Over the past week, GorT has had a number of conversations with some friends of liberal persuasion regarding a number of topics but largely around the economic situation of the country and the so-called “Occupy Wall Street” protests.

First, the protests.  While the message isn’t coherent, the points my liberal friend had in this case were:  (1)  We should raise taxes on the “wealthy”, which he had trouble defining, to help pay for reducing the nation’s debt or deficit, again, he had trouble distinguishing these, and for funding entitlement programs that help the poor. (2) CEOs in this country are earning too much – but he had trouble going further with this argument.  This friend is also Catholic and in the course of discussion said that these positions are “being Christian” and helping the poor.  Let’s put aside the Catholic teaching of subsidiarity and really expand on what my friend is saying.  Allow me to rephrase his argument:  We should have the government collect, by law, additional funds from a subset of the population, identified solely by their income, in order to fund a variety of programs including defense spending, foreign aid, and entitlement programs, many of which have proven inefficiencies.  Think that through.  It would be Christian to have the government engage in forced wealth redistribution in the name of helping the poor regardless of any citizen’s personal religious beliefs.  Let’s also keep in mind that the Christian teaching is to care for the poor.  This in no way means that we need to engage in wealth redistribution.  As a visiting missionary priest covered in his homily today, we need to enable the underprivileged not just give them money or other donations.  In his particular mission in Africa, they are working to become self-sufficient through farming, wells, and other means.

Another group discussion took place recently and parallels were drawn between taxes to help the greater good (see above) and I asked about what my acquaintances have done with regards to putting solar panels on their homes or buying a hybrid or electric car.  Crickets.  When I pressed the issue they said that they cost too much.  And there you have it.  At least one and maybe two of these friends could afford a hybrid car (and one had just purchased a new non-hybrid SUV).  I gently pointed out that what they are facing is what the country is facing with regulations.  It didn’t go very well.  They didn’t really get it.  Hmmm.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.