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.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the moral implications of war and suggests that involvement leads to increased danger rather than security.
Bob Hawke's quote emphasizes the intrinsic moral wrongness of war, asserting that instead of enhancing Australia's security through participation, it has paradoxically created greater threats both domestically and internationally. This perspective sheds light on the often overlooked consequences of military engagement, advocating for a critical examination of the reasons and outcomes behind such actions.
In practice
During a discussion on international relations, one might use this quote to underscore the unintended consequences of military actions.
While society cannot provide employment for its members, the production/work/income nexus has to be abandoned as a justification for our present parsimony to the unemployed. An assumption cannot be used to justify making second-class citizens of those who are unfortunate enough to constitute living proof of the inaccuracy of that assumption.
Australia can no longer afford to go down the path of confrontation and fragmentation which has embittered and disfigured so many aspects of the national life.
I just loved him and he loved me... He was a most humble man, the most decent man I've ever met in my life and he always looked for the best in people to find positives and he said something to me that always remained with me. He said if you believe in the fatherhood of God you must necessarily believe in the brotherhood of man, it follows necessarily and even though I left the church and was not religious, that truth remained with me.
None of us can be sure of how long we will live. Because this is so, I think you should try not to think too much about dying but think about all the nice things that make life so precious to us all.
The essence of power is the knowledge that what you do is going to have an effect not just an immediate but perhaps a lifelong effect on the happiness and wellbeing of millions of people and so I think the essence of power is to be conscious of what it can mean for others.
We are building together a nation in which there are no second-class Australians.
There's no problem with a woman being president of the United States if you take her gender as a sole issue. Gender shouldn't matter.
We do not need the empire to give us anything.
Anti-U.S. sentiment has been born out of many grievances - support and weapons for such dictators as Mubarak, unquestionable support for Israel in its occupation of Palestine, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen that kill more civilians than intended targets.
Democracy is an imperfect way of steering between the violence of anarchy and the violence of tyranny, with the least violence you can get away with.
The marginalized did not create identity politics: their identities have been forced on them by dominant groups, and politics is the most effective method of revolt.
America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.
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