People ask me about what sacrifices I've made. I always answer: I've made no sacrifices, I've made choices.
Aung San Suu KyiRead
All military regimes use security as the reason why they should remain in power. It's nothing original.
Interpretation
Military regimes often justify their power by claiming to provide security.
Aung San Suu Kyi's quote highlights a common tactic used by authoritarian regimes: they assert that their continuation in power is necessary for the security and stability of the nation. This reasoning is often a pretext for suppressing dissent and maintaining control, suggesting that the narrative around security is not unique to any one government but a widespread strategy among military leaders.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of democracy, one might quote Aung San Suu Kyi to discuss the dangers of military rule.
People ask me about what sacrifices I've made. I always answer: I've made no sacrifices, I've made choices.
The struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity. It is a struggle that encompasses our political, social and economic aspirations.
This was the way I was brought up to think of politics, that politics was to do with ethics, it was to do with responsibility, it was to do with service, so I think I was conditioned to think like that, and I'm too old to change now.
My top priority is for people to understand that they have the power to change things themselves.
If you want to bring an end to long-standing conflict, you have to be prepared to compromise.
Where there is no justice there can be no secure peace.
I debated in high school! If you told things that weren't true or just made things out of whole cloth, you were penalized. It's too bad they don't apply the same standards to presidential candidates as they do to high school students.
Political institutions, no matter how well or badly designed, depend for continued existence upon acting men; their conservation is achieved by the same means that brought them into being. Independent existence marks the work of art as a product of making; utter dependence upon further acts to keep it in existence marks the state as a product of action.
I suspect there have been a number of conspiracies that never were described or leaked out. But I suspect none of the magnitude and sweep of Watergate.
Wringing your hands about states' rights, forget it. They're gone. Basically, the federal government can do whatever it wants. Who's going to protect the states? My court? Ha - we're feds!
My point was that the war was intrinsically wrong, and as a result of our participation we haven't improved Australia's security but created a greater danger at home and abroad.
A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'
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