Most well known for being the founder of the National Libertarian Party in the USA as well as creating the Nolan Chart, the inspiration for The World's Smallest Political Quiz.
Nolan grew up in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. (inviting wonderful speculation about what caused his slant against the political parties of old). Apparently, it was authors such as Robert A. Heinlein and Ayn Rand that helped shape his political ideology as a youth.
As a student at MIT in the 60's founded the Students for Goldwater organization. Barry Goldwater was a 1964 Republican presidential candidate supporting limited government. Dave later became the Youth Coordinator for the Liberty Amendment Committee, an organization devoted to repealing the income tax and getting the government out of unconstitutional activities.
When the Liberty Amendment Youth Council was disbanded in 1968, David gave the member list to Jarret Wollstein, who used it to form the Society for Rational Individualism (SRI, which later formed into the Society for Individual Liberty).
It was in response to many of the restrictive acts of Richard Nixon's presidency (the Vietnam War, restrictions of civil and economic freedom, etc.]), that lead Nolan to write "The Case for a Libertarian Political Party", an article for SIL's monthly magazine The Individualist. Disgusted with the political actions of 1971 and before David in his friends began the work to form the Libertarian Party on Dec. 11 in his Colorado living room.
Perhaps as important as the creation of what became the USA's third largest politicial party, Nolan second major contribution to society was the self-named Nolan Chart. In the past, political standpoints were thought of as a position on a line. One end of the line represents liberal (left), and the other represents conservative (right). However, this didn't satisfy Nolan. Views on issues of personal freedom didn't seem to be shared by either all conservatives or all liberals.
He ended up playing with the concept until he arrived at a two-axis system. One the traditional economic freedom (separating liberals and conservatives), and the second representing personal freedom. The idea didn't go terribly far until Libertarian Marshall Fritz turned it into the famous World's Smallest Political Quiz.
It was for the Nolan Chart that England based International Bibliographical Centre would choose to include Nolan in the "2,000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 20th Century". Nolan's response to this was "Amusement, mostly. I really don't think I'm one of the 2000 leading intellectuals of this or any other century . . . but then again, maybe I am, [especially considering] what idiots most intellectuals really are."
Harris, James W. http://www.self-gov.org/celebs/NolanDave.html.