Thursday, February 17, 2005

Exceptions to the Sullivanian Rule

What's frustrating about reading Andrew Sullivan is his awesome sensitivity and nuance when it comes to issues that affect him personally and his striking indifference to the complexity of those that don't. Gay marriage is a pressing need; a woman's right to choose is sort of eh.

Sullivan also makes an exception for his own kind when it comes to his usual belief that people and communities should be permitted to self-destruct at will:

As many of you know, I'm a libertarian when it comes to recreational drug use (and what consenting adults do in private). But I draw the line at this drug. It's evil, potent beyond belief, it's destroying people's minds, careers, lives and souls. If we don't get a grip on it, it may undo all the progress we have made against HIV in the gay world.

So if crack, heroin, or any other drug happens to be destroying another community, the Sullivan line doesn't get drawn? Meth is hardly the first drug to contribute to the spread of AIDS, so that can't possibly be Sullivan's reasoning. It's not clear if he'd like to see meth and meth alone criminalized, but that's not even the point. There's just this unresolvable divide between the way Sullivan treats what he cares about personally and what he doesn't. While it's perfectly reasonable to write more about issues of personal concern, it's not right to say that these issues are objectively more pressing than others.

1 comment:

Nick said...

please. Andrew Sullivan claiming to be a libertarian is about as credible as GWB claiming to be one. AS believes in gay marriage not because of civil rights, but because it'll domesticate gays and do good for the homosexual community...he's never given up his faith in the sort of government social engineering that conservatives espouse. a true conservative, I'll give him that...