The 2004 Freshman Survey results are out. Surprise! Apparently, they’re more liberal than ever:

[J]ust 51.2% of first-year respondents think of themselves as liberal. More than a third (36.8%) deem their political views “middle of the road,” while 12% are proud to claim membership in that elusive (but vocal) species, the Berkeley conservative.
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In fact, students today are a lot more liberal than they were during the 1980s. Back in 1982, when Ronald Reagan was president and it was eternally “Morning in America,” Berkeley conservatives had a respectable market share of 20.8% of freshmen, compared with 32.9% for liberals. And almost a majority, 46.4%, of 1982 Berkeley first-year students lounged comfortably between the left and right political lanes. The pendulum has since swung leftward, and 2004 freshmen are only slightly less liberal than they were in 1972, when 56.5% of freshmen called themselves liberals; the number of conservatives was also in the same ballpark, 10.5%.

Check out the rest of the stats and decide for yourself what to make of this.

Here are some results that I find particularly troubling:

“The federal government should do more to control the sale of handguns,” agreed 88.3% of Berkeley freshmen; 76.5% of U.S. freshmen thought so in 2003

I assume that part of the 12% that considers themselves conservative actually agreed with this proposition. And that national number is way too high for comfort. This doesn’t bode well for the future of the 2nd Amendment.

70.2 percent disagreed that colleges have the right to ban extreme speakers. Interestingly, given Berkeley’s history as the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, a relatively large group — 23.8% — agreed “somewhat” that such speakers (such as last fall’s controversial visitor Michelle Malkin) should be turned away

Those 30% make me sick. “Tolerant” liberals, for sure.

Again, so much for the Free Speech Movement’s legacy: a slight majority, 54.8%, believed “Colleges should prohibit racist/sexist speech on campus”; only slightly more freshmen nationwide, 58.4%, agreed with that statement.

Sigh… Two down, eight to go.

Somewhat surprisingly given the few Berkeley students who identified themselves as “far left,” 72.3% agreed with the statement “Wealthy people should pay a larger share of taxes than they do now.” Only 53.1% of all U.S. freshmen thought so in 2003.

This was the only question regarding economic policy. I wonder how much support would be given to the welfare state, regulation, capitalism, free trade, etc. I’m confident that we’d see an equally ignorant response, exposing the socialist tendencies of so called “middle-of-the-road” students.

While 55.8% of Berkeley freshmen disagreed that marijuana should be legalized, 23.7% strongly opposed legalization, compared with the 12.9% who would push for it. Nationally, 61.2% disagreed.

And all this time I thought at least half of this campus is high on something. The first step to ending the terrible War on Drugs can’t even get a majority on this supposedly “Progressive” campus. Taking something (someone?) out of your body is alright (80% say Abortions are A-OK!), but putting something in it is a no-no. It boggles the mind.

Oh well. Nothing on this campus makes sense to me. Now I have the statistics to prove it.