Discovering witnesses is just as important as catching criminals.
Simon WiesenthalRead
My cause was justice, not vengeance. My work is for a better tomorrow and a more secure future for our children and grandchildren.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of seeking justice rather than revenge for a more secure future.
Simon Wiesenthal's quote highlights his commitment to justice over vengeance, reflecting a deep understanding that true progress and peace can only be achieved through justice. He expresses a hope for a better tomorrow for future generations, indicating that the fight for justice is not only for the present but is a foundational effort for the children and grandchildren who will inherit the world we create today.
In practice
In a speech about social reform, one might reference Wiesenthal's quote to inspire the audience to focus on justice.
Discovering witnesses is just as important as catching criminals.
Justice for crimes against humanity must have no limitations.
The schools would fail through their silence, the Church through its forgiveness, and the home through the denial and silence of the parents. The new generation has to hear what the older generation refuses to tell it.
We know that we are not collectively guilty, so how can we accuse any other nation, no matter what some of its people have done, of being collectively guilty?
Human rights is the only ideology that deserves to survive
You're a religious man, ... You believe in God and life after death. I also believe. When we come to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps and they ask us, 'What have you done?' there will be many answers. You will say, 'I became a jeweler.' Another will say, 'I smuggled coffee and American cigarettes.' Another will say, 'I built houses.' But I will say, 'I didn't forget you.'
Justice is never given; it is exacted.
Of one thing, however, I am certain. Just as an execution without adequate safeguards is unacceptable, so too is an execution when the condemned prisoner can prove that he is innocent. The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder.
Lack of lawful access certainly affects our ability to do our jobs, but we know where the harm really falls when evidence is kept unavailable - it falls on innocent people, the people we're sworn to protect.
The civil forfeiture law - if something so devoid of due process can be dignified as law - is an incentive for perverse behavior: Predatory government agencies get to pocket the proceeds from property they seize from Americans without even charging them with, let alone convicting them of, crimes. Criminals are treated better than this because they lose the fruits of their criminality only after being convicted.
In countries with a properly functioning legal system, the mob continues to exist, but it is rarely called upon to mete out capital punishment. The right to take human life belongs to the state. Not so in societies where weak courts and poor law enforcement are combined with intractable structural injustices.
America has an obligation to secure its borders, but it is wrong to pass laws that treat human beings as something less than human. If my father were alive, he would be in the forefront of the struggle for a fair and humane reform of our immigration laws.
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