First, let me say that I agree with your characterization of the American left as being very similar to the Taliban in their broad ideological goals and strategies — although I have never heard that the Taliban required "punishing people for failing to piously separate their own private garbage, can by can and bottle by bottle, into five types of recyclable material"!  However, I think you let the right off too easily in your piece.  Just as it is true that the farther left you go, the closer the resemblance to the Taliban, so is it also true that the farther right you go, the closer the resemblance becomes.

Except for the "ecological" issues, which I never heard of the Taliban embracing, almost everything you wrote about the left has also been true of the right, especially at the extremes of those two leanings. (I put "ecological" in quotes, because ecology is a science, and the word as used by the left and most of the media has nothing to do with science).

Now, "left" and "right" are poor terms, as I am sure you will agree.  There are "classical" and "neo" versions of both, which are very different from each other, and variations within each sub-category, plus there has been a very interesting flip-flop between the two camps over about a three decade period on the issue of deficit spending. However, I think we both understand each other well enough when we use the terms "left" and "right".

Taking your points one by one, and leaving out the "ecological" ones, which have nothing to do with the Taliban anyway, we have:

•  punishing and even criminalizing speech and thought that contradicts egalitarian ideology on issues of race, sex, disability, and sexuality  

Well, let's leave out the word "egalitarian", which is foreign to the Taliban vocabulary anyway.  The right has tried to criminalize speech which has been too sexually explicit.  Here I am referring not only to "pornography" but even, if you go back a few years, to literature about contraception and reproductive health matters.  The right's record on race issues has not been stellar either, unfortunately.  I would not hold up their history with free speech as a shining counter-example to the left.  Both have had their wallows in the mire there.

•  enacting national restrictions on eating fast food or driving fast cars

You have got me on the fast food.  Who would have thought ANYONE would push for restrictions on that?  But pushes for a reduction in speed limits BEFORE the "energy crisis" were probably more from the right than the left.

•  police enforcement of rules against smoking, drinking, gambling, or otherwise indulging in traditional but socially harmless "vices"  

Come on!  You know the right's history here.  The vice squad has always been a right wing favorite.  Who has opposed gambling the most?  Or wanted to use government to eradicate vices?  The left is a Johnny-come-lately to this issue.

•  spying on families to discover whether they are spanking their kids and/or failing to expose them to politically correct attitudes and a sufficiently diverse social circle

I can remember the right advocating using the kids of suspected communists to rat on their parents.

•  regulating the content of films and music to ensure that they do not send messages to youth that the politicians regard as culturally inappropriate

You mean, like the old Hayes code regulating movies in Hollywood so they weren't too risqué or left-leaning?  Or the right wing pushes to regulate rock and roll?

•  making end-runs around parents by having public schools indoctrinate children in all the recent political priorities of the ruling regime

And who was it that wanted, and still wants, to make an end run around parents by requiring the "indoctrination" of public prayer in schools?  I hardly think the schools of the 50's were lacking in their own indoctrinations.  They were just more right wing then than they are now.

•  abolishing the freedom of association and mandating adherence to detailed government rules concerning all uses of private property in hiring, firing, consumer service, and housing

Here is a bigger issue that you have got me on (more significant than speed limits). It is true that the (old) right was not as bad as the left, either old or new.

•  restrictions on the right to advertise

The first restriction in my own memory was the prohibition on advertising hard liquor on TV.  Right wing.  I believe there were more right wingers pushing for an end to cigarette ads on TV than there were left wingers, back when that was actually banned.  Nor are there any significant numbers of right wingers today advocating repeal of these restrictions.

•  cracking down on any form of humor that pokes fun at any politically favored group

The tables have turned here, too. Who opposed Lenny Bruce? Who opposed Rowan and Martin's Laugh In? It all depends on whose ox is being gored, doesn't it?

•  imposing ceilings on the ability of lenders to charge market-determined interest rates and passing other forms of anti-usury laws (as favored by the Taliban)

This was indeed something supported by the left, but also by many on the right. I am willing to concede that more left wingers than right supported anti-usury laws, though.

•  special protection for women in the law on grounds that they constitute an inherently weaker sex that would otherwise be exploited by powerful men

So far we have had two or three cases where the left was more at fault than the right. But there have been four or five where the right was more at fault than the left, and this is definitely one of them. Everything from divorce laws that left women helpless to labor laws preventing women from holding certain jobs BASED ON their sex alone -- these are right wing phenomena, only recently (like most other right wing faults) taken over by the left.

•  restrictions on the right to display religious symbols or otherwise reveal religious preferences that are contrary to political priorities

Neither the left nor the right has really advocated this as a private matter -- only when GOVERNMENT display was concerned, and here the right has been more in the wrong. The display of religious symbols should be a strictly private practice, not a government one.

•  regulating the right to reproduce to prevent supposed overpopulation

Again, I have never heard of the Taliban doing this. But it was the right who wanted to ban birth control and contraceptives when they first came out. They were trying to regulate the right to reproduce first.

•  extreme regulations on the ability of individuals and families to acquire weapons of self defense, on grounds that all people ought to entrust their safety to public employees

Here is one that the left is guilty of to the exclusion of the right. However, it is one that even the Taliban did not practice, to my knowledge. They wanted all families to be armed so they could participate in any struggles that came along. This is one where the Taliban come out favorably in comparison with the American left, like the ecological questions.

•  consolidation of all political power in the center to prevent that emergence of local leaders who might enact policies contrary to the ruling ethos.

I am sorry, but I just don't see today's right as being any different in this regard from the left. They have all become pro Big Government. The only difference is arguing over who gets to make the rules that they will impose on everyone else. Bush is doing more to consolidate "federal" control over people's lives than his predecessor did.

Counting up, I see ten Taliban descriptions where the right was there first, four that belong more to the left, and three or four that should have been left out of consideration because they do not match the Taliban ideology.

Obviously, I think both the left AND the right are in the wrong, and have been for years, despite the changes they have both made to try to win our trust in their ability to run our lives. I think your efforts would be better directed at pushing freedom and condemning statism, rather than trying to participate in what is a charade of a battle between the "left" and the "right", both of whom have missed the boat and missed the point.  The left and the right are the pot calling the kettle black, and I see no point in trying to take sides in that argument.