crimes

"Some would call the total annihilation of intelligent life, while preserving inanimate matter, a perverse war crime. We would call it efficient."

"If the U.S. government had prosecuted Bush administration officials for their war crimes during the “war on terror,” the ICC would not now take jurisdiction. But after Barack Obama said, “Generally speaking, I’m more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards,” his administration refused to prosecute those implicated in the torture and willful killings of detainees during the Bush administration."

"I would like to talk representing all those veterans and say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It's impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit -- the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. But they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do. They told the stories of times that they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in the fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."

"On April 18, 2006, I had my first confirmed killed. This man was innocent. I don’t know his name. I called him “the fat man.” He was walking back to his house, and I shot him in front of his friend and his father. The first round didn’t kill him, after I had hit him up here in his neck area. And afterwards he started screaming and looked right into my eyes. So I looked at my friend, who I was on post with, and I said, “Well, I can’t let that happen.” So I took another shot and took him out. He was then carried away by the rest of his family. It took seven people to carry his body away. We were all congratulated after we had our first kills, and that happened to have been mine. My company commander personally congratulated me, as he did everyone else in our company. This is the same individual who had stated that whoever gets their first kill by stabbing them to death will get a four-day pass when we return from Iraq."

"Seditiosus est qui dissensionem animorum facit et discordias gignit."

"Some of the key aspects of the are no longer relevant and have not been relevant for a long time. [...] For instance, the excitement of disaffection against the Government should not be criminalised. I think if it is, a lot of people including many in this House, would be considered criminals."

"Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or a year in jail!"

"I have never seen anyone burn a flag. And if I did, it would take every ounce of restraint I had not to haul off and hit them."

"I have consistently opposed a flag-burning amendment, and voted against its passage. Flag desecration is hateful and worthy of condemnation, and I would support any statutory means possible to curtail desecration of the flag. But I believe that the importance of the Bill of Rights -- our nations founding document -- requires us to establish a very high threshold for agreeing to change it. Does the amendment address some extreme threat to our country, or redress some outrageous wrong? In this case, abhorrent though flag desecration may be, it simply does not meet that test."

"Values in a free society are accepted voluntarily, not through coercion, and certainly not by law... every time we write a law to control private behavior, we imply that somebody has to arrive with a gun, because if you desecrate the flag, you have to punish that person. So how do you do that? You send an agent of the government, perhaps an employee of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Flags, to arrest him. This is in many ways patriotism with a gun – if your actions do not fit the official definition of a "patriot," we will send somebody to arrest you."

"If I were king, I would not allow people to go about burning the American flag. However, we have a First Amendment which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged. And it is addressed, in particular, to speech critical of the government."

"What is this thing anyway? Nothing but a piece of cotton with a little paint on it, and some other marks in the corner there. I will not kiss that thing. It might be covered with microbes."

"I hope, Mr. President, that we can pass a law that criminalizes flag burning and desecration."

"Without the right to burn the flag, without that freedom of expression, the flag is just a piece of cloth. It means nothing. With that freedom, with our Bill of Rights, it's the greatest symbol on earth. It's magic."

"If we set the precedent of limiting the First Amendment, in order to protect the sensibilities of those who are offended by flag burning, what will we say the next time someone is offended by some other minority view, or by some other person's exercise of the freedom the Constitution is supposed to protect?"

"Towards this fine honor of a trade converged all the finest, all the most noble sentiments—dignity, pride. Never ask anything of anyone, they used to say. … In those days a workman did not know what it was to solicit. It is the bourgeoisie who, turning the workmen into bourgeois, have taught them to solicit."

"An oath, an oath, I have an oath in heaven: Shall I lay perjury upon my soul? No, not for Venice."

"Iuppiter ex alto periuria ridet amantum."

"Nec iurare time: veneris periuria venti inrita per terras et freta summa ferunt. gratia magna Iovi: vetuit Pater ipse valere, iurasset cupide quidquid ineptus amor."

"I think it is a canon, which any one who is familiar with Courts of justice will recognise as a just one, that instead of assuming that people are perjuring themselves, you should, if there is a view by which you can reconcile all the testimony, prefer that to the view which places people in the position of contradicting each other, so that they must necessarily be swearing what is false. . . . The point as to having seen the witnesses and having had an opportunity of judging whether they were speaking the truth or not is generally a very powerful one."

"It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery."

"We can judge only from appearances, and from the evidence produced to us."

"It is not uncommon for ignorant and corrupt men to falsely charge others with doing what they imagine that they themselves, in their narrow minds and experience, would have done under the circumstances of a given case, and the surest check, often the only check, on such perjury, is to recognize the impossibility that men of larger instruction and resources and experience could have been guilty of such conduct."

"Qui semel a veritate deflexit, hic non majore religione ad perjurium quam ad mendacium perduci consuevit."

"And hast thou sworn on every slight, pretence, Till perjuries are common as bad pence, While thousands, careless of the damning sin, Kiss the book's outside, who ne'er look'd within?"

