The Father of Computer Science is Still a Criminal

[Starnerf]

Also, I think you don't get to be called "The Father of Computer Science", until you get a data type.

No, not Robert Int.

How about Justin Long and Martin Short?

On topic, I would think that repealing the unjust law was a greater admittance of wrongdoing than pardoning the afflicted. Not that I'd be opposed to a pardon, but I just don't see it as strictly necessary. Turing was a great man, and I think his legacy as a brilliant scientist will serve as an even greater reminder that homosexuals don't deserve to be discriminated against.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

There's another angle to bring up here: If they were willing to pardon Turing, by rights they should have gone through every single case of a person convicted of "illegal" homosexuality and pardoned each of them as well. Sorry, but being a national hero does not earn you special treatment ? or more accurately, not being a national hero does not justify your mistreatment.

And you right-wingers keep talking out of your asses and making excuses (rather blatantly defending your prejudices on some misplaced sense of socio-political dedication to opposing reform) for this stuff and yet don't understand your own history or the law!

Wow, way to recognize sarcasm, dude. (For the record, no it is not impossible to convey sarcasm on the Internet; saying patently absurd things like "those niggerslaves deserved to be pushished for escaping" is a pretty damn big hint.)

 

[Johanthemonster666]

There's another angle to bring up here: If they were willing to pardon Turing, by rights they should have gone through every single case of a person convicted of "illegal" homosexuality and pardoned each of them as well. Sorry, but being a national hero does not earn you special treatment ? or more accurately, not being a national hero does not justify your mistreatment.

And you right-wingers keep talking out of your asses and making excuses (rather blatantly defending your prejudices on some misplaced sense of socio-political dedication to opposing reform) for this stuff and yet don't understand your own history or the law!

Wow, way to recognize sarcasm, dude. (For the record, no it is not impossible to convey sarcasm on the Internet; saying patently absurd things like "those niggerslaves deserved to be pushished for escaping" is a pretty damn big hint.)

Why not? Go down the list and pardon them all is the least they can do.
Germany has been doing it since they repealed their draconian anti-homosexuality law.

 

[the clockmaker]

In all seriousness escapists, I fucking hate all of you. There is no excuse for some of these comments other than pure, undiluted bigotry.

He was convicted of a crime that is not a fucking crime. I hate the right-wing apologists on here pretending like he got what he deserved just because he was gay and has contributed more to modern computer science than anyone cares to recognize on here.

As for the House of Lords, "well sorry Turing, nasty period in western civilization and as much as we regret how you were persecuted we can't pardon you because it was a crime back then"

http://news.softpedia.com/news/One-WWI-Soldier-Receives-Post-Portem-Pardon-32975.shtml

Once against escapist, fuck you.


And don't even try to tell me "they don't want to white-wash history". Many people who've been pardoned long after their deaths are still very much remembered and the injustices of their day are far from forgotten because of one decent act of respect in memory (aka pardoning them of an unjust law that lead to their deaths).

Ultimately I'm more angry at some of the posters here than I am at the House of Lords.

See above for why the pardon for cowadice is not a precident for this case.

And no one that I can see is saying that he got what he deserved, what they are saying is that legally the house of lords cannot pardon him. If the law that states the conditions for a pardon (posted above if you actually care about what the facts are) are amended by the lower house, then I will be the first to call for the pardon to go through but the fact is, as has been shown here, that under the law a legal pardon is not possible. That is not a pro or anti homosexual statement, that is a fact.

This is my problem with some people who lean to the left. I don't care what your opinions are, I disagree with a lot of them but each to his own and so forth, what I care about is people who turn an argument about facts into a moral issue. The idea that the right wing needs appologists, that it is some inherently wrong thing about it is pretty annoying. So in the end, what this thread has been is a group of people arguening over whether or not they can pardon this man, while always making sure to point out that he was a good man who was fucked on for the wrong reasons, one man claiming that he was a paedophile, which...well I don't know where that is coming from and you bringing nothing but hate to the table. You don't single people or arguments out, you just hate the right and apparently everybody here. For the most part, that's not that big a deal, the right is big enough and diverse enought that we will never really be persecuted and if you continue to be abuse I'm sure some mod will find you. But what concerns me is the mindset that led to this, this idea that it is reasonable to simply lash out with hate, that is very concerning because, though it doesn't matter when you point it at me and other right leaning individuals, the sort of person who resorts to it here will likely resort to it elsewhere.

And you right-wingers keep talking out of your asses and making excuses (rather blatantly defending your prejudices on some misplaced sense of socio-political dedication to opposing reform) for this stuff and yet don't understand your own history or the law!

