39,327
edits
With Us or Against Us: Difference between revisions
m
Mass update links
m (fix broken external links) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 4:
Describe [[With Us or Against Us]] here, or you are my enemy!
In a nutshell, it's a form of extremism that does acknowledge that there is a gray area between black and white, but that everything that isn't white ''still'' is as bad as black. A [[Sub
In fiction, a [[Writer On Board]] will [[Anvilicious|hammer this point home]] through the use of [[Strawman Political|Strawman Politicals]] and [[Demonization]] to show that not being on the side of right is bad, no matter what other side you take. The only hope of these people is to [[Easy Evangelism|turn to the side of right as fast as possible]].
Line 12:
Note, this trope is not about whether any particular side is right or wrong, even [[Golden Mean Fallacy|the middle side]]. It's just about the views of people that the only right answer is their side, and ''nothing else''.
[[Truth in Television]], as anyone who has gone to a [[Flame War]] on a political or religious [[Message Board]] can attest. [[The Other Wiki]] [
See also [[Black and White Insanity]] and [[Activist Fundamentalist Antics]].
Line 31:
== Films -- Live-Action ==
* Parodied in ''[[Monty Pythons Life of Brian]]'', where the splinter groups against the Romans [[We ARE Struggling Together!|hated each other as much as the Romans]]. While this was originally intended as a satire on the increasingly-fractured British Left in the late '70s (the Pythons were all for [[British Political System|Labour]] at the time, although [[John Cleese (Creator)|John Cleese]] has since become a Lib Dem), it turns out that the Jews in Jesus' day really were quite fractured and always squabbling against themselves instead of the Romans.
* The page quote is from ''[[Revenge of the Sith]]''.
* 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."
Line 125:
* This is one of the central ideas of the Objectivism philosophy (upon which ''The Sword of Truth'', see above, draws heavily). "A is A" and all that--see the quote above. Ayn Rand, the philosophy's founder, was a lot like this in real life--if you disagreed with her even slightly, you were ''out'' of her little collective. As she stated: 'When a man declares: "There are no blacks and whites [in morality]" he is making a psychological confession, and what he means is: "I am unwilling to be wholly good--and please don't regard me as wholly evil!"' Although this was more to do with the theory of morality associated with the philosophy than "being a part of her little collective", that there is only good and evil but not quite-good and quite-evil or slightly-good and slightly-evil.
* Some laws have it as a required concept that this is ''sometimes'' if not ''always'' the case. If you welcome a distressed family member into your home, feed them, try to help them calm down, and then later find out that they are on the run from the cops, you have two choices. Report them to the cops, or be legally considered an accessory after the fact to whatever crime they have committed. (However, some jurisdiction allow you to protect ''family members'' without punishment.)
** A very slight extension of this extends to states who harbor elements like Al Qaeda. President [[George W. Bush]] used the Trope name in a speech speaking to other nations, stating that if they willingly harbored the enemy, they would be considered the enemy. He hardly ''invented'' that line of reasoning: its ''always'' been an act of war to willingly give one of the belligerents in an ongoing armed conflict safe harbor in your nation. That's why neutral powers during wars are required to intern combatants of either side that stray into their territory.
* [[George W. Bush]] famously said, "Either you're with us, or you're with the enemy; either you're with those who love freedom, or you're with those who hate innocent life."
** ''[[Mallard Fillmore]]'' remarked on a Liberal Professor pulling a [[Godwin's Law|Godwin]] on Bush's remark by reminding him that [[Not So Different|his generation was the one that made "You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem" a famous rallying cry.]]
* As mentioned earlier, Message Boards. This mostly applies to religious and political boards, but can (and usually will) extend to everything else. Anyone who has spent enough time on boards will know that there's often topics where you either agree with a completely insane statement or you're branded as whatever is the opposite of the poster's ideology/beliefs/whatever (examples of popular insults: [[Dirty Communists|communist]]/[[Corrupt Corporate Executive|selfish capitalist]], [[Satan|Satanist]]/[[Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions|superstitious nutjob]], far-left/far-right, [[Depraved Homosexual|homosexual]]/[[Heteronormative Crusader|homophobe]] [this one usually appears just for opposing ANY opinion]). [[Troll|Trolls]] are often to blame for this.
* 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.
* Bernadine Dohrn, a prominent member of the [
* 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."
Line 141:
[[Category:Politics Tropes]]
[[Category:With Us Or Against Us]]
| |||