Christine Smith

MuleSoft developer and 7x Certified Salesforce Consultant

[Promethean Action @PrometheanActn]

They taught you snow is black.

Trump didn’t ban the press for sport. He hit a propaganda machine Bertrand Russell wrote the manual for — mass psychology so you never ask where your convictions came from.

$6 diesel isn’t “Trump broke it.” It’s thirty years of zero-growth policy.

Why Trump Banned the Press (They Taught You Snow is Black):

[Christine Smith @websmithc]

“Only a Sith deals in absolutes”

Reminds me of a certain political party in the US…. pushing the absolutes of TDS, rather than doing what’s best for the people.

[A Midwestern Doctor @MidwesternDoc]

I came across a movie quote that caught my eye and after asking AI for the meaning behind it, realized it touched upon vitally important points I almost never see discussed:

The deeper meaning of Obi-Wan’s “Only a Sith deals in absolutes” goes far beyond the immediate exchange—and the line is deliberately ironic, which is part of why it gets so much criticism.

The exchange in Revenge of the Sith is:
Anakin: “If you're not with me, then you're my enemy.”
Obi-Wan: “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.”

On the surface, Obi-Wan is saying that Anakin has adopted the Sith mentality: reducing a complicated moral situation to “you're either with me or against me.”

But there are several deeper layers.

“Absolutes” means moral absolutism.
Obi-Wan isn't really saying “never use absolute statements.”

He's criticizing Anakin's binary worldview. Anakin has reached the point where he believes:
•Padmé is either with him or against him.
•Obi-Wan is either his ally or his enemy.
•The Jedi are either supporting him or obstructing him.
•The Republic either accepts his solution or is an obstacle.
That's a major part of his fall.

Earlier in the film, Anakin tells Palpatine:
“I am going to turn you over to the Jedi Council.”

And then, after Palpatine reveals himself as Darth Sidious, Anakin's thinking becomes increasingly binary. By the time he confronts Obi-Wan, there's no longer room in his thinking for disagreement without betrayal.

So Obi-Wan's response is essentially:
“You've stopped seeing disagreement as disagreement. You now see it as enmity.”
That's the important meaning.

2. Obi-Wan is recognizing that Anakin has already crossed a psychological line
Notice that Obi-Wan doesn't respond:

“No, I'm not your enemy.”

Instead, he says:

“Only a Sith deals in absolutes.”

He's basically recognizing what Anakin has become.

This is particularly significant because Obi-Wan has spent the entire movie trying to reconcile his friend with what he's seeing.

Earlier, when Anakin says:

“I have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new Empire.”

Obi-Wan realizes that Anakin isn't merely being manipulated anymore. Anakin has accepted the Sith worldview.The “only Sith” line is therefore almost a diagnosis.

3. The irony is that Obi-Wan himself is making an absolute statement.

This is the part that makes the line fascinating. Obi-Wan says:“Only a Sith deals in absolutes.”That's itself an absolute.He's essentially saying:

“The only people who think in absolutes are Sith.”...which is, ironically, an absolute claim.

This has been pointed out endlessly by fans, and it's a legitimate criticism of the wording.But I don't think Lucas intended it to mean that Obi-Wan had just logically contradicted himself.

The more charitable interpretation is that “deals in absolutes” means approaching a particular situation with an absolutist, all-or-nothing mindset, rather than simply uttering an absolute sentence. And there's another layer to that.

4. The Jedi themselves are not actually portrayed as morally nuanced enough.

This is where the line becomes much more interesting in the context of the entire prequel trilogy.The Jedi are supposed to reject the Sith's absolutism, but by Revenge of the Sith they've become increasingly rigid themselves.

The Jedi Council essentially tells Anakin:“You're either a Jedi loyal to the Council, or you're dangerous.”

The Council refuses to accept Palpatine's enormous influence over Anakin, while simultaneously demanding that Anakin spy on him. And when Obi-Wan discovers that Anakin has fallen, the Jedi's answer is ultimately:
Kill him.

