"Smelling Liberal, Thinking Conservative"

"[R]esearchers found evidence that people are instinctively attracted to the smell emitted by those with similar ideologies. In one memorable instance, a female participant asked the scholars if she could take one of the samples home, describing it as “the best perfume I ever smelled.” The scent came from a man who shared her political views. Just before, a different woman with the opposite views had smelled the exact same sample, declared it “rancid,” and urged the researchers to throw it out. Ideological like-mindedness exerts a biological pull on our attraction, it seems — and deep disagreements can really stink."

I took this test back in the late 90's early 2000's and I was not surprised then to find myself in the purple. I am a little surprised, today, to find myself closer to the left. A quick inventory however, to use self help lingo, a quick rationale could be that the times, the zeitgeist, the things that define left/right now, have changed and I have changed along with them. As I went around the vortex. I think it also helped, or hurt, depending on your point of view, that I was a regular reader of the Althouse blog. I was traumatized ;) I'm kidding of course.

Upon further review, I believe the test is slightly skewed.

I already have my outfit picked out

"...LANCASTER, N.H.— Like any good bonfire, the evening ritual at the Porcupine Festival deep in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, includes a drum circle, plumes of marijuana smoke, shared bottles of whiskey and spirited debate.

There are also guns. Lots of guns.

Colt .45s, Smith & Wessons, and Rugers hang on hips. A bearded man clings to an AK-47; a guy with a Mohawk has a shotgun with flowers coming out of the barrel strapped to his back. For this isn’t your typical bacchanal in the woods...

......Porcfest — as it’s known here — is put on by the Free State Project, a group dedicated to recruiting at least 20,000 libertarians to move to New Hampshire. The idea — that a group of this size can make a difference in a state with a low population — came from an essay in 2001 by then-Yale doctoral student and current Dartmouth lecturer Jason Sorens. Thirteen years later, the FSP has had nearly 16,000 people sign a “statement of intent” to move. The plan is that when 20,000 people sign the list, it will “trigger” a large migration. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 people have moved already.

...By most counts, more than 20 Free Staters have been elected to the state House of Representatives (about 10 of whom currently serve), with many others serving in municipal government. In 2012, state Rep. Cynthia Chase (D) called them “the single biggest threat the state is facing today.”

It’s certainly an overstatement, but the Free Staters have been active in the political arena. They have helped repeal New Hampshire’s knife laws, blocked implementation of a national ID system in the state and helped allow jurors to acquit defendants not because they think they are innocent but because they believe the law at issue is unjust."

-WaPo

"The Rise of the Libertarians"

"Libertarianism is spreading on our college campuses. An unusually large number of politically-minded, frustrated students, who refer to themselves as the "liberty movement," believe themselves to be part of a rising tide that will restore the country to greatness."

Much of the recent growth in libertarian activism emerged after Ron Paul's 2008 failed presidential bid, when Jeff Frazee, Paul's national youth coordinator, founded Young Americans for Liberty (YAL). Aided in part by the right-of-center activist training group the Leadership Institute and its team of field representatives, YAL now boasts chapters on over 380 campuses and a membership of some 125,000 students. Another libertarian group, Students for Liberty, has since seen exponential growth since its founding in 2008. At the end of 2008, there were 42 campus groups in the SFL network. By 2013, SFL claimed an affiliation with 930 groups worldwide: 767 in the U.S., over 100 in Europe, and a few dozen in Africa, Asia, and Latin America."

Deerson (president of UNC-Chapel Hill's YAL chapter until he graduated in May) credited the growth of the club to the training he received from Students for Liberty and to changing attitudes among students. A handful of studies lend credence to this view. A 2011 study by UCLA scientists found incoming students to have more liberal views, but only on social issues, meaning that there are more students who identify as fiscally conservative and socially liberal--in effect, libertarian. A 2012 survey by the Panetta Institute found that 30 percent of college students have libertarian beliefs. Indeed, the present time seems to be a "libertarian moment" for the entire country, as statistician Nate Silver has suggested."

Minding the Campus via Intapundit