"[W]e better know there is fire whence we see much smoke rising than we could know it by one or two witnesses swearing to it. The witnesses may commit perjury, but the smoke cannot."

"My suit has nothing to do with the assault, or battery, or poisoning, but is about three goats, which, I complain, have been stolen by my neighbor. This the judge desires to have proved to him; but you, with swelling words and extravagant gestures, dilate on the Battle of Cannæ, the Mithridatic war, and the perjuries of the insensate Carthaginians, the Syllæ, the Marii, and the Mucii. It is time, Postumus, to say something about my three goats."

"...their own rightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large. Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent."

"There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me."

"The experienced mountain climber is not intimidated by a mountain — he is inspired by it. The persistent winner is not discouraged by a problem, he is challenged by it. Mountains are created to be conquered; adversities are designed to be defeated; problems are sent to be solved. It is better to master one mountain than a thousand foothills."

"Courage, also known as fortitude, is the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty or intimidation . It can be divided into : a) Physical courage, in the face of physical pain, hardship and pain of death; b)Moral courage in the face of shame, scandal and discouragement"

"Every honest man knows why Trade Unions insist on the right to a strong numerical picket:... But though arguments may never persuade them, numbers may easily intimidate them. And it is just because argument has failed and intimidation has succeeded that the Labour Party insists upon its right to a picket."

"He has spoken out strongly against the fact that when belligerents see freedom of expression as an enemy to their cause and the media as a tool for propaganda, journalists who attempt to report in a nonpartisan way face pressure, manipulation, intimidation or even elimination."

"In all their polemics, the anti-creationists invariably avoid discussing the actual scientific evidence for macro-evolution. If there were any such evidence, they could easily settle the whole conflict, merely by presenting the evidence! Instead they seem compelled to resort to bombast, ridicule, defamation, intimidation, and distortion."

"Faith is something that cannot be won through intimidation and fear."

"Those children who are beaten will in turn give beatings, those who are intimidated will be intimidating, those who are humiliated will impose humiliation, and those whose souls are murdered will murder."

"I don't think ethical people deal with intimidation as a method to achieve success. Undermining someone's self-esteem isn't a method to achieve success."

"It is also a violent crime because it normally involves force, or the threat of force or intimidation, to overcome the will and the capacity of the victim to resist. Rape is very often accompanied by physical injury to the female and can also inflict mental and psychological damage. Because it undermines, the community’s sense of security, there is public injury as well."

"A man who is intimate with God is not intimidated by man."

"The basis of intimidation as I practiced it was mystery. I wanted the hitter to know nothing about me."

"Despite our repeated warnings, Qadhafi continued his reckless policy of intimidation, his relentless pursuit of terror. He counted on America to be passive."

"The goal toward which all history tends is peace — not peace through the medium of war; not peace through a process of universal intimidation; not peace through a program of mutual impoverishment; not peace by any means that leaves the world too frightened or too weak to go on fighting but peace pure and simple, based on that will to peace which has animated the overwhelming majority of mankind through countless ages."

"Some of these guys wear beards to make them look intimidating, but they don’t look so tough when they have to deliver the ball. Their abilities and their attitudes don’t back up their beards."

"A person is guilty of ethnic intimidation if that person maliciously, and with specific intent to intimidate or harass another person because of that person's race, color, religion, gender, or national origin, does any of the following:(a) Causes physical contact with another person.(b) Damages, destroys, or defaces any real or personal property of another person.(c) Threatens, by word or act, to do an act described in subdivision (a) or (b), if there is reasonable cause to believe that an act described in subdivision (a) or (b) will occur. Ethnic intimidation is a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 2 years, or by a fine of not more than $5,000.00, or both. Regardless of the existence or outcome of any criminal prosecution, a person who suffers injury to his or her person or damage to his or her property as a result of ethnic intimidation may bring a civil cause of action against the person who commits the offense to secure an injunction, actual damages, including damages for emotional distress, or other appropriate relief."

"Domestic violence and abuse are used for one purpose and one purpose only: to gain and maintain total control over you. An abuser doesn't play fair. Abusers use fear, guilt, shame, and intimidation to wear you down and keep you under his or her thumb. Your abuser may also threaten you, hurt you, or hurt those around you."

"Threat of harm is defined as, all actions, statements, written or non-verbal messages conveying threats of physical or mental injury which are serious enough to unsettle the child's mind. It includes: expressions of intent to inflict pain, injury, or punishment on the child."

"Azevedo Bandeira is an expert in the art of progressive intimidation, in the satanic maneuver of gradually humiliating his interlocutor by combining verities and gibes."

"...in no instance has a system in regard to religion been ever established, but for the purpose, as well as with the effect of its being made an instrument of intimidation, corruption, and delusion, for the support of depredation and oppression in the hands of governments."

"It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America's power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy."

"It is very important to a lot of people to make unmistakably clear to themselves and to the universe that they love the universe but are not intimidated by it and will not be shaken by it, no matter what it has in store. Moreover, they demand something from themselves early in life that can be taken ever after as a demonstration of this abiding feeling."