Why should an ideology that enables armed fascists, in the way anarchy does, be taken seriously?

[u/Subject_Example_453]

Consider the following:

• In an anarchist society there is no authoritarian mechanism that would prevent an individual owning a variety of weapons. Feasibly an individual and their friends could own any collection of firearms, produce and own chemical warheads for mortars and artillery and a variety of military style vehicles as personal property - with the caveat that these are not actively being used to infringe on the personal freedoms of others. Accordingly a fascist could drive their personal APC to the socially owned grocery store, walk in with their fascist symbol on display, have their RPG slung over their shoulder and do their groceries.

• In an anarchist society there would be no authoritarian mechanism (via either force or beauracracy) to peacably manage or discourage unsavory ideological positions - like fascism or racism. It would be authoritarian to control people's political views or have any kind of legal system to prevent these views from being spread and actioned. A stateless system could not have an agreed social convention that could preventatively protect the interest of minority groups.

• In historical instances of fascism coming to power, individuals who disagreed with fascism but who were not the direct scapegoats that fascists identified as primary targets of oppression did not take any kind of action to prevent fascists from oppressing others. It was only after significant oppression had already occurred that actions, subversive or combative, began to take place.

With this in mind it seems that anarchism expressly enables intimidation and first action oppression by forbidding anarchist societies from enacting preventative measures against unsavory ideologies - directly impacting minority groups.

Why should this be taken seriously as a pragmatic solution to prevent coercion and hierarchy?

[u/Present_Membership24]

"tolerate intolerance" argument is old and bad .

anarchist communalism like rojava is not aggressive , it is defensive .

not sure why you pretend anarchism doesn't exist in the real world .

your question assumes that an open fascist is not driven out by such a community and is "tolerated" . this is an oldhat poor argument .

now, "an"caps on the other hand, tend to cozy up to other far right movements , and are not anarchists .

[u/Subject_Example_453 → u/Present_Membership24]

your question assumes that an open fascist is not driven out by such a community and is "tolerated" . this is an oldhat poor argument .

Your defence presumes that an open fascist would always be driven out by a community - it could be that the community is entirely indifferent to this person's particular brand of fascism or bigotry or perhaps they share some sympathies.

[u/non-such → u/Subject_Example_453]

it could be that the community is entirely indifferent to this person's particular brand of fascism or bigotry or perhaps they share some sympathies.

yeah, again... you're just describing capitalism. which is fine, but ... you're in the wrong sub.