Then where have people been wrong about the law, above there have been some reasonable posts, putting through thought out answers, but all you can say is 'You're wrong'. That is on the same level as 'nu-uh' in the grand scheme of things.

I won't call you a child and I won't call you hate filled, I'm just saying don't bring that sort of thing into what has been, thus far, a fairly civil thread.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

tbh, he's still celebrated as the Father of Computer Science. If he's convicted of doing something that was, at the time, wrong, admitted to his crimes, and was prosecuted as such, then there's no real reason to get a pardon as he 'did' break the law at the time.

Otherwise, if we're going to go out of our way to pardon him, then let's go the extra mile and do the same to Benedict Arnold, an otherwise noble and great patriot whose achievements in the Seven Years War and the Revolutionary War were tarnished by one betrayal late in the war after he was skipped out for promotion and ousted of his command by more inept officers. The guy was a great war hero, and yet one betrayal paints the guy as some ignoble bastard we should all hate and revile.

 

[NortherWolf]

Hey, British Government...You know what other country accepted responsibility for wrongs did back then? And rectified it?
Care to guess?
No?

The god-damn Soviet Union! When a dictatorial bunch of douche bags has the balls to say "What happened back then was wrong, we change the verdicts" and they then manage to make you seem morally bankrupt, you're doing something wrong.

I dislike my own government a lot(Swedish) but at least they had the spine to say "We're sorry for what we did back then, to gays, to the mentally handicapped, to those who were hurt." and change the verdicts.

And then people defend the verdict against Turing? I'll go with an earlier poster; Filth!

 

[Avatar Roku]

As I said in another thread on this topic...

Personally I should think Turing should not only be posthumously pardoned, he should also receive a posthumous Victoria Cross for his wartime service (forget the "in the face of the enemy bit" he was at danger of being lynched by his own people and he still contributed!), a posthumous George Cross for his services after the war in computing science, and that counts as services to humanity.

FFS they give knighthoods to rockstars and puffed up little premadonnas, this man should go down in history with his name kept in the same company as Einstein, Newton, Galileo, Darwin, and Hawking!

As someone currently studying Computer Science, I can tell you he is practically our Jesus. There's a reason that the computer science equivalent of the Nobel Prize is called the Turing Award.

We can't undermine the rule of law. Sure, the law can be pretty damn stupid sometimes, but it's not like we have anything better (I'm sure there's a fallacy in there somewhere).

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/09/18/the-pope-apologises-for-catholic-priests-unspeakable-crimes-against-children-115875-22570046/

If the Pope is fallible, the Government have no excuse.

There's a statue to him, and they can't pardon him?

Filth.

Wait, they have a statue of him holding an apple? When he used an apple (injected with cyanide) to kill himself? Does that seem like poor taste to anyone else?

Anyway, I can't comment on the article itself. I feel that I would have to come at this from an unbiased perspective, that I'd have to at least try to meet Parliament halfway, but I can't. Not about Turing. As I said, the man is practically the Jesus of the profession I am studying, I can't be detached about this.

 

[Ariseishirou]

It isn't often that people can make me sick to my stomach.

The people who condemn Turing using his machines manage it though.

But yeah, Jobs Innovates, Turing "gets away with".

Filth. The lot of you.

Agreed. I can't believe I'm reading all of this 2012. Particularly the "got what he deserved" comments; yes, because spurious accusations of child molestation with zero evidence weren't used all the time in this era to discredit and fear-monger about homosexuals. Let's believe hearsay and cheer on the chemical mutilation of a genius war hero because his lifestyle disagreed with our personal politics!

Vile. Utterly vile. And duly noted, each and every those of those posters.

 

[restoshammyman]

Again, people gloss over how he was allegedly a child molester, only given till his work was done, before being given the choice of imprisonment, or chemical castration.

He decided on the chems. He then committed suicide.

If people think that The British House of Lords is some sort of evil homophobic group, so be it... but perhaps what was possibly 'swept under the rug' is why they refuse to pardon the man.

(The Prime Minister who eventually 'apologized' to him was a baby when Alan Turing was convicted. Just sayin.)

Call my crazy but I think your lying since you don't have any sort of citations and I didn't find anything about that from an admittedly simple search.

Wikipedia is a simple search.... perhaps you didn't see that part?

A nonfiction historian (Anthony Cave Brown) wrote about it. I would dare to say he was almost an expert (more than you or I) on the goings on of the WWII era behind the scenes...

But I just think it's a more valid reason for the House of Lords to not pardon him as opposed to they just being evil homophobes.

