West Virginia is certainly not Authoritarian. Populist, yes, but it's not really keen on too much interfering.
I was a little surprised at that answer as well, though I haven't spent much time in WV. I was a little surprised at some posters putting MS. I hadn't spent much time in MS either, till recently, but have been making MS my home for about 7 months, and I can tell you that in most ways MS is the least authoritarian US state in which I have lived. I can tell you that over the years I have spent much time in LA and it is certainly not authoritarian either. LA (and to some extent MS and in my imagination WV as well) is the kind of place where you get stuck in a traffic jam on IH10 and get out of your car and open up a can of beer and drink it while sitting on the hood of your car with the cop in plain view. It is also the sort of place where you can walk around with a gun and no body seems to mind. It is also the sort of place where you can pretty much hire and fire whomever you want for whatever reason.
I'm tempted to say the most authoritarian US states in which I've ever lived are MA and TX. It's a hard call which. MA seems more authoritarian on the surface (though, like MS, it has the lowest age of sexual consent at 15; but also like MS, it has extremely strict alcohol sales laws; some weird combination I never really figured out during the five years I lived in Boston; I'll same the same when I leave Columbus, I'm sure.) TX is up-front about its authoritarianism, and doesn't try to hide it from you. Same in MA. It was only two days into living in MA when I was pulled over by a cop for going the wrong way down a one-way street. I can assure you, from personal experience, that cops in MS don't much give a damn about such things. In TX, I was often pulled over for not wearing my seat belt. Why they'd bother, is beyond me, but it reeks of authoritarianism.
I've never lived there, but I've visited NV quite a bit, and compared to *all* the states in which I've lived, they are very uptight about marijuana. For example, when I was about 19, I got stopped by two cops in TX with a fairly large amount of weed. They harassed me quite a bit, as you can imagine, but in the end, let me go. But they kept the weed. Seriously. The bastards. And they didn't even give me a receipt.
As for speeding tickets. I can't enter Ohio without getting one. I don't know what their problem is, but I swear, every time I get even an inch into Ohio I get pulled over for doing like 66 in a 65 or something. I have more tickets in Ohio than any other state, and I haven't even ever lived there. (I actually paid a few of them, though I blew off most of them. They want my money they can come get it. assholes.)
CA is weird too. It's like that line in the movie "What dreams may come" I really like CA and has, so far, been my favorite US state in which to work and play and reside. But, so far, has also been my least favorite state in which to have to pay taxes. I'd vote for CA as both the most authoritarian (in many many ways) and as the most libertarian (in many other ways) state, among those in which I have lived, worked, and paid taxes.
Still, authoritarian, libertarian, whatever, CA has the best weather. Bone dry. Never winter. Never Summer. Always warm. No wonder people are willing to put up with 9+% sales tax and 10+% state income tax and very strict gun-control laws to live there.
Also, the weed in California is excellent!
