The Lemon Fool

Does this actually matter, or not?

Women executed as witches in Scotland set to receive pardons

The Guardian

Three centuries after repeal of Witchcraft Act thousands tried as witches could get official apologies

"After a two-year campaign by the Witches of Scotland group, a member’s bill in the Scottish parliament has secured the support of Nicola Sturgeon’s administration to clear the names of those accused, the Sunday Times reported. The move follows a precedent by the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the US that proclaimed victims of the Salem witch trials innocent in 2001."

Should we just treat this sort of thing as some kind of joke, or is it something we ought to worry about? Shouldn't official "apologies" be treated with greater seriousness? Actually mean something substantive? Be in some way relatable to the people and institutions apologising?

So... when are we going to prosecute all those old beans who have been caught in TV documentaries 'admitting' to driving on the newly opened M1 motorway in their XK120 Jaguars at +100 mph?

When will the Romans apologise for invading Britain in 43AD?

XFool wrote:Does this actually matter, or not?

Women executed as witches in Scotland set to receive pardons

So... when are we going to prosecute all those old beans who have been caught in TV documentaries 'admitting' to driving on the newly opened M1 motorway in their XK120 Jaguars at +100 mph?

You can't prosecute them. There was no speed limit when it opened. Midland Red coaches were geared to travel at about 85 mph so what they did was perfectly legal.

Do you propose that we should repatriate all Australians whose ancestors were subject to transportation? Tempus mutandis etc.

TJH

tjh290633 wrote:

XFool wrote:Does this actually matter, or not?

Women executed as witches in Scotland set to receive pardons

So... when are we going to prosecute all those old beans who have been caught in TV documentaries 'admitting' to driving on the newly opened M1 motorway in their XK120 Jaguars at +100 mph?

You can't prosecute them. There was no speed limit when it opened. Midland Red coaches were geared to travel at about 85 mph so what they did was perfectly legal.

Do you propose that we should repatriate all Australians whose ancestors were subject to transportation? Tempus mutandis etc.

That was kind of my point...

Well, the witches won't benefit from being pardoned.

Neither will others posthumously pardoned by posturing politicians, like Alan Turing.

XFool wrote:

tjh290633 wrote:

XFool wrote:Does this actually matter, or not?

Women executed as witches in Scotland set to receive pardons

So... when are we going to prosecute all those old beans who have been caught in TV documentaries 'admitting' to driving on the newly opened M1 motorway in their XK120 Jaguars at +100 mph?

You can't prosecute them. There was no speed limit when it opened. Midland Red coaches were geared to travel at about 85 mph so what they did was perfectly legal.

Do you propose that we should repatriate all Australians whose ancestors were subject to transportation? Tempus mutandis etc.

That was kind of my point...

Was it? You asked a question about a Guardian article. Then a question of your own on an unrelated subject.

Do you not expect answers? I like and expect to get answers to mine, but perhaps you consider them rhetorical.

TJH

tjh290633 wrote:

XFool wrote:

tjh290633 wrote:You can't prosecute them. There was no speed limit when it opened. Midland Red coaches were geared to travel at about 85 mph so what they did was perfectly legal.

Do you propose that we should repatriate all Australians whose ancestors were subject to transportation? Tempus mutandis etc.

That was kind of my point...

Was it? You asked a question about a Guardian article. Then a question of your own on an unrelated subject.

Do you not expect answers? I like and expect to get answers to mine, but perhaps you consider them rhetorical.

Oh dear!

Insight doesn't live here anymore. Apparently.

UncleEbenezer wrote:Well, the witches won't benefit from being pardoned.

Neither will others posthumously pardoned by posturing politicians, like Alan Turing.

Yes. Alan Turing was one who I thought of in relation to this.

It seems to me like some form of temporal imperialism by ourselves. Why do we think we have the right to reach back through time and interfere in 'their' laws? Also, I feel this kind of thing risks undermining the seriousness and significance of official apologies in situations where it could genuinely matter.

The Guardian article also mentions erecting a commemorative monument. That sounds a perfectly reasonable idea to me, being grounded in present reality.

