12 ms·
What's the point in pardoning dead people?
by barrucadu 6y ago
What's the point in pardoning dead people?
- edmundsauto 6y agoTo correct the record, and to serve the general idea that justice can get it right, eventually. Impact wise, it probably makes the family feel better.
- Ekaros 6y agoI wonder if this were to applied to more modern cases by some governments, would then the later governments apply new conviction or overturn the overturn... And how many times this chain could happen? Unless, the case is so recent that it had some effect in modern day. I wouldn't go touch the old stuff. It is way too risky in long run...
- mongol 6y agoTime to call Pontius Pilatus descendants to correct a historical mistake.
- PicassoCTs 6y agoIts easier to fight past injustice then current injustice..
- zabzonk 6y agoLots of people seemed to appreciate Alan Turing (and lots of other people) being pardoned for something that should never have been a crime in the first place. Basically, it's a very concrete sign of how we want our society to be now.
- eznzt 6y agoi.e. rewriting history.
- zabzonk 6y agohistory is the multiple re-writings of our understanding actual events, in as much as we can understand them
- ChrisClark 6y agoNope. It's just a symbol of hope, that humanity can improve.
- eznzt 6y agoHumanity improves by improving forward, not by changing the meaning of historical events.
- Apocryphon 6y agoThese are amending past wrongs, not censoring them.
- tzs 6y agoHow is saying that some past act was wrong "rewriting history"? Rewriting history would be saying that the past act never happened.
- vinay427 6y agoTo use a more modern example, this seems akin to saying that, when someone is falsely convicted of a crime and is imprisoned as a result, appealing their judgment with fresh eyes and consequently acquitting them is "rewriting history." Yes, this example involves a living person, but that doesn't seem specifically relevant to your concern of "rewriting history." The entire act of pardoning someone is reversing a small fraction of the results of a prior action, not pretending that the prior action never happened.
- DanBC 6y agoAlso, pardoning Turing makes it easier to get pardons for people who had similar convictions but who are still alive. Pardon for Turing - 2013: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25495315 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25495315 Turing's law, pardon for thousands of gay men - 2016: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37711518 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37711518
- hansjorg 6y agoCouldn't it also be interpreted as a whitewashing of the people and institutions that were guilty of condemning him? Maybe I'm misunderstanding a 'pardon', but it sounds like the state is saying, 'what you did was wrong, but we forgive you' when what it should be saying is 'we were wrong to condemn you'. The whole ordeal has an air of 'might is always right'.
- zabzonk 6y agoI agree in general with you about pardons, but there was also an apology for Turing's treatment from the then prime minister, Gordon Brown.
- leetcrew 6y agoeven if it's only the for the satisfaction of a few people who care, why not? it's not expensive to pardon dead people, and it has few practical consequences.
- jacquesm 6y agoPrecedent. Doing the right thing. Showing that we learn from our past mistakes and grave errors.