A quote from Robert Heinlein

"Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort."

I think he was absolutely right. One of the core criteria for being a leftist is the desire to control other people, ostensibly for their own good or for the good of the many, but in reality for the good of the few - those who exercise control. Such it was with the Nomenklatura of the Soviet Union and so it is with the Friends Of Obama. This of course is tyranny. There are non-leftists who are also motivated to control others. They subscribe to other ideologies, some of which are seemingly opposed to Marxism and its analogues. Devout muslims come to mind. But while the end goals of their tyranny may differ, their desire to lord themselves over others does not.