"Fight back" As if THEY were the rebels being aggressed against. As if it was THEM who were marginalized in our society. The reality is that a tyrannical oppressive empire will call themselves the "rebellion" against the brave few who dissent from their regime. They know that the power differential makes such a statement absurd, but they also know that their supporters won't care to notice, they have been raised to praise the rebellion, and hate the empire, and the empires of the real world know that. They also know that their supporters only care about things on a superficial level, they lack both the ability and interest to look deeper than the surface layer of any important issue. They don't care about anything other than their appearance of ideological conformity to the herd, public approval is all they care for, and it is their barometer for morality. So the empire only needs to make sense at a surface level, any lie they tell, no matter how patently ridiculous it is, will be passively accepted and aggressively fought for by the masses who support and prop up the system. It is these masses who must be punished most when all is done.