“How sad, that the group with the most access to the truth chose in several strategic instances to look the other way.”

—  John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 263

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John Ashcroft 32
American politician 1942

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Context: People are often unconscious of some of the mechanisms that naturally occur in them in a biased way. For example, if I do something that is beneficial to you or to others, I will use the active voice: I did this, I did that, then benefits rained down on you. But if I did something that harmed others, I unconsciously switch to a passive voice: this happened, then that happened, then unfortunately you suffered these costs. One example I always loved was a man in San Francisco who ran into a telephone pole with his car, and he described it to the police as, "the pole was approaching my car, I attempted to swerve out-of-the-way, when it struck me."
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