Quick question. Isn’t it fascist (by being anti-fascist) to shut down actual fascists?

kropotkindersurprise:

Quick answer: no.

Long answer: Did you look at the article I posted like 15 minutes ago?

Using violence is not in itself fascist.
Using violence to further a cause is not

in itself

fascist.
Using violence as a political tool is not in itself fascist.

Using violence to stop racists and fascists from spreading their hate is a necessary tool to stop their movement and prevent them from victimising, oppressing and murdering ethnic and religious minorities. LGBTQ+ people, women, union members, leftists et cetera.

While you may disagree with using violence as a political tool, that does not make it fascist. I think many people are confused by this because the word fascism has come to be used as a general word for politics you don’t like.

Here is a pretty good, simple definition of fascism from The Anatomy Of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton:

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behaviour marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants who, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

That is a GOOD definition but I wouldn’t call it simple. Such long sentences and tricky words I can hardly get through it and I’m an experienced educated reader. I’m gonna try to break it up a bit and add a bit. 

Parts of fascism:

– Nationalism. Generally combined with a belief in the ethnic superiority of one group. 

– A strong obsession with the idea that society is getting worse and that the nation and ethnically superior group has lost it’s pride and is a victim, even where there doesn’t seem to be any evidence for any of it. 

– A cult focusing on unity, energy, and purity (sometimes but not always focussed on a single ‘strong leader’ who will save them from all the evils mentioned above). Members are encouraged to have a strong belief in the cult without asking critical questions and to be loyal to the leader. 

– In pretty much all cases where fascism has a single leader, this leader believes himself to be above every law and rule, even those he imposes on his own organisation. 

– To pursue the goal of being saved from all those evils, fascism believes democracy and personal freedom must be abandoned and groups seen as part of the problem (often minorities) must be destroyed. All things and people seen as morally corrupt must be destroyed and strict laws must be inforced to make sure the superior group is unified, loyal to the cult and pure. 

– This destruction can be as violent as it needs to be and can not be limited by laws or a concious. It tends to get worse and worse and it seeks out new imagined enemies when it can’t find anyone to destroy. 

– Along with internal cleansing, this cult involves the belief in outward expansion. This can be by dominating other nations or be actually physically occupying them. Fascism believes it has the right to rule everywhere. 

– Finally, fascism tends to work (in an unseasy way, but still working together) with existing elites and power structures. In most cases those elites and power structures will proclaim loudly how much they hate fascism but will protect it none the less. (They will, for example, send police to protest fascist rallies and will allow fascism to take the seat of power once it grows strong enough).