There isn't much room for:
“Can Anakin be brought back?”

Yoda even tells Obi-Wan:
“Twisted by the Dark Side young Skywalker has become.”

And Obi-Wan eventually accepts that he has to kill his best friend.

So the film is deliberately showing the Jedi becoming increasingly rigid at exactly the moment the Sith are exploiting rigidity and fear. That's one of the great tragedies of the prequels.

5. And then there's the larger Sith/Jedi philosophy

The Sith worldview is fundamentally about domination through certainty.Palpatine's philosophy is essentially:

There is power, and there are those who wield it and those who are subject to it. He doesn't really believe in compromise.

Anakin adopts the same philosophy because he believes that absolute power can eliminate uncertainty.

That's why his reasoning about Padmé becomes so disturbing.

He doesn't merely want to save her. He wants the power to guarantee that she cannot die.

That's impossible, so he turns toward increasingly extreme measures. The progression is basically:

“I don't want Padmé to die.”
↓
“I need the power to prevent it.”
↓
“The Jedi are preventing me from getting that power.”
↓
“The Jedi are my enemies.”
↓
“Anyone who opposes me is my enemy.”
↓
“I must destroy my enemies.”

That's the “absolutes” Obi-Wan is talking about.

6. There's an especially sad connection to Anakin's earlier characterization
Anakin wasn't always like this.

In Attack of the Clones, he's already impatient and extreme, but he still has attachments and relationships that pull him toward other people.

By Revenge of the Sith, his fear of losing Padmé has turned his love into possession.

And that's essentially what the Sith offer him:certainty.

The Jedi say: You must accept that people die.

Palpatine says: There may be a way to prevent death.

Anakin chooses the second answer.

That's why “Only a Sith deals in absolutes” is more than Obi-Wan calling Anakin a Sith. It's basically Obi-Wan recognizing the philosophical mechanism by which Anakin has fallen.

And there's a wonderful tragedy in the fact that Obi-Wan still doesn't fully understand it. He thinks Anakin has chosen evil. But Anakin thinks he has chosen love. That's why the next line—“From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!”—is so important.

Neither of them can understand the other's perspective anymore. That's the real “absolute.”

The exchange was also likely influenced by real-world political ideas about how authoritarian governments emerge: a genuine threat creates fear, fear makes certainty and strong leadership more attractive, and political disagreement can gradually become framed as disloyalty—“if you're not with us, you're against us.”

Lucas had long drawn on historical examples like the fall of the Roman Republic, Nazi Germany, Vietnam, and Nixon, and Revenge of the Sith was released in 2005 amid the Iraq War and post-9/11 politics (Bush's "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists"), making those parallels especially apparent.

In that context, Anakin's “If you're not with me, then you're my enemy” isn't just about his personal relationship with Obi-Wan; it's the same us-versus-them logic by which a society can come to accept increasingly extreme measures in the name of security, until opposition itself is treated as a threat.

[I ask for context on this part: “This is particularly significant because Obi-Wan has spent the entire movie trying to reconcile his friend with what he's seeing.”]

Sure. I meant that Obi-Wan spends much of Revenge of the Sith watching Anakin change and trying to reconcile that with the Anakin he knows and loves as a friend.

A few examples: At the beginning, Anakin is reckless and increasingly arrogant, but he's still Obi-Wan's partner and close friend. They joke with each other during the opening rescue of Palpatine.

Obi-Wan knows Anakin is becoming frustrated with the Jedi Council, particularly because he feels he's being denied the rank of Master. But Obi-Wan largely sees this as Anakin's immaturity and impatience rather than outright corruption.

Anakin tells Obi-Wan about his visions of Padmé dying. Obi-Wan tries to reassure him rather than recognizing how dangerously afraid Anakin has become.

When Anakin tells Obi-Wan that Palpatine has been advising him, Obi-Wan warns him about Palpatine's influence, but he still treats Anakin as someone who can be reasoned with.

