Noam Chomsky is essentially the person who introduced me to Socialism, Anarchism, and Libertarianism. Before then, I was ignorant and I thought that socialism was like Stalinism and would lead to terrible things, and that Anarchism was akin to street gang exploitation and violence.

I had wholly bought into the capitalist propaganda of my society that Socialism is Stalinism and was afraid of it. Chomsky totally changed that.

Since then I am still heavily influenced and inspired by Chosmky. That being said, I've also moved on to not only having him as my inspiration, many other people have no influenced my worldview on Socialism and Anarchism like Bakunin and Kropotkin.

Also, there is no one in this world that I agree entirely with. Though with Bakunin I come very close. And if this is something that Chomsky said, this would not be the first time I have disagreed with him.

In any case, no one has a perfect ideology, and politics is inherently messy. Some people are going to be complete pacifists and I admire that. I want to see kindness and tolerance spread, and violence is not a beautiful thing. Also, not everyone needs to be a soldier. That being said, I think that it's overly idealistic to assume that militancy and violence is never the answer. And I do think that fascists need intimidation.

It is true that there are people who can be swayed, usually not fascists, but people with right wing leanings or highly problematic and bigoted beliefs. Deep down, even the most right wing people are typically people who have normal wants, needs, and insecurities. It's possible that me or you could have become a far right sympathizer given the same horrible circumstances and memories. Some desires and sympathizes people on the far right have are not inherently bigoted and reactionary and dangerous. And there is hope for some people, people can become less racist or fascist or bigoted through ways other than attacking, such as identifying their ultimate desires and decoupling them from the far right and racist and oppressive state policy. For instance, many people turn to racism because they need a scapegoat for why their life is so terrible, some people have deep romantic feelings for ancient cultures and traditions like Rome or ect., which are easily co-opted by reactionaries, people are afraid of things they love and cherish being lost, people have had horrible experiences with the social justice community which have radicalized them to the far right, people who are privileged may have fears that they could go from privileged to oppressed. Along with many, many other motivations. Wanting a scapegoat for your problems, feelings of romanticism and deep cultural passion, whether for your own culture or for others, fear of losing things you love, fear for safety, and fear of oppression, are are normal and healthy desires. Thus not everyone in these movements are irredeemable sociopaths with no empathy.

Not everyone on the far right is all lost. That being said, they are still dangerous, very, very dangerous. And we cannot prioritize their health and safety over our own comrades. And they are coming for our comrades. They are coming for the weakest and most vulnerable in society, the most disempowered, without privilege, victimized and downtrodden. They should be our priority. And if we do not intimidate fascists, these are the people who will instead suffer.

The reason not intimidating fascists is overly idealistic is because the safety of fascists and the safety of oppressed people in society is, in fact, a zero sum game. You cannot ensure both. And it is obvious whose safety you should prioritize. This is the fundamental misunderstanding of liberals and people who believe that pacifism is the only option. They think that you can and should do both, and do no realize that this is a "zero sum game." It's sad, because violent is pretty terrible, and I don't blame anyone for being very averse to it. But unfortunately, we don't live in that ideal, black and white morality world. Sometimes to defend, you have to attack. And if you do not defend, other people will attack the innocents. People are attacking innocents right now.

That's not to say I'm even certain that Chomsky even said this.

Also, there is no reason we cannot be every bit as militant as the far right.