Savvy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Cave_Brown

there is one line saying he was suspected of molesting schoolboys, seeing how he was gay he was probably a scapegoat, and hell, i can say i suspect you of being a serial rapist. that doesn't really mean anything now does it?

 

[Treblaine]

For god's sake!

-A pardon states that you were innocent of the crime that you were convicted of.
-It was illegal at the time to be homosexual
-Turing was homosexual
-Turing was in breach of that law.

He was given an appology, but a pardon is not possible under the law. It would be meaningless under the law. And since it is a legal action, it would be pointless to do it. People think that because they ask someone to 'pardon them' when they bump into them in the corridor that it is synonomous with forgiveness, but under the law it is a very specific thing.

They are not saying that the law was right, they are not saying that being gay is wrong, they are simply stating what the law was and what the facts are.

actually you're describing acquittal; to quote Wikipedia "A pardon is the forgiveness of a crime and the cancellation of the relevant penalty; it is usually granted by a head of state (such as a monarch or president) or by a competent church authority."

"his conviction has been reversed or he has been pardoned on the ground that a new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that there has been a miscarriage of justice."

Emphasis mine. Within the currently standing UK legistlation that I could find (perhaps a more legally minded escapist can help out there) that was the only provision that I could find on the conditions of granting a pardon.

Then how the hell were the 306+ separate cases of Soldiers executed for "cowardice" in WW1 being posthumously pardoned? What new evidence came forward to pardon ALL of them together, not each case each with new evidence, but EVERY execution for cowardice, categorically, were pardoned.

Sets a pretty clear legal precedent for the power to Pardon.

The House of Lords have no technical excuse for refusing to Pardon, they are guilty of intellectual cowardice.

1-legislative law trumps common law, so a precedent is not grounds for ignoring what the law states.
2-reading into it simply the new evidence was a greater understanding of PTSD, that the soldiers were not, in fact cowards and as such were not guilty of the crime that they were convicted of
3-in addition there was found to be a systemic miscarriage of justice, that the defendents were not able to call for their own witnesses and produce their own evidence. As the courts martial were found to be conducting themselves improperly, it would provide reasonable doubt on the decision that was reached.

So to compare the two cases,
-Turing was in breach of the law that he was charged under/in retrospect those charged of cowardice were found to have reasonable doubt as to thier guilt
-I can find no mention that Turing's trial (while obviously enforcing an abominable law) was conducted in anything other than a legally proper manner./The soldiers charged with cowardice were not given a fair trial.

As such, a precedent would not really apply, legally.

So he is morally entitled to whatever restitution the government can offer, but under the law there is no case and so the house of lords, an institution concerned with the law has no legal grounds to grant him a pardon.

And as to the accusation of intellectual cowardice, you should read over the second paragraph of the statement again, where they call the punishment meted against him "cruel and absurd" and state that they will not "try to put right what cannot be put right" and ensure instead "that we never refer to those times". That seems to be a pretty pro-turing statement, and in fact, more politically visible than a pardon.

It's similar enough to Turing's injustice:

1 - what is this common/legislature distinction? Explain this! I thought we live in a land with one law for all, no double standards.
Anyway, we aren't ignoring what the law states. A Pardon recognises the law and excuses the individual.

2 - Our understanding of homosexuality has changed, we no longer hold the delusion that men-who-love-men are also dangerous paedophile abusers as was believed back then. It's in fact turned out the Priests are more likely to abuse children than gay men. Though perhaps the UNELECTED Lords-for-life have a rather out of touch view, perhaps they still are distrustful of gays.
Also, when the soldiers were pardoned, no mention of PTSD was made, no distinction between those showing symptoms and those not.

3 - The pardoning of all the soldiers executed for "cowardice" made no distinction between the cases where defendants were able to call witnesses and anyway court partial at the time it was "hurr, it was legal at the time!" to not allow defendant to call witnesses. And I think there are some definite miscarriages if the treatment of chemical castration and such treatment leading to him resorting to suicide.

they will not "try to put right what cannot be put right"

+25'000 people who have found the obscure petition think it would do a HUGE EFFORT of putting this right.

Pardon is the single biggest thing you can do to put this right but they won't even do that. It is a nonsense fallacy that because you can't completely fix something you should just try to sweep it under the rug.

Surely the Lords can see the way this will be interpreted. The empty platitudes at the end are WORTHLESS against the words that echo through history "No Pardon will be granted".

And by the way, the intellectual cowardice was for how the Lords tried to PATHETIC excuse they were preventing Historical Revisionism. When a pardon would more than anything recognise that the law was wrong so that it EXISTED, and that it wronged people. Are THEY not exercising historical revisionism by refusing a pardon they are acting as if the law was somehow right to have back then and that there were no major injustices by it?