Then Obi-Wan learns that Anakin has become Darth Vader and has slaughtered the Jedi and the Separatist leaders. At that point, Obi-Wan is devastated and initially has trouble accepting that this is really his friend.

That's why the scene where Obi-Wan confronts him is so emotionally loaded. Obi-Wan isn't confronting some random Sith Lord. He's confronting Anakin Skywalker, the kid he trained, his brother, and someone he still desperately wishes he could recognize as the person he knew. You can see that most clearly immediately before their final duel, when Obi-Wan says:

“Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine is evil!”

And Anakin responds:
“From my point of view, the Jedi are evil.”

By the time Obi-Wan says “Only a Sith deals in absolutes,” he's finally realized that the Anakin he knew and the Darth Vader standing in front of him can no longer be separated in Anakin's mind.

[I ask “Why did he phrase that as an absolute statement when it did not need to, and hence not be internally contradictory.”]

Exactly. He didn't need to phrase it that way, and that's part of why the line is genuinely awkward.

If Obi-Wan wanted to avoid the contradiction, he could have said:
“That's the thinking of a Sith.”or
“You are thinking like a Sith.”

Those statements directly address Anakin's binary reasoning without making a universal claim.

Instead, Lucas chose:
“Only a Sith deals in absolutes.”

That is itself an absolute: only Sith do X. So if we interpret “absolutes” literally as absolute statements, Obi-Wan has immediately violated his own rule.

So why write it that way?

I think there are three reasons, and the first is probably the most important:

1. It sounds like a philosophical maxim.“Only a Sith deals in absolutes” has the cadence of a Jedi aphorism. It's short, memorable, and sounds like something Obi-Wan would have learned as part of Jedi philosophy.“That's the thinking of a Sith” would be much more mundane. Lucas was deliberately giving Obi-Wan a thesis statement about what Anakin had become.

2. The contradiction is probably intentional irony.Obi-Wan is telling Anakin:
You have reduced the world to a binary: ally or enemy. But Obi-Wan is simultaneously reducing the philosophical distinction to:
Jedi don't do this; Sith do.

That's not necessarily an accident. Revenge of the Sith repeatedly blurs the distinction between Jedi and Sith. The Jedi are becoming increasingly authoritarian and absolutist themselves, while Anakin believes he's acting out of love and a desire to create peace.

So Obi-Wan's line can be read as unintentionally demonstrating the very rigidity he's condemning.That's actually rather appropriate for the prequel trilogy.

3. The word “deals” gives the line a slightly different meaning. Obi-Wan isn't necessarily saying:
“Only Sith ever make absolute statements.”
He's saying: “Only a Sith operates on the basis of absolutes.”

In other words, Anakin's:
“If you're not with me, then you're my enemy”is an absolutist way of approaching a relationship. Obi-Wan's statement isn't necessarily intended to be an example of that kind of thinking. It's a generalization about Anakin's thinking.

But—and this is the important part—that doesn't completely rescue the wording.

Even under that interpretation, “only” is still unnecessarily absolute.

Obi-Wan could have said exactly the same thing without the logical self-own. And I think that's why the line has survived as such a famous meme. There really is a legitimate irony there.

There's also a delicious possibility that the irony is thematically intentional: Obi-Wan is criticizing Anakin for becoming an absolutist while himself speaking in the rigid moral categories of the Jedi Order.

The scene isn't necessarily saying Obi-Wan is correct and Anakin is wrong about everything.

It's showing two people who have reached the point where neither can meaningfully inhabit the other's worldview anymore.

That's much more interesting than simply “Obi-Wan accidentally contradicted himself.”

[end of AI response]

I felt this was worth quoting because it touches upon so many key issues I've repeatedly observed within humankind and in virtually every form of discourse I've encountered.

For example, the need to dominate nature to create the illusion certainty (or preventing death) is one of the foundational issues that underlies the problems within medicine, and the tendency to split nuance into absolutes continually pits people who should be allies against each other (and is constantly exploited by demagogues).

