Slashdot Mirror
No Pardon For Turing
mikejuk writes "A petition signed by over 21,000 people asked the UK Government to grant a pardon to Alan Turing. That request has now been declined. A statement in the House of Lords explained the reasoning: 'A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence. He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted. It is tragic that Alan Turing was convicted of an offence which now seems both cruel and absurd-particularly poignant given his outstanding contribution to the war effort. However, the law at the time required a prosecution and, as such, long-standing policy has been to accept that such convictions took place and, rather than trying to alter the historical context and to put right what cannot be put right, ensure instead that we never again return to those times.'"
ensure instead that we never again return to those times
Then perhaps pardoning him would be a step in the right direction?
Summation 2
They are actually spot on with this. What entitles Alan Turing to a pardon above all others that endured the same fate? The statement is clear and regrettable, and effectively a pardon to all rather than a select few - it's just not a formal pardon. If they had to do it with every past law that was deemed unfair by modern standards they would waste a lot of time, especially in the United Kingdom.
rather than trying to alter the historical context and to put right what cannot be put right, ensure instead that we never again return to those times
This train of thought is not so stupid at all. "Pardoning" Turing would help no one, and would not increase his glory. The glory he has, he has in our minds.
QFD
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Yes, because a posthumous pardon would sort out his soul.
It is a sensible and consistent approach in the UK justice system that pardons are not issued if the person in question was fairly convicted by the laws of the time. Pardoning him would not undo what was done, he's long dead and unlikely to get better, the government has already apologised for the way he was treated and all this would really do is help to assuage our guilt.
The government owes Turing's family and the rest of the country, even the rest of the world an enormous apology.
Already done
Really, I think that's all the government can do. I suppose a pardon might make us feel better but it's not going to do much to help. I propose we simply recognise him as a pioneer and as an important part of the codebreaking at Bletchley Park.
Instead of retroactively correcting the injustices of the past, how about we look at who is suffering injustice today? What are we doing today that future generations will be appalled at? We still persecute people for making harmless personal choices. Let's stop.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
to judge people from a different age. Values change over time. Would it be just to posthumously find Thomas Jefferson guilty of slavery when it was legal in his time? There's probably something each of us is doing today that in 100 years will be looked back on as a hideous crime (keeping pets? Scolding our kids?) and there are things we consider crimes now that in 100 years they won't believe anyone was ever so primitive as to believe it's a crime (drug use? Assisted suicide?).
The term "pardon" means forgiveness of a crime, so the fact that Turing was properly convicted under the law back then isn't an obstacle to a pardon it is a requirement; if he hadn't been convicted, he couldn't be pardoned now.
Furthermore, you pardon someone when you find that his positive contributions have outweighed the harm he has caused. For Turing, that is true not only because of his immense positive contributions, but because what he was punished for then is now not even considered worthy of punishment.
If anybody ever was deserving of a pardon, it is Alan Turing. And you really have to wonder about the motivation of the UK government for denying it.
Unlikely. As has been pointed out in about a thousand places every time there a comparison between homosexuality and pedophilia, two homosexual men (or women) are adults capable of informed consent. A child is not and never will be able to provide informed consent, so there is unlikely to ever be a situation where children are seen as acceptable sexual partners. There's nothing wrong with homosexuality unless you accept that the only purpose of sex is procreation. Anyone who has ever had sex with another consenting adult outside of marriage and without the purpose of reproduction has done the functional equivalent of homosexual sex. Only rapists have done the function equivalent of child sex.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Pardon's have been granted to soldiers shot for cowardice during WWI. Why is that an acceptable correction of an injustice, but this not? Cowardice was just as illegal as 'gross indecency' at the time, yet that was overlooked in favour of righting a grievous wrong.
What a bloody disgrace.
...And while there are some raging tools in the put here any religiously discussed world view community, I think most of us are pretty content to live and let live
You replace atheist with anything else or leave it there and it is true (or not in case of nut case splinter group). The reason is that bigotry seems to be a general faculty of man. Something humans love to hate religion or atheism makes no difference good thing is that it gives a good reason to blame others for anything or just for a sheer fun of hating others. Atheists or otherwise - they activists of each genre are bigots and love to hate. The reason is important only on the surface.
I don't think very many seriously intends to outlaw religion any more than you would outlaw superstition. The frustration usually comes when someone wants to make laws based on what the Bible, Quran or whatever says, because it defies any rational discussion. You can't argue if death by stoning is right if the logic goes "Stoning is in Sharia law, Sharia law is part of the Quran, the Quran is the exact words of Allah, Allah is perfect so his words can't be wrong. QED." I actually get annoyed the other way too, when you need to use religion to promote virtues. So Jesus was compassionate, does that mean it wasn't a good thing before Jesus? Without Jesus? Do you seriously need heaven and hell as carrot and stick? Can't you give me good enough reasons without invoking the invisible man in the sky? I'm more than happy to discuss ethics, society, law and almost everything else when it comes to how human beings should act towards each other. But when I hear of religious fundamentalists that want to replace evolution with God snapping his fingers 6000 years ago in the school curriculum, then yeah I'm almost ready to outlaw such stupidity.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Doesn't Turing represent a flaw in your logic?
Being homosexual, he is still responsible for some of the greatest advances in recent human history. Thus he, by default, has done more and benefited humanity more despite his "notable handicap" than most of the straightest of men. This is in contrast to, say, (oh Godwin strike me where I stand) Hitler, a heterosexual enough man who has managed to actually thin the human herd quite a bit through systematic execution and warmongering.
Or, if we need an example of a person who HAD children, why not Joseph Stalin or Kim Jong Il? Or Mary, Queen of Scots? Baby Doc? People who were trusted in positions of extreme political power and preferred the company of the opposite sex have still managed to do spectacular damage.
I'm not saying that homosexuals are beyond such cruelty, but perhaps child-rearing is not as effective a primary motivator for human compassion as you would believe. Your absolutist philosophy on the subject has a lot of gaping, horrible flaws in it... maybe it would actually be a net benefit for the world if you too did not have children.