Why Does John McCain hate Dungeons and Dragons?

[National Acrobat]

I'll preface this by saying that I am not an Obama supporter, nor am I a McCain supporter. In fact, I can't stand either the Democrats or Republicans.

However, I find this amusing and quite bizarre. Obviously McCain's campaign is trying to paint some folks who questioned McCain's rememberences while a POW as geeky, pathetic losers who still live in their parent's basements.

However, I play DnD, I tend to be conservative, and I am a successful professional, who is married with three children. I find these sorts of broad strokes to define people, well, pathetic.

http://www.johnmccain.com/McCainReport/Read.aspx?guid=181471d0-5456-4434-9f78-2f30ffc39459

It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others. John McCain has often said he witnessed a thousand acts of bravery while he was imprisoned, and though not every one has been submitted into the public record, they are remembered by the men who were there (one such only recently reported by Karl Rove though it escaped mention in any of Senator McCain's books). But as Swindle said, this is a "desperate group of people trying to make something out of nothing."

[Trieste]

How arrogant...

[HairyHeretic]

I'm inclined to say standard republican behaviour. They haven't got many good points to play up on their own candidate, so attack the hell out of the other guy. I wonder if politics would be any different over there if you had more than 2 parties (effectively), and less of an 'us versus them' attitude where politics is concerned.

[Trieste]

At least we aren't Italy ... :P

[HairyHeretic]

True. How that guy has stayed out of prison I'll never know. And why he keeps getting reelected is even more puzzling. Then again, I subscribe to the Billy Connolly school of political thought .. "The fact that someone wishes to enter politics should automatically bar them from ever doing so."

[Apple of Eris]

Maybe they don't like all those different kinds of dice?

[LordAnubis]

Watch the movie about Carl ROve and you'll get all your answers.

What got Bush elected a second time was above all else mobilizing the Conservative religious right.  And personally I still have one of those fun little pamplets about how DnD is Satan worship and the like.  It is an old thought, but one some people still have.  So on one side he is associating Obama with DnD not ot get those people to not vote for Obama, but to get them to actively vote against Obama.  Since they can't let someone who plays the "Satanic DnD" into the White House.  Plus DnD still carries the Stigma of being a geeks game with some people, so then take the ones who don't want to be associated with that and at the very least swing them away from Obama if thye can't swing them to Mcain.

As petty and trival as it sounds those are the only voters they really have left, the middle voters who are not politically involved.  So a sound tactic is to attack the petty little issues someone might have with a canidate or who else supports them, since to support the same person means you have something in common with everyone else who is supporting them.  It's a movie, but look at Chris Rock's movie head of state.  Imagine if someone actually got the public support of the KKK instead of it being a cheeky commerical.  They might as well pull out of the presidental race, it would be the kiss of death.  Since it is highly unlikely he can count on the KKK backing Obama, he has to go with something more obscure but in the back of the minds of some of the middle voters.

[Pumpkin Seeds]

What makes me laugh is that a good many military play RPGs.  Whenever I would go to a gaming shop or something, there were always former military or military there.  At least one and more than likely four or five.  I was talking to one guy for quite sometime and he said many military do play RPGs.  I asked why and he said because it requires no electricity and is pretty expansive.  Which I guess is true, since you can take the Player's Guide, DM's Guide and Monster Manual to create nearly any adventure.

Granted this is not a true survey of the military, but I would bet there are quite a few roleplayers amongst the rank. 

[OldSchoolGamer]

I think America has pretty much entered the imperial phase of permanent decline.  Politics here isn't so much about producing and innovating and solving problems as it is simply carving up what's left of the country and its economy into little fiefdoms.  Here in California, the economy is sliding into a ditch, the state is insolvent without a budget, and a federal judge actually wants to loot $8 billion from the state treasury for a pet project of his.  I could hardly believe it--incidents of those sort used to be confined to Third World potentates and juntas.

Honestly, I give this country another five to ten years, and it's going to be so obviously hitting the skids no one will even attempt to deny it anymore.  Is it any accident that almost everyone in the Bush Administration has substantial overseas holdings?  I think not.

