Dear Editor,
I continue to enjoy Richard Whittaker’s comments about the Libertarian Party [“
Libertarians Are Not Far Right,” Postmarks, Dec. 27]. As chair of the state party, I welcome the attention. It is also my duty to respond to Whittaker’s allegations, which last week included the claim that the founder of the Libertarian Party, David Nolan, created his Nolan Chart "its main objective has been to make people think that libertarianism is not a hard-line form of conservatism.” I don’t know if Whittaker truly knows anything about Nolan; I am guessing he never met him. I personally knew David Nolan and worked with him at the national level. I heard Nolan explain his motives for creating the chart: to clearly show the true political spectrum is not one-dimensional. He wanted to clearly distinguish Libertarians both from the left and right, not only the right. Public citations of this are widely available. Our main objective in using it is the same. Can Whittaker provide any evidence that Nolan only intended his chart to distinguish Libertarians from hard-line conservatives? Libertarians want to know!