Andrew Sullivan Leaves The Right

Posted by | December 8, 2009 16:21 | Filed under: Top Stories


Andrew Sullivan explains why he is leaving the right which, he says, has abandoned its core principles.  Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs is similarly leaving that corner of the spectrum.


Sullivan:

 

I found it intolerable after 2003 to support the movement that goes by the name “conservative” in America. I still do, even though I am much more of a limited government type than almost any Democrat and cannot bring myself to call myself a liberal (because I’m not). My reasons were not dissimilar to Charles Johnson, who, like me, was horrified by 9/11, loathes Jihadism, and wants to defeat it as effectively as possible. And his little manifesto prompts me to write my own.

 

I cannot support a movement that claims to believe in limited government but backed an unlimited domestic and foreign policy presidency that assumed illegal, extra-constitutional dictatorial powers until forced by the system to return to the rule of law.

 

I cannot support a movement that exploded spending and borrowing and blames its successor for the debt.

 

I cannot support a movement that so abandoned government’s minimal and vital role to police markets and address natural disasters that it gave us Katrina and the financial meltdown of 2008.


I cannot support a movement that holds torture as a core value.

 

I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.

 

I cannot support a movement that is deeply homophobic, cynically deploys fear of homosexuals to win votes, and gives off such a racist vibe that its share of the minority vote remains pitiful.

 

More at Sullivan’s blog.  And with Joy Behar:


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By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.

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