The Lords using the phrase "Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence" gives fabricated legitimacy to what was DEFINITELY an unjust law. It's almost as if they are reminiscent of the good old days of institutional gay bashing. They should admit the proper thing to do her would be for the law to NOT have been followed because the Law was wrong!

Empty platitudes and technical excuses after the matter are WORTHLESS compared to what they have already said.

 

[Strazdas]

"A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offense. He would have known that his offense was against the law and that he would be prosecuted."

according to this logic, what nazi did to jews were also appropriate, since it was the law at that given times in that country.

 

[MaxwellEdison]

If that's the government's official response to the notion of posthumous pardons, I have no problem with it. It makes sense, as long as they're consistent.

 

[slacker09]

Yep, and one of the reasons why left wing politics drive me crazy. The guy pretty much got what he deserved.

It's sort of like saying that because Hitler made many great contributions, especially before World War II (the guy was an international "man of the year") that we should pardon him for all of his crimes, like that little holocaust thing, so he can be remembered as a humanitarian and economic reformist....

I just wanted to inform you that the "man of the year" recognition that Hitler recieved from Time was not claiming that he was in any way a good man. It was just stating that he was the most influential person that year, which considering that WWII was starting is not a far fetched statement. If you look up the cover for that issue of time you will see that they were condeming the man not celebrating him. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with anything you said, I just felt the need to clarify this.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

There's another angle to bring up here: If they were willing to pardon Turing, by rights they should have gone through every single case of a person convicted of "illegal" homosexuality and pardoned each of them as well. Sorry, but being a national hero does not earn you special treatment ? or more accurately, not being a national hero does not justify your mistreatment.

Yes, they should. What's the problem with this idea?

 

[Doom972]

People here don't seems to get what a pardon is. A pardon does not mean the person was found innocent.
A pardon is when an authority outside of the judicial systems (in many countries it is the president) decides to forgive the convict for his crime (which could be for various reasons) and release him without carrying his full sentence.
People didn't ask the house of lords to find him innocent (it was the law at the time after all), but to achnowledge that he didn't deserve to be treated the way he did.
I wonder why people don't ask the house of lords to give pardon to all homosexuals who got convicted.

 

[Falseprophet]

Again, people gloss over how he was allegedly a child molester, only given till his work was done, before being given the choice of imprisonment, or chemical castration.

He decided on the chems. He then committed suicide.

If people think that The British House of Lords is some sort of evil homophobic group, so be it... but perhaps what was possibly 'swept under the rug' is why they refuse to pardon the man.

(The Prime Minister who eventually 'apologized' to him was a baby when Alan Turing was convicted. Just sayin.)

Call my crazy but I think your lying since you don't have any sort of citations and I didn't find anything about that from an admittedly simple search.

Wikipedia is a simple search.... perhaps you didn't see that part?

A nonfiction historian (Anthony Cave Brown) wrote about it. I would dare to say he was almost an expert (more than you or I) on the goings on of the WWII era behind the scenes...

But I just think it's a more valid reason for the House of Lords to not pardon him as opposed to they just being evil homophobes.

Savvy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Cave_Brown

there is one line saying he was suspected of molesting schoolboys, seeing how he was gay he was probably a scapegoat, and hell, i can say i suspect you of being a serial rapist. that doesn't really mean anything now does it?

If you were a historian who wrote several books about the era I live in, it would mean a bit more than what some random internet guy/gal says.

I'm just noting for the record that your sole source of information for the "child molester" allegation is:
-A Wikipedia article...
-that quotes a 25-year-old work of popular history...
-by a journalist whose theories and conclusions were often sharply criticized [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodyguard_of_Lies#Reception] by proper historians...
-and the book in question was summarily dismissed as spotty and amateurish [http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/42963/fritz-stern/c-the-secret-life-of-sir-stewart-graham-menzies-spymaster-to-sir] by the in-house periodical of the most influential foreign policy think-tank in the United States.

If that's your only source of information for the allegation, I'm inclined to dismiss it as homophobic propaganda typical of the time period.

 

[Kenji_03]

Whoever turned it down has a point. Postumously pardoning him would only serve to make us feel better about how horrible we use to be, instead of making us do better for fear of shaming ourselves again.

 

[DirtyJunkieScum]

There's a statue to him, and they can't pardon him?

Spoiler

Filth.

Wait, they have a statue of him holding an apple? When he used an apple (injected with cyanide) to kill himself? Does that seem like poor taste to anyone else?

I guess it's a subtle "you know what you did" set in stone for the people/system/government/whatever that convicted him. I quite like it.