Source: Reason
by Brian Doherty
“In Offended Freedom: The Rise of Libertarian Authoritarianism, two Swiss sociologists, Carolin Amlinger and Oliver Nachtwey, indulge in a common academic habit: blaming libertarians for an intellectual and social phenomena that they find alarming. Their bill of particulars fails to stick because of conceptual incoherence, mistaking radical opposition to any government policy — even one that allows more liberty than the disgruntled person wants — as ‘libertarian,’ and categorizing perfectly understandable anger at government overreach as inherently ‘authoritarian.’ The authoritarians the authors study — those angry at more open immigration — are not at all libertarian. The study’s libertarians — those who opposed COVID-19 restrictions — are antiauthoritarian.” (for publication 07/25)