In Mudcat, the practice of obfuscation whenever the forum is criticized, has been made a religion of sorts, with certain Mudcat members acting as it's priesthood.

Folks here seem very touchy about any suggestion about Mudcat possibly engaging in:

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.

Ahem. See Wolfgang's remarks above.

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.

Mudcat has no military, but there are most certainly enforcers of rules. In protofascist communities, it is never quite clear to the masses who all the enforcers are, or what the rules are that are being enforced. Protofascist communities always have a group of secret enforcers, and rules are always ambiguous and arbitrary.

7. Obsession with national security.

In Mudcat, the obsession is with forum security, but it is an obsession nonetheless, most often manifesting with xenophobic paranoia about 'guest' posters.

The point is, a community doesn't need to embody all 14 of the above listed characteristics of fascism, for some fascist characteristics to be routinely made manifest by enough members of that community with impunity, for those specific fascist characteristics to be deemed acceptable behaviour by the majority of the community's members.

Once the majority of community members agree upon #3 (guests in Mudcat's case), and agree that the community needs protection from the scapegoated group in order for it's members to be "safe" (#7), then it is a mere hop, skip, and jump to #4, where the ruling elite (in this case Max, Pene and Joe Offer) appoint their secret security apparatus (the Joe Clones), and voila! The rules enforcers take secret action to police against the perceived threat(s) the scapegoated group represents. In Mudcat's case, the threats most often mentioned that need to be 'dealt with' by the Mudcat rules enforcers are: insulting the members (this is usually described as the 'personal attack' rule); identity theft of the Mudcat name/identity of a member, and/or obsession with exposing the identity of anonymous guests).

It is quite easy for members of a community to come to a quick consensus, when insiders feel threatened by those perceive as being 'undesirable' outsiders infiltrating their community. Too often, #3, #4, and #7 are made manifest in response to the incursions by these dreaded outsiders, whether that community be online or in the 3D world.

#3, #4, and #7 are such common responses, that they are usually the first acts leading many community members to gleefully dive down the slippery slope. Protofascism becomes more and more pervasive, creeps in a little bit at a time, is often a sign of the times, as it seems to be now in Britain and the US.

To suggest "it can't happen here" in Mudcat, is just head in the sand thinking. It can and does happen everywhere, among people that in less oppresive times, would never exhibit such protofascist behavioural characteristics. This place, and the people inhabiting it, are no exception.