Therefore, vegetarianism is wrong. Guilt by Association is the attempt to discredit an idea based upon disfavored people or groups associated with it. An argument to authority argues in favor of an idea based upon associating an authority figure with the idea, whereas Guilt by Association argues against an idea based upon associating it with disreputable people or groups. Here, an association is made between the target of McCarthyism and communism by linking both through some middle term . For instance, in the 1960s some anti-communists attacked support for civil rights by pointing out that the Communist Party of the United States also supported the civil rights movement.
All communists are civil rights supporters.
Martin Luther King, Jr. is a civil rights supporter. Therefore, Martin Luther King, Jr. is a communist. This argument commits a syllogistic fallacy , and many other instances of Guilt by Association commit the same fallacy.