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House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

bbc.co.uk

131–140 of 161 posts

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#131
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are the kinds of attacks that people who stand for traditional marriage have to face. A bigoted army of people who can't muster a better argument than vulgar name calling. The irony is that they claim to stand against intolerance...

By using euphemisms like "stand for traditional marriage" you automatically lose the argument. You do not have to defend straight marriage. No one is against it. There's nothing to stand for. In fact you are against the other things. Your position is one of sanction and oppression, not support.

It's changing the definition of the word, so yes there is something to stand for. If you don't believe marriage needs defending, look at the rates of marriage. Now the meaning of marriage has been diluted so much, no one wants to get married anymore - there's no point except to possibly get benefits from the state.

I could have just as easily said people who use the term "homophobic" automatically lose the argument, as there's no fear involved. This is a battle of semantics - and if we want a quality debate then we need to keep definitions consistent.

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#132
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, how are things waaaay over there on the wrong side of history?

You keep arguing with logical fallacies, but I'll respond anyway. Russia is doing quite well and just became the 5th largest economy[1]. They also have a news station (Russia Today) which reports on real issues - unlike western "mainstream" media. You act as if Russia is some backwater slump and not a growing modern nation. Meanwhile the western world is teetering into bankruptcy. You won't know which side of history…

If you remember to control for oil wealth when graphing "acceptance of homosexuality" against per capita GDP you'll probably be surprised by how well correlated they are...

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#133
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they plan to, and that is what is being debated, they are just using Alan Turing as the most famous example of an deceased person that should be pardoned.

I believe this is the bill they are debating, it seems specific to Alan Turing: http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2013-14/alanturingstatut... (tangent: this is a pretty neat site, does anybody know if there is similar for US Congress?)

There's also http://opencongress.org

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#134
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument would be that he wasn't wrongly convicted. By modern standards it's obviously a stupid, unjust and immoral law that he was convicted under; but if he was correctly found guilty under the laws of the time, then it was a sound conviction.

Pardons are a general tool to forgive (in several senses) a crime. If you look at the history of pardons in the US for example, you'll find examples ranging from people who were wrongly convicted, to people who got one as a reward for cooperating in investigations, to people who simply had powerful friends. Which is why I find that reasoning confusing - when you pardon someone, you just do it... and if you care to gi…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon#United_Kingdom

Pardons are extraordinarily rare in the UK and normally only granted for misapplication of the law

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#135
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The position of government on various issues is far from meaningless. It is as close as we can get to a tangible representation of the common (majority) opinion and common will of the mass of people that makes up a country (see below for a caveat). While you shouldn't base your own opinions on what everybody else thinks, it's ridiculous to think that everybody else's opinions will never affect your life. So, I think…

It's interesting to observe how public attitudes do seem to have changed in response to relatively minor and symbolic changes. One only has to look at how the UK political landscape has shifted from the massive campaigns around the abolition of an offensive but essentially toothless piece of legislation preventing "the promotion of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship" to being broadly accepting of the lo…

Cultural note: That bit of law is called "section 28" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28) - There were worries that it would prevent a teacher from counciling gay pupils, among other things.

While 'toothless' it did have effects:

> As it did not create a criminal offence, no prosecution was ever brought under this provision, but its existence caused many groups to close or limit their activities or self-censor. For example, a number of lesbian, gay and bisexual student support groups in schools and colleges across Britain were closed owing to fears by council legal staff that they could breach the Act.

...even though it was mostly not applicable to teachers.

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#136

The bigger issue here is that people look to governments and religions for pardons, permission and other validation. People that see some kind of meaning in empty gestures like a posthumous pardon (after shaming and chemically castrating the man) are grossly mislead. Buying into the hype of government is what gives governments the power to commit senseless crimes like what was done to Alan Turing and many, many crime…

In other words "changing the government is hard, let's go shopping".

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#137

The bigger issue here is that people look to governments and religions for pardons, permission and other validation. People that see some kind of meaning in empty gestures like a posthumous pardon (after shaming and chemically castrating the man) are grossly mislead. Buying into the hype of government is what gives governments the power to commit senseless crimes like what was done to Alan Turing and many, many crime…

This is psychotic. In the literal sense of having lost contact with reality. As much as you dislike the government, you can't just ignore how incredibly powerful it is in people's daily lives. The incidents of legally recognized marriage are very real and very significant. I've met many families separated (or threatened with separation) by immigration law that didn't recognize same-sex couples. No amount of saying "f…

I stopped reading after "This is psychotic. In the literal sense of having lost contact with reality."

