http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/world/europe/britain-no-pardon-for-alan-turing-in-1952-case.html

To a man to whom we owe so much, a simple pardon would have been a nice gesture.

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A crime's a crime. It is prosecuted based on the law at the time. He proved himself a criminal. Once a criminal, you can't take it back.

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Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution

In light of the apology, it seems to me that a pardon would serve to symbolically distance modern Britain from it's prejudiced, hateful past and would harm no one. Instead, posthumous punishment for something that is no longer a crime. How tiny minded.

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That does raise an interesting question: If an individual was aware that he was breaking the law at the time the crime was committed, does that awareness preclude him from receiving a pardon? Have pardons only been issued when the commission of the crime by the person in question has been disproved?

It's all very sad because I strongly suspect that Turing's suicide was associated with his persecution as a gay man in a homophobic world. The real people who should be pleading for pardons are all the homophobes who cause the high suicide rates amongst gays and lesbians.

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Homophobes are the cause of gay suicide? I have to hand it to you, that's about the biggest leap I've seen in a long time. It's a big leap even for THIS forum.

I suppose that it would be WAY too much for someone to take responsibility for their OWN actions.

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Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution

Yeah, Larry, that's what I'm asking you to do--to take responsibility for your thoughts and actions. Persecution of people does actually have an effect on their mental states. Since you openly persecute gay people on this forum, indeed you are a contributing cause to gay suicides.

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Kerry, try and keep up OK. People commit suicide all the time because they are openly accepted by family and society. Such acceptance can make anyone suicidal.

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Trying to lay all of the blame for a person's suicide on a single cause is a fool's venture.

I've never "persecuted" anyone. Although I have very strong disdain for the actions of such people I have never confronted anyone or done anything to anyone personally.

If someone is so imbalanced that they are effected by someone voicing an opinion on a discussion forum, I'm sure that they were doomed to start with. I didn't make them that way. They chose to be that way. They are screwed up because they chose to be screwed up. No one forced them to live their chosen life style and I've never personally hassled anyone for doing so.

BTW, you apparently did not read the part about my suggesting that people taking responsibility for their own actions. Of course, liberals are known for not taking responsibility for their own actions so I suppose it would be too much to ask for them to do so. I take full responsibility for my own actions and NONE of them have ever been confrontation of a gay person.

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Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution

Has anyone actually done that?

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1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

True. It's a wonder what all the fuss is about online cyber bullying is about, wouldn't you say?

I just do not have gay leanings. At the same time I have never felt it my business or perogative to judge those that have. I always though that area was not really a matter of choice anyways. .

. If there were a much higher incidence of gay people than us my life could have been hell I suppose. I would not have been able to help myself remember.

Or would they have been more compassonate to us than we were to them?

Now there's a novel idea, applying the golden rule to gays as well as straights. Good for you.

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1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

No, I certainly wouldn't. Bullying in any form is reprehensible, puerile conduct, though if we were going to get serious about it this forum (and worse ones everywhere) would need lots of work.

My whole point with the comment, at least in the context you've proposed, is that to say someone killed themselves because they were picked on (whether or not it's "cyber") is at best a misstatement and a gross oversimplification of numerous causative factors and circumstances. (Indeed, it reminds me of the old Carlin routine about someone who's had lots of bad luck and needs just one more thing to drive them over the edge, then they open their mailbox to find that someone has left them a bottle of Scope with a note that they might want to do something about their breath, and that sends them over the edge.)

Going back to Turing, obviously I wasn't alive back when Turing died, but in reading the article, I hope there was a meaningful investigation conducted regarding the circumstances of his death. If you're going to kill yourself, it seems odd you'd lace an apple with cyanide; why not just take the cyanide? Moreover, given his work into things that are now "cyber" it seems there might have been lots of crackpots fearful of a "robot society" who might have tried to off him.