[The Overlord]

What makes me laugh is that a good many military play RPGs.  Whenever I would go to a gaming shop or something, there were always former military or military there.  At least one and more than likely four or five.  I was talking to one guy for quite sometime and he said many military do play RPGs.  I asked why and he said because it requires no electricity and is pretty expansive.  Which I guess is true, since you can take the Player's Guide, DM's Guide and Monster Manual to create nearly any adventure.

Granted this is not a true survey of the military, but I would bet there are quite a few roleplayers amongst the rank. 

There are. In a combination of RPG's and straight up wargames I play, there's lots of current military and veterans that game...I've met many. These days some of them are in and out of Iraq or Afghanistan, in fact some of them hit servers and forums and game when they can, and god bless them all if it gives them something constructive or positive when they're not in the best of places on earth.

Don't bash gamers; there's more of us than you know and we cross many walks of life. If you want to apply the 'geek factor' to people that game, then I challenge you to apply the 'stupid factor' to a large portion of the rest of the populace. Gamers are doing creative, positive and safe things...would you rather even more people are going out and wrecking their bodies by doing hard drugs,  hang out in trashy bars doing pointless crap?

There an insidious but clear campaign in the media to make smart look geeky and bad, and people are lapping it up like free Budweiser at a tractor pull event. A critically intelligent, educated and discerning population is not in much of Washington’s best interest, so let's find any way we can to marginalize the free thinkers.

[The Overlord]

I think America has pretty much entered the imperial phase of permanent decline.  Politics here isn't so much about producing and innovating and solving problems as it is simply carving up what's left of the country and its economy into little fiefdoms.  Here in California, the economy is sliding into a ditch, the state is insolvent without a budget, and a federal judge actually wants to loot $8 billion from the state treasury for a pet project of his.  I could hardly believe it--incidents of those sort used to be confined to Third World potentates and juntas.

Honestly, I give this country another five to ten years, and it's going to be so obviously hitting the skids no one will even attempt to deny it anymore.  Is it any accident that almost everyone in the Bush Administration has substantial overseas holdings?  I think not.

Don't be so hasty to place the word permanent into your equation; that implies the end of the United States period. Rather, what I think we're seeing is the beginning of the final phase leading up to our second and last revolution, or something nearly as radical. If anything, it's going to be the end of the current power base. Hell, I think Saddam had a Swiss bank account or three, good despots always plan for the day when they need something to pad them when they inevitably lose power.


Edit- Actually we've had one technical revolution, but the Civil War was as least as significant an event, we just define it as succession rather than uprising. Regardless, what's coming, likely in our own lifetimes, is our third and by far the largest upheaval.

[Anastasia Lockhart]

Maybe I shouldn't tell the Episcopalian minister I've played Deryni FUDGE with that she's a Satanist. Then again, she might think it's funny.

[Transgirlenstein]

That is one of the most arrogant things I have ever heard.. ><

[Vekseid]

We do have a few vets here...

John McCain came back to the US as D&D first gained popularity, I believe, he probably has no clue how popular it is within the military. Of course, he's also massively unpopular with soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, so...

[OldSchoolGamer]

Given the fundamental problems America is facing across the board, that a Presidential candidate thinks Dungeons and Dragons is even anywhere on the radar screen of things to make into a campaign issue speaks volumes about the massive, profound disconnect between this country's "leadership" and reality.

[Sabby]

Given the fundamental problems America is facing across the board, that a Presidential candidate thinks Dungeons and Dragons is even anywhere on the radar screen of things to make into a campaign issue speaks volumes about the massive, profound disconnect between this country's "leadership" and reality.

Ty, its people like you making comments like that that restore my faith in common sense.

[The Overlord]

Given the fundamental problems America is facing across the board, that a Presidential candidate thinks Dungeons and Dragons is even anywhere on the radar screen of things to make into a campaign issue speaks volumes about the massive, profound disconnect between this country's "leadership" and reality.

Well said. *runs off to research possible covert ties between Washington and Disneyland*