I think the Vikings owe us. And Henry VIII with all that monastery stuff (bloody vandal)

XFool wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:Well, the witches won't benefit from being pardoned.

Neither will others posthumously pardoned by posturing politicians, like Alan Turing.

Yes. Alan Turing was one who I thought of in relation to this.

It seems to me like some form of temporal imperialism by ourselves. Why do we think we have the right to reach back through time and interfere in 'their' laws? Also, I feel this kind of thing risks undermining the seriousness and significance of official apologies in situations where it could genuinely matter.

The Guardian article also mentions erecting a commemorative monument. That sounds a perfectly reasonable idea to me, being grounded in present reality.

Turing seems to me a particularly "interesting" case of politicised history, in that our system would've treated him much more harshly in our time (as a 40-year-old man caught inflagrante delicto with a teenage boy) than happened in his own time. Other societies would have no problem with any of that: see Plato's Symposium.

As for the witches, with no individual case to focus on we can't make any such comment, nor indeed its converse. Who knows?

Bminusrob wrote:When will the Romans apologise for invading Britain in 43AD?

Probably just after the Roman Catholic Church apologises for the Crusades.

That is of course typical of Saint Nicola's administration. No idea of how to handle the matters in hand (Prestwick Airport, Ferguson's Shipyard, the steel industry (if it can be called that), climate change, the Edinburgh trams fiasco etc, etc) so they do stupid stuff like pardoning witches from 300 years ago. I am sure everyone will rest more easily after that.

Dod

UncleEbenezer wrote:Turing seems to me a particularly "interesting" case of politicised history, in that our system would've treated him much more harshly in our time (as a 40-year-old man caught inflagrante delicto with a teenage boy) than happened in his own time.

I am far from sure that is the case. The "teenage boy" was 19 and, rather than being caught in the act, it was admitted during the police investigation into the theft reported by Turing. Both men were charged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Conviction_for_indecency

XFool wrote:Does this actually matter, or not?
Women executed as witches in Scotland set to receive pardons

No.
It's just more revisionist nonsense.
Might as well apologise to the Dodo and the woolly mammoth.

The Scots will be wanting us to apologise for Culloden next.

V8

I thought the Scots made a very healthy profit from the Visitor Centre at Colluden.....seems losing the battle may have turned out to be quite profitable for them.

Another thing; did the Romans have planning permission when they built Hadrian's wall and Anthony's wall? Was a risk assessment performed?

Seems to me that Nicola Sturgeon can sue Italy for billions, with fines backdated 2000 years!

Meanwhile, shouldn't we be issuing an official apology to the Neanderthals?


Steve

richlist wrote:I thought the Scots made a very healthy profit from the Visitor Centre at Colluden.

Like it. Better not to draw attention to Sterling, Cumberland or Dundeed, then?

BJ

88V8 wrote:

XFool wrote:Does this actually matter, or not?
Women executed as witches in Scotland set to receive pardons

No.
It's just more revisionist nonsense.
Might as well apologise to the Dodo and the woolly mammoth.

What I was asking was not so much "Is this silly" (I think it is) as, how much, if at all, does it really matter to our society if we continue doing these kind of things?

XFool wrote:What I was asking was not so much "Is this silly" (I think it is) as, how much, if at all, does it really matter to our society if we continue doing these kind of things?

I suppose to those that it does matter, it makes a difference.

To those that dont GAF, its harmless.

More a case of "move along here, nothing to see. Keep moving"

didds

XFool wrote:

88V8 wrote:It's just more revisionist nonsense.
Might as well apologise to the Dodo and the woolly mammoth.

What I was asking was not so much "Is this silly" (I think it is) as, how much, if at all, does it really matter to our society if we continue doing these kind of things?

So, let me see. It's been 215 years since we abolished slavery, and 300 or so since we stopped burning people alive for witchcraft.

Quite rightly, we don't whitewash the memory of the former atrocity. So maybe it's not so illogical that we don't write off the latter as just a colourful whimsy?

Whoops, this is in danger of falling into seriousness. Either way, it's good to see that Lewes still feels free to burn anybody it wants?

BJ