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Alan Turing's contributions to science and the war time effort were immense, and immeasurable. However, granting a pardon to him and him alone won't mean much.
by elssar 14y ago
Alan Turing's contributions to science and the war time effort were immense, and immeasurable. However, granting a pardon to him and him alone won't mean much. He was guilty. The law which he broke was draconian, no doubts about it, but it was the law at that time. I do not think he was the only Briton who was oppressed because of that particular law.
If there is a pardon, and there should be one, it should be granted to everyone who was convicted under that law.
- brnstz 14y agoI agree any pardon should be a blanket one. I wonder about semantics though. Is someone really "guilty" of breaking an unjust law? It's like saying someone is "guilty" of freeing a slave. An unjust law is no law at all, and usually people have to break it before it is changed.
- saraid216 14y agoAs far as I know, no one has been pardoned for freeing slaves, either.
- justincormack 14y agoVery importantly slaves were allowed to be freed, by a court of law in the UK.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somersetts_Case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somersetts_Case
- elssar 14y agoGuilty of breaking the law of the time? Semantics? Guess you could say "he broke a law. There shouldn't have been such a law, but unfortunately it was there, and he broke it."
- mindcrime 14y agoIs someone really "guilty" of breaking an unjust law? No. An unjust law is no law at all Agreed. So, in this case, a "pardon", now that I think about it, isn't exactly the right thing, in a sense. I mean, it's a nice token gesture, but it still implies that a law was actually broken. An apology for being victimized by a non-law would be more appropriate.
- elssar 14y agoInteresting point. At first I was gonna say semantics, but in this case it matters. Guess they need to phrase it better when they start quashing the convictions.
- darkarmani 14y ago> He was guilty. That the only time a pardon is needed.