''If your not with us, your against us''

[ComradeDavo]

''If your not with us, your against us''

You all know it...and Bush made it (in)famous...the idea that if your not with someone, then your against them.

Do you adhere to this mentality?

 

[bhsup]

Nope. I've said many times that I would have said it a bit differently. Something along the lines of, "If you're not with us or against us, then shut up and stay out of our way."

 

[Red Door]

It's plain stupid, it's making the world black and white, which it is not.

 

[Rik Meleet]

No - it's black and white and the only good thing black and white is an Orca.

 

[Stylesrj]

Well actually, the ORCA can be yellow, GDI does not care... oh wait, you mean the animal!

Seriously though, I don't like the idea, "if you're not with us, you're against us". I'm not a big fan of Capitalism! OMG! I must be a Communist, because if you're not with Capitalism, you're against it and the against party of it is Communism!

I don't like the war in Iraq. I must be anti-American/Australian!

 

[CartesianFart]

If two quarellsome parties are not going to settle their differences then it is reasonable that differences is settled by forcing the other to acquiesce to their demand.It has been so since man have been running in the wild.

 

[Mureke]

It could be said that you are either for destroying the living world or you're against it. I don't like to over-complicate this. I agree with Derrick Jensen here. If you support the current system and persist on maintaining hope in it, you're against the planet. Then again, I don't consider anarchy as the only (nor best) option.

 

[Samson]

I think in many cases it is correct. The possibly more famous "if you are not part of the sollution you are part of the problem" is true.

The main way this is inaccurate is when the "us" changes during the statement, ie. if you are not for [the invasion of iraq] then you are against [the global war on terrorism].

 

[silver 2039]

Its a foolish and one sided, narrow minded mentality which serves absolutley no purpose.

 

[CartesianFart]

Its a foolish and one sided, narrow minded mentality which serves absolutley no purpose.

What if the other have such "narrow minded mentality" that it is impossible to make any attempt to reach a compromise?Do you just lay down and give up your position of making demands and let them tell you what to do?I think not.

 

[Kal'thzar]

"if your not with us, your against us"

Basically turns into "I stand alone,"

I reject the mentality in general, although I suppose there are some areas where I might consider such a viewpoint valid. (where I am unwilling to compromise).

 

[azzaman333]

While it may apply to some things, it is not really a smart thing to be saying a lot of the time.

 

[classical_hero]

I think in many cases it is correct. The possibly more famous "if you are not part of the sollution you are part of the problem" is true.

The main way this is inaccurate is when the "us" changes during the statement, ie. if you are not for [the invasion of iraq] then you are against [the global war on terrorism].

I agree. It always depends on the situation. Like in WWII there are cases that those that were "neutral" were more of an hindrance to the allies, because they refused to what is right. I would not say the same thing about the Iraq war, but definitely about the war in Afghanistan. It seems that many nations who said they would help have not done so and as such are now becoming part of the problem there and we could see the rise of the Taliban again and things could get a whole lot worse as a result.

 

[MobBoss]

No - it's black and white and the only good thing black and white is an Orca.

What about a zebra?

 

[Verbose]

The follow up question to ''If you're not with us, you're against us'' is always: "OK, so where do you in fact stand?"

Of course, if the "With is or rot"-gang gets dragged into this kind of more subtle negotiating, which tends to be where most of diplomacy and politics are (if you're lucky), it tends to compromise their swagger.

 

[ComradeDavo]

Nope. I've said many times that I would have said it a bit differently. Something along the lines of, "If you're not with us or against us, then shut up and stay out of our way."

Thats almost as bad. It's saying people can't voice their opinion about your actions. Thats arrogant and un-democratic.

 

[Tycoon101]

That mentality is correct. The world IS in black and white, so it holds true for a great many situations.

 

[Marla_Singer]

The main way this is inaccurate is when the "us" changes during the statement, ie. if you are not for [the invasion of iraq] then you are against [the global war on terrorism].

And that's exactly the point.

In saying "If you're not with the US, you're against the US", we imply that we have no other choice than supporting fully the US or rejecting fully the US. We cannot agree on the US on some points and disagree on some others, there's no middle ground. It marks a strong disrespect towards the principle of self-determination of independent nations.

When we've created the euro currency, some pro-EU activists considered we should tell to the UK "if you're not with us, you're against us", implying that if the UK rejected the euro currency, then it had to leave the EU. This position is eminently unrespectful, as it's not because the UK agrees with the common market that it necessarily has to agree with the common currency. That's exactly the position Bush had with the war on Terror and the invasion of Iraq.

 

[Mise]

That mentality is correct. The world IS in black and white, so it holds true for a great many situations.

So if you're not with a homosexual you're against homosexuals?

 

[bathsheba666]

It's a slogan for the simple minded.

Perhaps Cheney could have managed something more eloquent,
if not limited by his mouthpiece.