First, they told you not to drink until 21. Then, they said you couldn’t watch rated “R” movies until you were 17.

Now, the U.S. Congress is attempting to remove another form of escapism — the video game.

That’s right. U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) is proposing the community game “Second Life” be banned in schools and libraries.

The game allows players to construct characters based on their “real” identities. However, this doesn’t mean a person’s online avatar has to look, sound or act the way they do in the real world. Huh? A virtual world where people are allowed to fulfill their desires by altering their personalities and living without true consequence? I don’t think I’ve seen that before. By the way, did you hear how much money “Grand Theft Auto IV” made? (It’s one of the best-selling video games of all time.)

Despite the obvious attractions the virtual world may have in institutions of learning (such as those schools and libraries), distraction is not Kirk’s main concern. He has children’s morality in mind.

“Sites like ‘Second Life’ offer no protections to keep kids from virtual ‘rape rooms,’ brothels and drug stores. If sites like ‘Second Life’ won’t protect kids from obviously inappropriate content, the Congress will,” Kirk said in a statement, according to eFlux Media.

Maybe Kirk has a point. Perhaps as a whole, the world should be protected from Internet devils. I understand the reflex to shelter children from graphic and disturbing material. But will banning a video game really protect anyone? If Kirk is truly concerned about the moral fiber of our nation’s youth, and if the virtual world is a seething underbelly of X-rated ones and zeros, then he should work to eliminate the Internet’s inspiration: reality.

Where are my tax dollars going? Instead of paying for “Parental Advisory” stickers, organizations such as the Federal Communications Commission should be paying experts to figure out why graphic content sells. Maybe Congress should invest in finding out why so many people feel the need to produce graphic material. Accepting the status quo is the problem, and banning a video game doesn’t change what real people do in the real world.

Author Ayn Rand once wrote that “it is realism that demands a plot structure.”

If games such as “Second Life” intend to reflect reality, they need a plot that stems, in part, from player participation. Where do the players get their ideas from?

Before the world begins a futile attempt to ban a distraction, it should stop distracting people from the real problem.