[Senator Eric Schmitt @SenEricSchmitt]

This is egregious.

I’ve already called for national security reviews over Chinese purchases of land near military bases.

Now a reported CCP intelligence official trained as a sniper bought a building overlooking the White House.

Every alarm in Washington should be going off.

[Department of State @StateDept]

SECRETARY RUBIO: "This is a distinctive and unique evil. It has always been driven by a hatred, above all else, for civilization itself."

[ColonelTowner-Watkins @ColonelTowner]

Having listened to Trump's speech, none of the ppl who have been on the journey of uncovering the CIA and their nefarious activities were surprised by anything he said. I'd like to point out a few very important things:
1) the documents Trump declassified will expedite everything happening in the grand juries in Ft Pierce because the fact that they were classified draws out the timeline exponentially and that isn't a small thing.
2) he mentioned that the intel agencies, journalists, large US corporations, unions, etc were all involved with the US government and China as early as 2018 in interfering in elections, creating negative stories and undermining Trump...that is TREASON.
3) he specifically called out Obama's involvement in all of it.
4) he confirmed that everyone that was involved in challenging the 2020 election, showed up in DC on 1/6 were all RIGHT.
5) he noted that the FBI, DHS, CIA and other government agencies worked to coup the country
6) they systematically, overtly, and consistently worked to hide critical intelligence from the president and that is TREASON.
7) he noted the FBI put critical intel and proof of election interference in burn bags to destroy the evidence.
8) he noted the CIA sat on information confirming the election systems were compromised and overtly hid it
9) he noted the on-going cover up of the criminal conspiracy to overthrow the government is being hidden by NBC and ABC.
10) by notifying the state governments that there election data is compromised he will force them to take action OR they will be guilty of conducting known fraudulent elections.
11) the FBI discovered that China was manufacturing ballots for Biden and they covered it up
12) the CIA is required to inform the Congress and they didn't and instead signed documents stating it was the most secure election in history
13) over 250,000 non citizens are registered to vote in the US.

While many ppl will say we knew all of this already, this wasn't for those who knew all of this...it was to ensure the legal system can use declassified documents to expedite what will begin to occur tomorrow: accountability. It will provide the impetus to make drastic changes to the election process in the US. It now publicly forces Congress to act.

My caution: This requires the same organizations (DHS, CIA, FBI, etc) that committed treason to launch investigation of there own organizations which from my experience inside government never works.

It's my opinion we have moved to another phase of the operation. The speed will increase exponentially.

[Susan Kokinda @sjkokinda]

It's more than political independence. Donald Trump's Administration is restoring our economic independence. Happy Birthday, America! https://t.co/Vfrg00Kmpw

[Nick Sortor @nicksortor]

🔥 Japan’s celebration of America’s 250th birthday also featured a drone show portraying President Trump and Japanese PM Takaichi together

Japan did it RIGHT!

Thank you, Japan! 🇺🇸🇯🇵

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 WOW! Sen. Mike Lee is REFUSING TO BACK DOWN off the SAVE America Act following a closed-door Senate GOP meeting where John Cornyn reportedly pushed back on Lee's approach

LEE: "Those who disagree with my support for the bill or the aggressive strategy I’m proposing for getting it passed are free to do so. But I’m not stopping." 🔥

"The SAVE America Act would help save America by restoring election security, which has gotten dangerously weak in recent years." @BasedMikeLee

KEEP FIGHTING for secure elections! 🇺🇸

[Patrick Byrne @PatrickByrne]

Immediate follow.

An emphasis on the US slave trade while ignoring its minor (<4%) role in the Atlantic trade, the vastly larger Islamic trade, and the African slave trade of Europeans, is because it’s all information warfare.

