Of all the Republican candidates, Rick Santorum may actually be the most authoritarian and dangerous. In a 2006 interview with NPR, he actually rejected “this whole idea of personal autonomy.”

One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right. You know, the left has gone so far left and the right in some respects has gone so far right that they touch each other. They come around in the circle. This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone. That there is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.

He wants government to be just small enough to fit in your bedroom. And your womb. And this notion that states have rights is absurd. State governments have authorities, not rights. Individuals have rights, and only individuals.