MIT's student newspaper
The Tech surveyed both undergrad and grads about their political outlook. Today opinions editor Ethan Solomon writes of
MIT’s Libertarians ~ 23 percent of students identify as libertarians. Roughly a fifth of students responded and of those nearly a quarter consider themselves "small-ell" libertarians -- meaning with libertarian outlook but not necessarily supportive of the Libertarian Party. Indeed...
"35 percent said the Libertarian Party best reflects their views, and 23 percent said the Democratic Party best reflects their views. Only 30 self-identified libertarians, a mere six percent, felt the Tea Party best represented their views. That was only slightly less than the Republican Party, which captured 9 percent of self-identified Libertarians. A plurality of those who said that they considered themselves to be libertarians called their overall political views “moderate” -- about 38 percent."
What's especially fascinating is that MIT in several key ways has been an incubator of the modern libertarian movement. Many MIT people are anti-authoritarian, prone to spoofing or hacking the powerful. Others fight for fundamental freedoms online and off. The philanthropic Koch family of MIT alums includes a former Libertarian vice-presidential candidate,
David Koch. Libertarian party founder
David Nolan was an MIT alumnus (RIP) and active while on campus in fighting the growing stupidity reigning in the liberal and conservative political wings. He's creator of the
Nolan Chart illustrating how the classic left vs right political spectrum was inadequate...
Alas, David Nolan, MIT alum and co-founder of US Libertarian Party has just deanimated. Douglas Martin writes in the NYTimes obit... the hero of Rand’s “Fountainhead.” After switching his major to political science, his involvement in conservative politics deepened. [...] When the Libertarian Party was formed, Mr. Nolan emphasized the need for liberals and conservatives to unite behind unrestricted capitalism and maximum civil liberties. [...] Libertarians’ dovish views on military involvement and liberal attitudes about abortion veer sharply from those of conservatives. This week, expectedly enough, Libertarians campaigned against airport pat-downs. The party’s mix of conservative and liberal positions reflects an underlying belief that almost all government power is inherently coercive. Mr. Nolan came up with a well-known graph, called the Nolan Chart, to explain this phenomenon. The graph has two axes: one labeled economic freedom and the other called personal freedom. Under Mr. Nolan’s scheme, Libertarians dwell in the corner of the graph where both kinds of freedom are greatest. His hope was to persuade people to think of politics as a debate between libertarian and authoritarian positions rather than as one between the traditional left and right. [...] At a meeting of party leaders this weekend, he submitted a resolution but did not attend. Delegates, who did not know of his subsequent death, approved the resolution. It said, “The Libertarian National Committee hereby reaffirms that the Libertarian Party welcomes individuals from across the political spectrum who now accept the libertarian principles of self-ownership and non-aggression.”