[Christine Smith @websmithc]

@DailyCaller Anyone voting against the Save America Act hates democracy, regardless of their party. They’re voting against the 85% of Americans who WANT election integrity. #VoteThemOut

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 NOW: Americans are noticing that Japanese World Cup fans are doing MASS CLEANUPS of AMERICAN STADIUMS after the match

"In Japan, we are taught to clean up in school"

Thug cultures destroy and ravage, others clean and build!

This is why we LOVE JAPAN! PURE CLASS ACT! 🇺🇸🇯🇵

[Christine Smith @websmithc]

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: The Islamic Invasion of Christian Countries https://t.co/4VWvReiKez

[Townhall.com @townhallcom]

Arrogant Jamie Raskin RUDELY interrupts Brandon Gill's push back against the SPLC's claims that pro-lifers are WHITE SUPREMACISTS

JAMIE RASKIN: "Mr. Chairman, what is he referring to? This is outrageous."

The line of questioning...

BRANDON GILL (@RepBrandonGill): Your organization said that restricting and banning abortion is a tool that the far right uses to maintain white supremacy. Do you believe that pro-lifers are white supremacists?

SPLC PREZ BRYAN FAIR: What I think is that reproductive liberty is the right that every woman should enjoy.

GILL: How many babies in the United States that are reported are Black? About 40% of abortions nationwide are Black babies. Blacks represent 13% of the population. Does that sound like something a white supremacist would oppose? Calling someone a white supremacist is a pretty serious charge, isn't it? I would think you would be able to defend that. You clearly seem unable to.

FAIR: Mr. Gill, I'm not sure you would think why I'm able to do anything.

GILL: You are the president of the SPLC, which labels pro-lifers as racist. Is your organization throwing around epithets like that without any justification?

This is where Raskin draws the line 🙄

[J @JayTC53]

🚨 Dr Alveda King's opening statement on SPLC funding hearing is a must watch!

"America is not a collection of competing tribes. America is one people under God.That is why I am troubled by the conduct and messaging of organizations that. claim to fight hatred while profiteering from division."

[Christine Smith @websmithc]

@batcountry1980 @dsonoiki Dylan led the counter culture then had a Christian conversion experience and wrote “You’re Gonna have to Serve Somebody” and gained a whole new following. It was a rocky time, but he met people where they were, deep in their souls. “Hop on the Bus Gus” just isn’t as deep.

[@Chicago1Ray 🇺🇸 @Chicago1Ray]

TREASON 🚨

Thune is once again using pro-forma sessions, to block Trump from recess appointments while the Senate Is off this wk

-Reagan (240)
-GWB (171)
-Trump (0)

Thune must be removed

Raise your hand ✋️ if you want 5 Senators to start the process of removing John Thune

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 WOW! Gov. Ron DeSantis just said after his upcoming vetoes, Florida will have REDUCED state spending for 4 years in a row...

...and nearly HALF of ALL state debt has been paid off since 2019 🔥

"Our budget, even though we have MILLIONS of more people than New York State, New York's budget is more than TWICE the size of Florida's budget, and people can ask, where's all that money going?"

"And in fact, I'm going to be dealing with our current, our next fiscal year budget. And once I do my vetoes, I will be able to say that we have actually at the state level in Florida reduced spending four years in a row."

"Now that's foreign to some of those blue states, but they're quite frankly, aren't very many jurisdictions that are doing it. So we're proud of that. We obviously have a very light tax at the state level, but the one thing that's been tough for people is the property tax."

And now property taxes will be largely removed.

LFG ☀️

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Pretty much 😂
https://t.co/3BqNQfbQ5w

[Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent @SecScottBessent]

.@TrumpAccounts are designed to strengthen financial foundations early in life.

Each eligible child will receive an initial $1,000 contribution from the U.S. Treasury to support long-term growth.

https://t.co/qmyWBa4UAy

[Promethean Action @PrometheanActn]

The Council on Foreign Relations just launched a multi-year project to figure out "what comes next" — an admission their century-long mission of subjugating American policy to Britain's is finished.

@SJKokinda on what they accidentally revealed 👇