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#138
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've never seen a resume where the candidate listed anti-gay or anti-gay marriage advocacy groups. This very fact should concern people. You rarely see people advertising their support for traditional marriage (especially in california/new york. There is a common misconception that supporting gay marriage is somehow a proud rebellious cause against the status quo. But the reality couldn't be further from the truth -…

>Organizations supporting traditional marriage will immediately be called "intolerant, bigoted, hate groups" and shouted out of the debate. Stop couching your views in pseudo-PC language and call it what it is. You do not "support traditional marriage" because that is a meaningless phrase. Nobody is campaigning for traditional marriage to go away - you can go have one right now! You are not supporting a thing, you ar…

>You are not supporting a thing, you are supporting keeping that thing from someone else.

Here lies the crux of the debate. You think straight people are keeping something away from gays. But I think its gays trying to take something from straight people.

Let's say I lived in a country that banned marriage entirely. I would still get married and it would be enough for me and my family to recognize that we are married. Gays can do the same thing - they're not restricted at all in what they can do these days. But they want something more - they want everyone to be forced to recognize their marriage. They get infuriated when straight people don't want to recognize them. So they are taking something - our freedom to interpret our own reality. This is a kind of rabbit hole type revelation that spans many other issues and underpins my fundamental opposition to statism/slavery.

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#139
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem arises that the legality of marriage was designed around traditional families. This premise is debatable, but assuming it is true it's still not a particularly strong argument. The law was designed to be flexible and evolve with society's needs and desires. Allowing gay marriage is a minor adjustment of what we in the US currently understand marriage to be - not a "changing of the very definition". If w…

You arguments are good but not airtight. I'll pick out the ones I disagree with. > To be clear, there are difference in say how gay couples reproduce Straight couples can reproduce with their spouse - gays cannot. That's not just a difference, but a complete opposite. >Let's be honest - opposition to gay marriage is based on religion, ignorance, or personal aesthetics. I agree that most people oppose gay marriage bec…

> Straight couples can reproduce with their spouse - gays cannot. That's not just a difference, but a complete opposite.

You're just stating explicitly the implicit argument I was refuting, but ok:

The difference is immaterial for our purposes. The fact that one or both parents in a family do not have a biological link to their children is irrelevant. It's a curiosity of genetics that has little-to-nothing to do with how a family functions on a social level, which is the level marriage laws operate on.

Are we banning adoptions and step-children now? Society has no reason to outlaw couples that can't reproduce together. Homosexuals can adopt, they can use surrogates, they can have children from previous marriages (ended in divorce, or death, etc). As long as we're think-of-the-children-ing it would be better all around to let those children grow up in families if possible.

More importantly, that's not a difference between heterosexual and homosexual couples - it's a difference between couples. Many straight people can not or will not reproduce with their spouse either - are we going to ban marriages between infertile people? Force people to have children?

The point is this: if you pick at random a married gay couple...and then pick at random a married straight couple....the difference between them will be no greater than the difference that we already tolerate between heterosexual couples. Therefore, you cannot argue that we must ban gay marriage on the basis of preventing some problematic aspect of gay marriage - any "problem" gay marriage is one heterosexual marriage also has. It's a largely artificial distinction. If not being able to have children together is SUCH a big deal, then argue against that and let gay couples be banned under that banner.

If you're going to ban it on the basis that a gay couple is statistically much more likely to have quality X, then quality X must be a VERY serious thing. Infertility is not serious enough to qualify.

Note too this situation may change. The science of reproduction is ever evolving and changing.

> These are good reasons in my opinion.

> is that I don't want the definition to change

This is either silly and arbitrary, or begging the question.

You don't want it to change why? Because you believe laws should never change? You're afraid of all the paper we'll waste printing out new forms? You don't want to have to memorize new legislation?

No, let's be honest - you don't want it to change because you don't agree with the proposed change. That's fine...but just state that instead of coming up with some silly dodge like "I don't want the definition to change".

> I don't want my children having gay propaganda pushed on them

Here I suspect is your most honest; you are against it because you don't like homosexuality. Fine, that's your right to feel that way. However you should just be honest with yourself and others and admit that, instead of providing silly and flimsy rationalizations which fall apart under any scrutiny.

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#140
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Organizations supporting traditional marriage will immediately be called "intolerant, bigoted, hate groups" and shouted out of the debate. Stop couching your views in pseudo-PC language and call it what it is. You do not "support traditional marriage" because that is a meaningless phrase. Nobody is campaigning for traditional marriage to go away - you can go have one right now! You are not supporting a thing, you ar…

>You are not supporting a thing, you are supporting keeping that thing from someone else. Here lies the crux of the debate. You think straight people are keeping something away from gays. But I think its gays trying to take something from straight people. Let's say I lived in a country that banned marriage entirely. I would still get married and it would be enough for me and my family to recognize that we are married…

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