Like most libertarians, I don't like authoritarianism. But defining it is another matter. At the most basic level, I do not like people telling me what to do. Meddlesome, tyrannical, busybody control freaks -- whether they're working for the government or whether they're private assholes, I just plain don't like em. I would characterize all such people as authoritarians. Some might possess real authority, some might be petty tyrants who are insecure about the amount of authority they possess, while others are bullies who enjoy wielding authority they have only because people go along with them. Most street criminals are authority figures, and if you think about it, what could be more authoritarian than using force to compel someone to give you that which rightfully belongs to him?

What never ceases to fascinate me is the sheer gall of liberals in attributing "authoritarianism" to conservatives and libertarians while pretending that liberals are the authoritarian antithesis. It is one of liberalism's biggest lies. Like so many of the people who drive around with bumperstickers that say "QUESTION AUTHORITY" -- while they really mean to say "QUESTION AUTHORITY SELECTIVELY."

A great PJM piece by Amit Ghate looks at authoritarianism in the form of the growth of government czarism:

The flip side of this government growth is the shrinking of the domains in which private citizens can make their own decisions and pursue their own values. The individual's thoughts are marginalized -- primacy is given to whatever the president and his cronies happen to think. Science czars push science in directions they prefer, regulatory czars restrict affairs they deem objectionable, etc. Substituting the government's judgment for that of private individuals is the essence of authoritarianism.

Thus czar advocates are authoritarians. But what of critics? Unfortunately, on the essential point, they're no better. Their typical criticism hinges on who confirms and supervises the czars. They ignore -- and thus concede -- the real issue.

the debate over the man's qualifications carries with it an implicit admission that we NEED a safe schools czar -- the argument being over who should be heading another useless, intrusive federal agency. Thus (and quite ironically) the culture war once again hoodwinks the right into unwittingly acknowledging the legitimacy of something that they might otherwise dispute. Might as well argue over who gets to be in charge of putting the condoms on bananas....

But the basic principle -- substituting the government's judgment for that of private individuals -- remains the same.

I agree that it is the essence of authoritarianism, and I think such authoritarian positions should be abolished. I don't merely question their authority, I advocate getting rid of it.

What is more insidious about the authoritarian left is the way they are often able to wield their authority without any resort to government force. As Theodore Dalrymple explains, politically correct censorship of writing works precisely in this way:

I have noticed that whenever I used the word "Mankind" in an article, it emerges in the printed version, without my permission, as "Humankind," a word I despise as both ugly and sanctimonious. (In the Oxfam shop round the corner from where I live there is a poster with a slogan that nauseates me: "Thankyou for Being Humankind.") The change is made with such regularity, and in so many publications, that the government might as well have decreed it, though in fact it has not. There is, presumably, a monstrous regiment of sub-editors at work, all of like mind.

Of course the change lacks logic. If Mankind is objectionable because of its masculinity, Humankind is no better. It still contains the dread word, or should I say syllable, "man." Nor would "Hupersonkind" be better, because of the masculinity of the syllable "son." To eradicate all sexism from the word, it should be "Huperoffspringkind." This is clearly ridiculous. But censorship by language reform is not a matter of logic, it is a matter of power. As Humpty Dumpty said, it is a question of who is to be master (if one may still be allowed the word), that's all.

I am not alone the victim of the monstrous regiment of sub-editors. I get to review quite a number of books published by academic presses, British and American, and I have found that the use of the impersonal "she" is now almost universal, even when the writer is aged and is most unlikely to have chosen this locution for himself (or herself). It is therefore an imposed locution, and as such sinister.

That might not be government authoritarianism, but authoritarianism it is. These petty tyrants have the power to stop a writer's work from being published, and if someone is trying to make a living from his (yes, his; the masculine subsumes the feminine) writing, the writer either complies or starves.

