Do you mean the comments that Bailey attributes to her? Yes, and, assuming she really made them–I don’t agree with her. If there are some other comments SHE published that I didn’t see that justify Bailey’s response to what I thought was an innocuous post on her behalf, please give me the link. Maybe I’m wrong and she did deserve his response.

I think that Ron Bailey’s entire post is a big gossip-fest meant to put Ann in a terrible light. In the absence of any public statement other than her Dec. 15 post, I find it to be out of proportion.

Have you read her comments? Maybe a martini isn’t needed for her to act dumb.

Seemed sober enough when she made ’em.

In light of that, I thought that Ron Bailey’s post was totally out of proportion and in very bad taste–and downright cruel- regardless of the question as to whether Ann acted appropriately at the event. She didn’t start out describing others at the event in language like this: “When chatting with her over cocktails, she seemed pleasant enough if a bit vague.”

I’m just a hick from the sticks and no intellectual–but Bailey’s post was just uncalled for in my estimation. For being supposedly so civilized, intellectuals can sure act like asses toward others. Between Ronald’s post and Ann’s response–it seems to me that this event was populated by self-important jerks!

Maybe the arguments Bailey made were “reasonable”, but what I mainly got out of his post was that he sure likes to gossip.

In a truly free society, the kind we once enjoyed, one honors the right of the individual to associate and disassociate…

“We” never enjoyed a truly free society. At least not if within “we” you include black people. Rather, the law lurched from state-enforced segregation to state-enforced integration with no time in the libertarian middle. Libertarians should be for complete freedom of association, meaning no laws at any level forcing either integration or segregation outside of publicly-owned facilities. This has never been enjoyed in America.

Is this distinction important? I think so. Consider Althouse’s views on the matter; in her mind, libertarians are for the old regime, meaning, Jim Crow.

Most of the things he says about “too much liberty = chaos” are pure run-o-the-mill stuff people hurl at libertarianism. None of the “examples” he provides are anything more than loose associations. So before FCC there was chaos? And what exactly is “order”? The cartelization created by FCC – which is bound to distort real supply and demand, and thereby create worse chaos? That is, the dubious vision, and the blind will of a handful of elites – like Althouse – imposed on the rest of us at gunpoint?

You would think that adults understand that since we’re free in our acts, this means not every split second moment of our lives can possibly be calm and idyllic tranquility. Libertarianism is about a “process” not “ends.” Chaos, disorderliness, unwanted outcomes, ugly emotions and treatment of humans–these are all part of LIFE. And there ain’t nothin’ the Gummint can do about it.

Unfortunately, Althouse seems to subscribe to the “womanly” perspective (see Fred Reed on this here: http://www.fredoneverything.net/SurvivalSchools.shtml), putting the cart of “security” before the horse of “liberty.”

That a restaurant might profit exactly because of excluding a certain type of customer is the heart of the matter: liberty is being able to choose, and “dislike” is as much a choice as “like.”

Only children expect to be loved by all, and unconditionally.

Conservatives always say they’re against the state, and then come up with crap like this.

with friends like these…

“Any libertarian would have a hard time arguing against the government acting in the public interest, after all, isn’t the public good the reason we have a government run police and fire department? Sometime government regulation is very necessary in order for business to serve the public good. Study the history of early commercial radio and the FCC at its creation (chaos created by stations competing against each other on the same frequency in the same market, false advertising and fraud were abundant) then you understand that some govrnment interference is vital to the country as a whole. And if you think about it, our government came about through a process that intended to decipher what system would be best to serve the citizenry of the country, i.e. the public good. Yet the establishment of a government, by that very act of establishing guidlines, encroaches on the hard line libertarian views of personal freedom.

Hard line libertarianism = little government = Articles of Confederation = chaos.”

Something libertarians need to seriously consider because the libertarian position is at war with itself.