Not your usual DM article: Alan Turing

[mint]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2379515/The-moral-enigma-Bletchley-Parks-code-breaker-Alan-Turing-genius-undoubtedly-helped-defeat-Hitler-So-I-believe-wrong-pardon-breaking-anti-gay-laws-time.html

I always feel sad reading about Alan Turing and this article I find both shocking and intriguing.... 

[Quillan]

Two things, one minor in a way yet equally important, I object to the phrase 'groveling' when they talked about India. Groveling in my book means you're doing it under some form of social obligation when in fact we do owe them and many of our other ex colonies a more sincere form of apology for the atrocities we committed against their people.

Anyway I wonder if the UK government would like to also apologize to the other 50,000 odd people they treated the same way over the years. I would also like to know if the UK government (and the French come to that) would also like to remove the 'punishment' of chemical castration from their law.  Chemical castration was last performed in the uk in 2009 and 2011 in France. I mention these countries because this is an anglo French forum but other European and American states still carry out this practice.

[idun]

I cannot apologise for what the bible says and when Alan Turing was convicted, the texts in the old testament were part of our laws.

Since the world began, us humans have not even lived with our own in

harmony, and as soon as they were able to, top families supressed those

below them along with the invented religions to keep the mass of the population in order. Initially the tribes  we humans formed attacked and

subjugated  and exploited other tribes and often treat them badly if not horrifically

and not hesitated to commit genocide. That is from the beginning of

time. Some of it is still happening.

Different times have differing values and I get sick of this constant apologising for things that had nothing to do with us 'now'. Just how far do we go back, do we want the scandanavian countries to apologise for the vikings? Or the Normans apologise for the invasion. Or France to start paying up for the war we had against Napoleon.

So no, I cannot apologise for colonialism either. Truth is that at that time, if the 'English' hadn't done it, then the french, belgians, spannish or germans would have, because that is how the world was at that time. As it was ripe for the 'picking' when the romans took over so much of it. Or  when the mongols did the same.

We should learn from the bad of the past and repeat it at our peril. But we also have to look forward and stop being apologists.

Alan Turing was a great great man and sadly his sexual orientation was unacceptable in 'his' time.

[idun]

[quote user="Quillan"]

Two things, one minor in a way yet equally important, I object to the phrase 'groveling' when they talked about India. Groveling in my book means you're doing it under some form of social obligation when in fact we do owe them and many of our other ex colonies a more sincere form of apology for the atrocities we committed against their people.

Anyway I wonder if the UK government would like to also apologize to the other 50,000 odd people they treated the same way over the years. I would also like to know if the UK government (and the French come to that) would also like to remove the 'punishment' of chemical castration from their law.  Chemical castration was last performed in the uk in 2009 and 2011 in France. I mention these countries because this is an anglo French forum but other European and American states still carry out this practice.

[/quote]

I wouldn't ban chemical

castration. I do believe all paedophiles who do anything in appropriate

at all to a child should have this happen to them. I would prefer worse

punishments, but we don't do them any more.

I would hope that in

2009 this was done to paedophiles, I simply cannot imagine it being done

to anyone else in the Uk at that time.

I do hope Q, that you are not suggesting that Alan Turing was other than a homosexual.

[Quillan]

A couple of things. Firstly what consenting adults do between themselves is up to them. Secondly I do not believe in chemically castrating paedophiles and before you jump up and down this is the reason why. This has been offered as an alternative to long term imprisonment and when in 2012 it was offered to paedophiles in prison over 300 applied and 100 were accepted. What a great 'get out of prison' card that is and since then 30% (according to the Telegraph) have stopped taking the medication and have simply disappeared. To my mind they should be kept in prison for life (personally I would hang them by their testicals but I suspect ECHR would object) but the problem is cost (as always) as the treatment cost peanuts in comparison. The other benefit of keeping them in prison is that every day they will be reminded that they are absolute scum.

What Alan Turring was is only known by him and his maker. Personally I never knew till about ten years ago that he was a homosexual and what was done to him as it was a dark secret that people didn't speak about.

Finally your comment "I cannot apologise for what the bible says and when Alan Turing was convicted, the texts in the old testament were part of our laws.", well I guess you are talking about Leviticus 18:22 which can be interpreted two ways i.e. was it the word of God or was it the interpretation of the original scribe or those that translated it to English etc. Whatever it does conflict with Samuel 1:26 which says "I grieve for you brother Jonathan. How dear to me you were. How wonderful was your love to me, better even than the love of women.". It also conflicts with the story of Sodom where the two 'angels' took local men as lovers and when the towns people approached, in a rage, the owner of the house they lived in he offered them his two virgin daughters but they refused them and demanded to sleep with the angels instead. Unfortunately the bible, both old and new testament, is riddled with contradiction, possibly deliberately so, and nobody who wrote pieces of it ever knew those they were writing about as they had died over 100 years before (in some cases even longer). The real issue and why Leviticus 18:22 was used against homosexuals was because back then it was a 'mans world' and heterosexual men hate having their sexuality threatened.

[idun]

Re chemical castration, well, I never said I would let any of them out of prison. I would not. To me it feels like these people have given up their right to draw breath when they do such things, but we don't do that any more.

It is sad that they were born like that, as it is sad that some people are pure evil. But protect the herd is what I want.

And the bible, well, it is what it is and historically our laws followed much of what is said in that book. I make no apology for anyone writing it or the laws in the past. All we, as people could ever do was get them repealed. And in this case so that homosexuals, just like the rest of us,can live freely, without fear of the law. Our consulting adult sexuality should never have been the government's business and I am glad it no longer is.

The bible is full as you say, of contradictions and worse misogyny.

[PaulT]

It is a shame that the DPP of those days is not the same as the DPP of a little while ago - celebrities / politicians have a blind eye pointed towards them - Saville and Cyril Smith to name but two.

Turing played a very major part in winning WWII - and he is later repaid by the authorities hounding him such that he committed suicide.

As a PS, religion should never play any part in making the Laws of a land - we do not all share the same beliefs, as an atheist the entire cast of the Bible do not exist for me.

[Thibault]

I find the modern notion of apologising for some action taken in historical times totally bizarre. It serves no purpose other than to gain a little publicity for the individual doing the apologising.

There are, however, exceptions. I have some Australian cousins who were part of the group sent to orphanages during the mid-twentieth century where they were poorly treated. Recently the Australian PM apologised to them for what had happened. This worked for me because the people directly affected were in the room when the apology was made - it was personal and related to their own lives.

Apologising to the modern world for something that happened before the lifetimes of living people is ludicrous.

[Théière]

[quote user="Thibault"] Apologising to the modern world for something that happened before the lifetimes of living people is ludicrous.[/quote]

Yep, didn't hear Moses appologise for the tablets and God let him off too!

[Rabbie]

[quote user="Théière"]

[quote user="Thibault"] Apologising to the modern world for something that happened before the lifetimes of living people is ludicrous.[/quote]

Yep, didn't hear Moses appologise for the tablets and God let him off too!

[/quote]To err is human, to forgive divine

[mint]

Good posts, PaulT and Thibault (pg 1)!

I totally agree with what you have said.

As for Clegg, I can't look at him now without thinking of that spoof video showing him singing "I'm sorry, I'm sorry......"

How much this coalition government have to apologise for but, of course, we aren't going to hear any remorse for the things that do now matter and there is still time to change them.