mark albertini

Abortion & end of life decisions
Mark will work to protect the sanctity of human life from conception to old age. He believes (sic) unborn children are created in GOD’s image and are precious humans, not fetuses. The aged should be allowed to die in GOD’s timing & manner and with dignity.

1) Is GOD an acronym for something? Grandmothers On Drugs?

2) Wait, he must mean God. Strike 1.

3) Assuming Mark’s platform here is referring to Schiavo (remember her?): Is wasting away brain-dead on life support dying with dignity?

I will seek, if possible, to appoint only Justices who recognize that unborn children, from conception on, are humans and deserve all rights of born persons.

“I”? What happened to Mark? I don’t know who this person is, but Mark should know that they are interjecting their own opinions into their narration of Mark’s platform. I sure hope this particular item is one that Mark agrees with.

Crime
Mark will work to make prison a place of punishment. Our first priority for criminals should be to punish them and make them pay back their victims and society for their crimes. I will consider programs that make criminals work to build their own prisons, pay for their own room & board, their medical care and that restore their victims..

Translation: Mark endorses state-sponsored slave labor. And so does the mystery second person writing this document.

Education
Mark will work to make education effective. Students should be taught good moral character, history, english, science and math. All students must graduate on their own merit. Mark will not support lowering graduation standards.

Good luck on this one. Education is increasingly corporatized, with “ability to pay” being the only real discriminator between the degreed and non-degreed. NCLB is yet another spectacular lowering of any standard education might pose. Still, good to see Mark taking a theoretically progressive stance on this.

The students who can not graduate must spend more time learning or be involved in a slower paced program. Mark is generally not in favor of college grants. Mark worked his way through all of his education and he believes that the experience is helpfull in training a young adult to be responsible.

Serious answer: College grants are one necessary and useful tool in breaking down structural forces that bear down on society’s underclasses. Opposing them because you worked your way through school is foolish, because that is irrelevant.

Joke answer: Translation: Dear minorities, sorry about that, better luck next time, k thnx bye!

Environment
Mark will work to develop cleaner energy sources. Our lakes, mountains, parks and streams should be cared for as beautiful treasures of GOD’s creation. Mark will be strong against polluters & those who dump waste & toxic chemicals.

Word.

Ethics
Mark will work to establish rules that inspire a sense of honor and trust in serving our fellow citizens. Those in governemnt must realize they serve GOD and not man. There will be no second chances for those who violate the trust of voters. I will seek immediate removal of any official convicted of a crime and temporary removal of any under indictment. I will seek to establish ethical requirements of elected officials that are somewhat similar to Attorney ethical standards.

“Those in government must realize they serve GOD and not man”? Okay, that’s just creepy. a) God doesn’t exist, and b) someone get this man a copy of the establishment clause, stat.

Since when do we need overbearing cult-ish devotion to uphold a modicum of ethics? I guess sometimes people do the right things for the wrong reasons.

Family
Mark will work to protect marriage as GOD created it in the Garden of Eden, one man and one woman. Gay marriage is not marriage but wickedness. The only relationship that should be honored by the word marriage is between a man and a woman. Mark will veto any bill before the ink dries that proposes homosexual marriage.

Ouch. Sounds like Mark needs a big gay hug.

Homosexuals will be treated as normal citizens however and protected against violence as other citizens.

Well, that’s nice .. treated as normal citizens except for all these disclaimers, I guess.

Mark will work to help single mothers with small children who are verifiably working to get ahead. He will be tough against fathers who fail to care for their children.

Word. What does “verifiably” mean, though? And what about mothers who fail to care for their children?

Firearms
Mark will work to protect our right to own firearms and to hunt. Mark is an NRA member and he loves deer meat

Deer meat is good, I have to give him that, but it’s not the best justification for gun rights I’ve ever heard. Still, right thing, wrong reason, etc.

Hope
Mark will work to give Tennesseeans hope for the future. Hope can keep us going when the going gets hard. What we do in this life determines our future. We should live and govern as if we are answerable to GOD. We should have hope in our jobs and education. Mark will work with these areas to help things grow.

This is a weird one. I, for one, am firmly against Hope, and I am personally and deeply offended that he would openly support such a grotesque thing. What’s next? Happiness?

Lottery
Mark will work to show the futility of trying to get something for nothing. Mark knows the Lottery is law and that it was placed before the people. But he believes the Legislature had an obligation to show the evil inherent in a lottery. He believes the Lottery was a bad decision forced upon the public by misguided motivations. It degrades the value of honest hard work and ridicules the punishment allotted to gambling. Mark would like to see the evil effects of the Lottery lessened.

Three cheers.

Taxes
Though Mark believes that taxes are our responsibility as citizens, particularly Christians, he thinks we are overtaxed. Mark is against an income tax in light of all the other taxes in place. Mark prefers a straight sales tax for all. He will work with the legislature to reduce taxes in every area. Tennessee has over twenty taxes in place. Mark thinks this is too much.

Translation: I don’t care about poor people.

TennCare
… Mark will encourage a healthy lifestyle. We should treat willful obesity as a sin and strive to defeat it. …

?!?

In conclusion: GOD would have to reveal his existence to me, give me a tour of hell, and then personally freeze it over before my very eyes before I would vote for this guy.

I am surprised he’s running GOP, though, since he seems more like the wacky Libertarian type. Interesting contradictions between his platform and his party of choice:

• “Mark will not support lowering graduation standards.” – The Republican sponsored NCLB legislation is, by and large, a nation-wide lowering of education standards.
• “Mark will work to develop cleaner energy sources.” – uhm, yeah.
• “Ethics”
• “Mark will work to restore a sense of decency, respect and civility to government. Government meetings and records should be transparent (sunshine law).” – The current Republican administration is probably one of the most corrupt and creepily secretive administrations since perhaps the Nixon administration.
• “He believes in a small government that supports the ingenuity of the public” – Even the Cato Institute, faux-libertarian capitalists, are turning on the Bush administration for its spending excesses.