portrayed by Russel Crowe in The Insider.
Make the jump to read about what popular blogs and websites JT includes in his racketeering and conspiracy accusations.
In what is a patently fictional claim within an already unhinged tangle of hubris and paranoia, JT lays this astoundingly absurd bit before the court:
Take-Two, either directly or through its agents, including but not limited to Blank Rome, has collaborated and conspired with third parties to commit these racketeering activites, including but not limited to the Entertainment Software Association, the Entertainment Software Rating Board, the Entertainment Consumer Association, www.gamepolitics.com, www.kotaku.com, www.spong.com, www.joystiq.com, www.gamespot.com, www.ign.com, Game Informer, Electronic Gaming Weekly, Penny Arcade, Doug Lowenstein, and others.
So. Either Thom Jackson believes that Take-Two would have anything to do with GamePolitics, who pushed the Hot Coffee scandal into the limelight, or he's attempting to intimidate the press? As for the rest of the names on that list, well, saying it's a bit out of touch with reality is a big, obvious understatement.
The RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) filing claims Take-Two and its impressive list of competitive-game-sites-that-secretly-conspire-with-one-random-game-publisher have ganged up to violate JT's constitutional rights ever since July of 2005. In his defense, JT claims Take-Two's preemptive suit violates his First Amendment rights, and that the suit is unnecessary because the law already contains protections against the infringements which Take-Two is attempting to stop. ("Protections" which, if I understand correctly, include what Thompson wants in the first place: a pre-release review of the full content of Manhunt 2 before the court.)
It gets stranger:
As a result of this collaboration, individuals have repeatedly threatened the life of Thompson, visited his residential neighborhood to hand out libelous pamphlets, filed SLAPP Bar complaints against Thompson, having been encouraged to do so by gaming web sites, sent dozens of items to Thompson’s home and office via overnight courier and mail, sent sex aid products to his wife, threatened Thompson’s son, shot at his home, sought to incarcerate Thompson, “bookstormed” his book, Out of Harm’s Way, at Amazon.com, orchestrated and knowingly incited harassing phone calls and letters, and generally engaged in a knowing, purposeful, and illegal “shoot the messenger” strategy against Thompson directly and through surrogates.
Yeah. At this point, I need a lawyer just to uncross my eyes - it's that confusing. There's also a civil rights claim that says JT has been deprived of rights and/or privileges. With this kind of material, gang, you might as well read the whole damn thing for yourself. If anyone can make sense of it (or can correct my non-lawyerese attempted interpretation), please feel free to do so!
Thompson's filing in full [GamePolitics]
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, Miscellany on 22 March 2007
· Comments (11)
Other stuff like this: bully, first amendment, gay kiss, jack thompson, jt, rico, take two
What the hell is "bookstorming?" The only reference I could find on the interwebs was positive.
K
WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
That remark is DAMNED racist.
I'm rather insulted that he didn't list us as a part of the grand conspiracy.
No seriously. This guy needs to be shut down.
I'd say do an article on how homophobic he is.
@BoT Please we really don't want anything to do with that menace.
Uhm in the suit it says that Take2 released Oblivion. Am I missing something there?
uh?
this guy lives in a different planet, were he is the king, profet, and ultimate savior...
he is way out of touch with reality...
Just when I think that Thompson can't get any crazier, he proves me wrong. I bet this does it in for him, I can only hope.
LOL, I agree with BoT since he shows a lot of homophobic suggestion but Mikey is probably correct on it being better that you're not involved. With how much he ripped on Bully, I don't think he'd ever leave you guys alone (and I think that would hurt this site by taking up time that could be spent giving us articles).
@KevinQ, I went to dictionary.com and here is the result I got.
No results found for bookstorming.