Thread: Billy the Kid may be riding again

Originally Posted by Stubear

I know the guys a folk hero (a bit like Ned Kelly in Australia and Dick Turpin in the UK), but government shouldnt pardon convicted criminals years down the line unless they were found to be innocent. For example, the Derek Bentley case here in England.

Pardoning a known criminal years later just because they are seen as a bit of a scallywag is just political point scoring and trying to be trendy.

Actually, its a bit more complicated than that. While it is true the The Kid killed a number of people (4-9, not the 21 he is usually credited with), and some of them were "lawmen", it is also true that the lawmen in question were part of a corrupt system that was acting to advance the economic interests of certain individuals over that of others. The Kid just happened to be on the other side of this corrupt system. The winners, as always, write the history and determine who are the heros an who are the villians. It is probably more accurate to say that both sides were cold blooded killers acting for economic gain and there were none without blame.