You certainly seemed to agree there.

As for the Whole Foods business:

1) I think it’s ludicrous for liberals to boycott a company like Whole Foods – which conforms to a great many liberal ideals about private enterprise and environmental stewardship – just because its jackass CEO believes something silly.

2) That said, I also think it’s perfectly clear that Mackey was using his leverage as CEO of Whole Foods to get column space and to lend credibility to his views. He can hardly be surprised that people didn’t separate his private and “public” personae. Eric Holder, by contrast, was talking to his friend, not using the power of his office to secure a position from which to lecture people he doesn’t even know.

All that said, I certainly didn’t support the boycott. Seemed like a stupid fit of pique designed to accomplish absolutely nothing.

First of all, we haven’t agreed. Second of all, whatever the case, Holder’s actions, despite what a friend may say in a talk radio interview, will not be viewed as the actions of a private citizen but of a public official and. That’s the way it’s always been. Perception becomes reality.

So in a cultural/attitudinal sense, I really don’t know where Eric Holder would’ve thought this was a.) an appropriate thing to do or b.) something that nobody would consider in relation to his job and boss.

To Ryan’s points, the question of whether it’s small potatoes or not is a separate question from whether it’s appropriate or not. I don’t particularly see the value in ignoring inappropriate behaviour from public officials until it’s arbitrarily designated “big potatoes.” There’s even a credible argument that ignoring the small stuff makes the big stuff more likely to happen.

Count this as yet another in list of things that would be more clear than contentious were the object in question less sympathetic.

I wonder….what are your thoughts on whether it was appropriate for liberals to boycott Whole Foods based on its CEO’s health care opinion piece for the WSJ? Was he speaking on behalf of Whole Foods or in his private capacity as a concerned citizen?

I don’t know what “subject to a request” means. If you are asking if people are allowed to ask their friends to stop doing things, then yes. Moreover, people acting as private citizens are allowed to care about whether their boss is being criticized by their friends.

As for the rest, I would love for you to find me the time where I endorsed Ari Fleischer telling people to be careful what they say. In fact, I’m pretty sure my actual position is that everyone cares waaaaaaay too much about what people say and not enough about what they do. But you’re the libertarian, so feel free to lecture me about what liberty really means.