Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has not forsaken this blog. Well… You wouldn’t know it from looking at how rapidly he’s been updating it recently. He keeps thinking of a good post here and there, but doesn’t get around to writing. He knows he’s been playing this tune for over a year… But it is the tune of the moment so it will keep playing.
Your Maximum Leader sees that FLG is now on Twitter… Huzzah. Follow him here.
Are you following your Maximum Leader on Twitter? You can get him @maximumleader.
Your Maximum Leader has had three urges lately. The first is to watch Dr. Zhivago. The second is to go to Venice for Christmas. (You are all getting pretty sick of hearing that one and wondering when your Maximum Leader will just go already…) The third was to cure some bacon.
That third urge was a little more difficult than he suspected. Normally, your Maximum Leader goes to his local butcher and grabs some pork bellies and gets to curing. Sadly, the butcher has been running out of pork bellies of late. Apparently, lots to people are buying pork bellies for various uses. It is crazy but now your Maximum Leader is on a waiting list to get some when it comes in. (He could have had some on Wednesday, but didn’t feel like paying an extra $2.50/pound to get it special ordered.)
Your Maximum Leader’s church is beginning to roll out some of the changes to the Mass. Today we got the new Gloria, Memorial Acclamation and Great Amen. In a few weeks they will be remembered. The big problem for your Maximum Leader will be the new translation of the Nicene Creed. That will be a toughie.
Speaking (a little) about religion… Rick Perry ought to get some of his more religious followers to shut the hell up. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure there is a polite way of saying that Mormonism is a cult. And if you can’t be polite about it, you might as well just shut the hell up about it.
Of course, your Maximum Leader doesn’t much care that Rick Perry is faltering in the polls. If your Maximum Leader may be frank (and it is his blog so he will be frank), there is not a circumstance under which your Maximum Leader would ever (EVER!) vote for Rick Perry to hold any office of public trust at any level. Your Maximum Leader would no sooner vote for Rick Perry for dog catcher than he would for President of the United States. If (in the seemingly more and more unlikely event) Rick Perry gets the Republican nomination for the Presidency your Maximum Leader would throw his vote away on a third party candidate - or even write someone in on the ballot. Your Maximum Leader knows that the great Commonwealth of Virginia might be close next year. Even that knowledge would not lead him to change his mind.
You see, your Maximum Leader believes Rick Perry is unfit to hold any public office after his involvement in the case of Cameron Todd Willingham. If you haven’t read or do not know about Cameron Todd Willingham, you would do well to start with this article from the New Yorker magazine. You might also check out the Innocence Project’s page on Cameron Todd Willingham for more information on this heinous miscarriage of justice.
The case of Cameron Todd Willingham horrifies your Maximum Leader so much that he is continually rethinking his support of the death penalty. For the record your Maximum Leader has long supported the death penalty. He knows that it is quite possible that people have been executed for crimes they did not commit. But often those executed had long track records of hideous criminal behavior and while perhaps not guilty of the crime for which they were executed; they likely had it coming. (Which your Maximum Leader knows is no justification for being “satisfied” with an execution. This is nothing more than a salve for his conscience.) But as best your Maximum Leader can tell Cameron Todd Willingham was executed having committed no capital crime whatsoever. (NB: Willingham did have a criminal record including theft and other petty crimes. Not anything that would rise to the level of a capital offense.) Rick Perry is at least partially responsible for Willingham’s death, and as such he is not qualified to be President.
While your Maximum Leader is going on about those who are not qualified to be President… He is glad that Sarah Palin is not going to run. But he is saddened by the fact that she still has a soapbox from which to speak to the masses. While your Maximum Leader can’t imagine voting for Sarah Palin for President, he would consider he for other political positions. County Council or City Council leap to mind. She might also be an effective mayor of a small to medium sized town. She would even be okay in Congress; but your Maximum Leader couldn’t imagine casting a vote for her to any federal office. Regrettably, plenty of news outlets continue to give her time/coverage and we have to listen to her…
Your Maximum Leader was listening to APM’s Marketplace recently. On Marketplace, David Frum has been a longtime commentator who spoke “on behalf of the right.” Your Maximum Leader wrote “spoke” there because Frum has left Marketplace. The reason? He no longer feels as though he speaks on behalf of the majority of the right. Your Maximum Leader knows how he feels. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t really feel at home in the current iteration of the Republican party; and feels marginalized on the political right.
Your Maximum Leader is not a Tea Party type of fellow. He doesn’t think President Obama is a full-out Socialist. He doesn’t deny evolution. He is an old fashioned conservative. He would likely be labeled a RINO by many. Or a “Rockefeller Republican.” Or even a “Moderate.” Your Maximum Leader doesn’t think that he is any of those three things… But he is thinking that more and more he is becoming the old man yelling for the kids to get off his yard. Only in this case he is yelling at the kids that he is a true conservative and they are something else…
Your Maximum Leader believes in small government. But there is a role for government in society and it is possible for government to be too small. (Ours is too big now, by the way.) Your Maximum Leader believes that taxes are a price we pay for civilization. But he doesn’t see that tax cuts now will help our economic situation. (Neither will a tax increase by the way. Uncertainty - about all things economic is at the heart of our current crisis.) Your Maximum Leader is in favor of a strong national defense. And currently the US is overextended around the world and in need of a rethink of priorities. Your Maximum Leader is pro-life. But the best outcome a pro-lifer can hope for in the nation today are some restrictions of some types of abortion. Your Maximum Leader is a pretty traditional guy and does believe that permissiveness in many areas of civil society is damaging to that society in the long run. But he also believes that government is not the agent of social change many think it is and should be. Your Maximum Leader appreciates science and learning and is put off by those who seem to flaunt their ignorance.
So what is he to think? Your Maximum Leader likes to think he is a rational right-leaning fellow. That said he certainly doesn’t think that he is in the mainstream of the political right. Neither is he off to the far right. He thinks that the right have moved further right and he is looking to be more of a centre-right type of guy.
Of course, this is all from his perspective… To many it would look like your Maximum Leader has moved left and become a squishy centrist…
Ah well…
Carry on.
