RMS isn&#x27;t really an asshole, though he has some infamous quirks that some people tend to overemphasize because they find his otherwise straightforward ideas to be highly disagreeable to begin with.<p>Hitchens was inflammatory, but also flexible in his thinking.<p>Buckley was an interesting case. To some extent, he was more acerbic towards those he <i>mostly</i> agreed with than those who he had further ideological skirmishes with. For instance, he was friends and associates with Galbraith, but infamously brutal towards Rothbard over his non-interventionist views on foreign policy.