A Speech From A Film

Billy:
What is the crime? And what is the punishment? The answer seems to vary from place to place, and from time to time. What's legal today is suddenly illegal tomorrow 'cause some society says it's so; and what's illegal yesterday all of a sudden gets legal today because everybody's doing it and you can't throw everybody in jail. Well I'm not saying this is right or wrong. It's just the way things are... But I spent the last three and a half years of my life in your prison and I think I paid for my error and if it's your decision today to sentence me to more years, I.....I.... You know my lawyers told me 'be cool Billy- don't get upset, don't get angry, if you're good I can maybe get you a pardon, an amnesty, an appeal, this that and the other thing.' Well that's been going down now for the last three and a half years......and I been cool and I been good and now I'm damn tired of being good 'cause you people gave me the belief that I had 53 days left... You hung those 53 days in front of my eyes and then you took those 53 days away, and Mr. Prosecutor!!, I just wish you could...stand right here where I'm standing and feel what that......feels like, 'cause then you'd know something you don't know -- you'd know what MERCY means, Mr. Prosecutor - and you'd know that the concept of a society is based on the quality of its mercy, it's sense of fair play, it's sense of justice...but I guess that's like asking a bear to shit in a toilet... For a nation of pigs, it's funny you don't eat them. Fuck it, give me the sentence. Jesus forgave the bastards, but I can't. I hate you. I hate your nation. I hate your people. And I fuck your sons and daughters.... 'cause you're all pigs.

Midnight Express
written by Oliver Stone, from the book by Billy Hayes & William Hoffer