“For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.”

—  Noam Chomsky

Source: Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit." by Noam Chomsky?
Noam Chomsky photo
Noam Chomsky 334
american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928

Related quotes

Mahendra Chaudhry photo

“It is wrong for others to be asking for forgiveness on behalf of those who had committed the crime because it is not right.”

Mahendra Chaudhry (1942) Fijian politician

29 June 2005
Opposition to the proposed Reconciliation and Unity Commission

“War crimes are only committed by defeated powers.”

Kevin Carson (1963) American academic

But as the Nazis learned in 1945, unemployed war criminals can usually find work with the new hegemonic power.
"The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand: Capitalism As a State-Guaranteed System of Privilege" (2011)

Pierre Corneille photo

“It is a crime against the State to be powerful enough to commit one.”

C'est un crime d'État que d'en pouvoir commettre.
Araspe, act II, scene i.
Nicomède (1651)

Napoleon I of France photo

“A king is sometimes obliged to commit crimes; but they are the crimes of his position.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts (1848)

Donald Rumsfeld photo
Chris Hedges photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement (1967)
Context: A profound judgment of today's riots was expressed by Victor Hugo a century ago. He said, 'If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.' / The policymakers of the white society have caused the darkness; they create discrimination; they structured slums; and they perpetuate unemployment, ignorance and poverty. It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society. When we ask Negroes to abide by the law, let us also demand that the white man abide by law in the ghettos.

Adolphe Quetelet photo
John Steinbeck photo

“A crime is something someone else commits.”

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part Two, Chapter XX

Alfred de Zayas photo

“Those who sell or facilitate weapons to individuals that will commit human rights violations know that they have responsibility for the death and misery caused by those weapons and at some stage may be liable to face the International Criminal Court for complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

2013, UN rights expert hails Arms Trade Treaty and urges States to do more to also regulate production http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13207&LangID=E.
2013

Related topics