With Us or Against Us: Difference between revisions

* In ''[[Ben-Hur]]'', this mentality is what drove Messala to sentence Judah Ben-Hur to slavery. Messala wanted his friend Ben-Hur to turn in the Jews who were speaking against him and the Roman occupation. Ben-Hur refuses, so Messala tells him, "You're either with me or you're against me." Ben-Hur replies, "If those are my choices, then I am against you."

* ''[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]'': Colonel Miles Quaritch while fighting Jake Sully at the climactic battle of The Tree of Souls.

* The world in the ''[[Apocalypse]]'' film series is divided into who's believing who is God: Franco Maccalusso or Jesus Christ. Neutrality on the issue is brutally dealt with by the One Nation Earth agents and officers.

* In ''[[X-Men (film)|X-Men]]: First Class'', Sebastian Shaw expresses this sentiment:

* From ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: On Stranger Tides'':

'''Philiip:''' [[Take a Third Option|I am neither with you, nor am I against you]]!<br />

'''Pirate:''' Can he do that?<br />

* In ''The [[Illuminatus]]! Trilogy'', Hagbard Celine says, "People who say, 'You are either a part of the problem or a part of the solution' are usually the former."

* In ''[[Discworld/Thud|Thud]]!'', the narrator discusses the increasing dwarf/troll conflict and its effect of causing dwarfs and trolls to resign from the watch:

* In ''[[The Thrawn Trilogy]]'', Borsk Fey'lya sees his political rivals as his enemies. He's not above leaving them to die, and thinks that everyone else thinks in similar terms. Thrawn in fact counts on Fey'lya acting this way to paralyze the New Republic and dispose of the people who pose a real danger to him, like Admiral Ackbar.

** It's a trait that most Bothan share. [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bothan Bothan society] is based around a system where the pursuit of power and influence were paramount, and it was quite normal to backstab, political maneuver and character assassinate others to gain influence. However, they usually only did it within their own society; Borsk was unable to see that other races didn't operate this way.

== Music ==

* 'Which Side Are You On?' by Natalie Merchant.

Or a thug for J. H. Claire }}

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' demonstrates what happens when you mix this trope into a setting that runs on [[Black and Grey Morality]]. The results, from the Imperium of Man and Tau Empire, are not pretty. And in the ''[[Horus Heresy]]'' novels, this kind of view is expressed by many who are joining the traitors.

* ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' has a [[Church Militant|paladin Order of Samular]]. Once they hunted a demon and an elven community that happened to be between them -- surprise! -- didn't allow a little army of human heavy cavalry to crash through their territory just so... "thus allying themselves with the evil tanar'ri". More than a generation (human) later elves were still upset about the resulting bloodbath and paladins "wary of elves and their unknowable, inhuman ways".

 

== Webcomics ==

* In [http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2011/4/5/how-to-explore-your-emotions.html this] ''[[Basic Instructions]]'':

'''Rick''': Yes, "anger" and "not anger." It used to be three emotions, but I eliminated "less anger." }}

 

* The AI in the [[Civilization]] series often act like this: trade with them, or be considered enemy, trade with their enemies and also be considered enemies. This is particulary visible in IV there its near impossible to stay neutral unless you have the forces and tech advance so noone want to wage war against you anyway, except you have a different religion as [[Trigger Happy|Isabella]], who envokes the [[With Us or Against Us]] on your state religion.

* Ulfric Stormcloak of [[Skyrim]] is like this. In the words of Jarl Balgruuf:

** After a certain point in the main quest {{spoiler|the Blades discover that the Dragonborn has been working with Paarthurnax, who is a dragon and the former right hand of [[Big Bad|Alduin]], and they refuse to cooperate with him any further unless he kills Paarthurnax for his past crimes against mankind. The player doesn't have to do this to finish the main quest, but the Blades cannot be convinced to let their grudge go.}}

* The Scarlet Crusade of ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' believes its holy purpose is to destroy the Scourge. However, they believe that anybody who has not joined the Crusade is likely a carrier of the plague and is thus their enemy as well. Only when preparing to face Kel'thuzad have they grudgingly worked alongside other groups.

 

* In Canada, the federal Public Safety minister tried to bully criticism about a pending online snooping act with the line "You either stand with us or the child pornographers" in the House of Commons. This statement caused howls noting that he is smearing every provincial Privacy Commissioner who expressed deep concerns about the bill and provoked online retaliation with many people twittering their minute personal details to the Minister while another threw all the court info of his messy divorce online.

* During the Rwanda genocide, moderate Hutus were targeted in addition to the Tutsis.

* In 1956, Hungarians revolted against the harsh Communist dictatorship. The revolution was crushed by Soviet troops, but a much milder reigme was established under János Kádár. In 1961, he inverted this statement, saying that "whoever is not against the People's Republic of Hungary is for it."