Quotes About Justice

Obviously, people who commit crimes should be punished. Even people who steal socks and 'Snow White' videos should probably do time if they have priors, especially serious priors. But the punishment has to fit the crime, and the standard has to be the same for everyone.

My father told me about American democracy. And he said you have to be actively engaged in the political process to make our democracy work. So I've been doing that my entire life. Civil rights movement. The peace movement during the Vietnam conflict. The movement to get an apology and redress for Japanese-Americans.

I got interested in politics during the civil rights movement and then Vietnam.

Canada should always open its doors to those who are oppressed or in cases of emergency. When Canada offered refuge to 50,000 boat people in Vietnam in the 1970s, I was particularly proud to be Canadian.

It's because films like 'Selma' are so rarely made that we end up putting them under the microscope. One, maybe two, a year. As a white person, you don't have that. You have the gamut. No one says to Oliver Stone, 'Another film about Vietnam? White characters again?'

It doesn't pay to pretend that Vietnam was not a criminal war.

My dad was a civil rights lawyer, and he was actually defending conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War.

My first professional acting job was in 'Hair' during the Vietnam War. So I think I've always been drawn to projects with a social conscience.

Whatever happens to us, however unjustified, will be slight compared to what has happened already to the Vietnamese people, to the Black people in this country, to the criminals with whom we are now spending our days in the Cook County jail.

Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.

I don't share the view that the ICC is anti-African. The ICC is not putting Africa on trial. The ICC is fighting impunity and individuals who are accused of crimes.

We continue to be exasperated by the view, apparently gaining momentum in certain circles, that armed robbery is okay as long as nobody gets hurt! The proper solution to armed robbery is a dead robber, on the scene.

For me, human rights simply endorse a view of life and a set of moral values that are perfectly clear to an eight-year-old child. A child knows what is fair and isn't fair, and justice derives from that knowledge.

Thus, it was to seek true civilization and true justice for all the peoples of the world, and to view this as the destruction of personal freedom and respect is to be assailed by the hatred and emotion of war, and to make hasty judgments.

The more we view the country through the prism of Aboriginality, the more likely we are to get the angle right.

I disagree with the prevailing point of view of some black leaders that special treatment for blacks is acceptable.

But in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here.

I think the NAACP isn't recognized enough for all of the work it does, especially in the field of law. They may have faded from view over the last couple of decades, but they are fighting the good fight.

If we're going to have the view that we're going to protect everyone in this society equally, we have to mean it.

The essence of global health equity is the idea that something so precious as health might be viewed as a right.

Sometime in the not too distant future, denying gays the right to marry will be viewed as historically corrupt - as corrupt as denying slaves their freedom.

The Supreme Court must never be viewed as a partisan institution.

The way I was brought up 'he needed killing' is an airtight alibi.

Kindness counts the most when it's given to people who don't deserve it.