Dalrymple resorts to a workaround method:

I now simply avoid the use of certain ways of putting things so that the question does not arise. I do not want to have a blazing argument with editors or sub-editors each time I use the word "Mankind" and it is changed without my permission, nor do I not want to stop writing altogether; and the matter, after all, is a very small one. How petty one would look to argue about it, how foolish to cut one's nose off to spite one's face if one refused to write any more because of it!

And so the censors have achieved a small victory. They will seek out new locutions to conquer.

In a discussion of burkas and free speech, Phyllis Chesler discusses another form of leftist authoritarianism which literally promotes the worst sort of patriarchal authoritarianism while claiming to do the opposite, and which fights dissent by silencing people, shouting them down and finally by social shunning:

Right here in the good old U.S.A., we do not yet have European- or Canadian-style punishment for certain kinds of free speech-but we do censor, denigrate, and silence free speech with which we disagree. "Wrong" thinking is simply not published; if published, it is not reviewed in the mainstream media-or it is damned; therefore, such books are not read by too many people. "Wrong" thinking speakers require bodyguards on American campuses, their lectures are interrupted or end in violence. Mainly, "wrong" thinkers are not invited to speak at mainstream universities.

But there is another, quieter, ongoing, and equally insidious silencing at work in presumably free America. Recently, a Jewish lesbian feminist and red diaper baby came to visit me. She lives in Berkeley and spent many years before that in Eugene, Oregon. She visited Israel for the first time last year, loved it, and made the fatal error of telling her friends all about it. Conversations ended abruptly. Dinner parties ground to a halt. Friendships-many with prominent Jewish, Israeli, and feminist leftists-soon followed. She's been reading, hard, ever since, found my work, came to visit.

Let me share just one of her anecdotes. Based on her new understanding of the matters at hand, my brave Berkeley friend has begun to stand with the StandWithUs group every Friday at Sproul Plaza, right opposite the Women in Black, who demonstrate against Israel. She recognized some of her old friends among the Women in Black-and was, herself, recognized. Both she and another woman left their respective groups, (SWU had five people, WIB had twenty), and greeted each other with affection. They live right near each other in Berkeley. The friendly conversation was quickly interrupted by a member of Women in Black who came over and said "She's one of them, she's for Israel." Abruptly, loudly, the WIB demonstrator said: "You're not a friend of mine." My SWU demonstrator said "But we're neighbors. We know each other for years." SWU: "I don't care." And she marched off.

When they meet in their neighborhood supermarket, the WIB demonstrator looks down and away. "She won't even look at me."

Sorry, but someone who dumps a friend for not agreeing with his politics did not have a real friendship. More likely, what was going on was a personal power game over who gets to be in charge, and who has to submit to whose will. Petty authoritarianism. It's sad that it happens, but don't think the phenomenon constitutes friendship.

The idea that authoritarianism is right wing is heavily promoted by the left, though. Pseudoscientific "tests" claim that a high authoritarian ranking is inherent in conservatism, and some conservatives even seem to go along with it. To me it only indicates the bias of the tests. Considering the history of the many horrors perpetrated by left-wing authoritarianism, the claim of authoritarianism being "right-wing" is downright Orwellian. As Jonah Goldberg noted, leftists have long been trying to define communism and authoritarianism as opposites:

Ever since Theodor Adorno came out with his scandalously flawed Authoritarian Personality in 1950, liberal and leftist social scientists have been trying to diagnose conservatism as a psychological defect or sickness. Adorno and his colleagues argued that conservatism was little more than a "pre-fascist" "personality type." According to this school, sympathy for communism was an indication of openness and healthy idealism. Opposition to communism was a symptom of your more deep-seated pathologies and fascist tendencies. According to Adorno, subjects who saw Nazism and Stalinism as similar phenomena were demonstrating their "idiocy" and "irrationality."

UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link.

I sincerely hope that America's new slogan does not become "Submission to authoritarianism is freedom!"

Comments welcome, agree or disagree.

AND MORE: If you want to do something about authoritarianism, I don't think there is any better antidote than the leaderless Tea Party Movement.

And watch this video from Bill Whittle that Glenn linked earlier.