The point of asylum is not to declare to the world what country you think is the pinnacle of civilization. The point of asylum is to find a country that's both willing and able to protect you from political persecution. In no way is asylum an endorsement of a country's politics, laws, or values.
Interpretation
Asylum is about safety, not a statement of a country's superiority.
This quote emphasizes that seeking asylum is primarily a means of escaping political persecution rather than an endorsement of the asylum-granting country's political or social system. It highlights the importance of finding refuge and security for those in danger, without implying agreement with the politics of the host nation.
In practice
In a speech about human rights, one might reference this quote to illustrate the importance of protecting individuals fleeing danger.
There are different ways that kids who are gay take on the rejection and alienation they feel. The way I dealt with it was to say, 'You know what? You're imposing judgments on me and condemnations, but I don't accept them. I'm going to instead turn the light on you and see what your flaws are and impose the same judgmental standards on you.'
There is a massive apparatus within the United States government that with complete secrecy has been building this enormous structure that has only one goal, and that is to destroy privacy and anonymity, not just in the United States but around the world.
Nobody has the right to shield any idea as so sacred it can’t be challenged. ... Almost all human progress is driven by people who stood up and said ‘I disagree’ with this idea that society at the time considered to be the most precious.’
It's hard to imagine a more potent sign of a weak, declining empire than having one's national 'credibility' depend upon periodically bombing other countries.
The fact that war is the word we use for almost everything—on terrorism, drugs, even poverty—has certainly helped to desensitize us to its invocation; if we wage wars on everything, how bad can they be?
Incestuous, homogeneous fiefdoms of self-proclaimed expertise are always rank-closing and mutually self-defending, above all else.
Pleasure without God, without the sacred boundaries, will actually leave you emptier than before. And this is biblical truth, this is experiential truth. The loneliest people in the world are amongst the wealthiest and most famous who found no boundaries within which to live. That is a fact I've seen again and again.
Women have to be extremely careful about choosing something that they consider an act of defiance that can really be used to further their enslavement.
The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected.
Ignoring the mind is a beautiful sadhana. This is what many of the sages did. They ignored the mind out of existence. It loses its influence and its potency when it is ignored.
Half the world does not know how the other half lives.
Take away the contests of the martyrs, and you have taken away their crowns.
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