No person who is not wealthy deserves to be. Wealth accumulates from actions based on value judgements, and its inverse, poverty, is based on inactions and irrational estimates of value judgements.

Yet, both wealth and poverty are illusions, even delusions regarding fortune.

However, this was not the subject of my Dec. 3 letter to the editor (“Americans have lost sight of what is truly valuable”), which was the requirement of land ownership as evidence of virtue to qualify for the office of senator.

I admit the vagueness of that letter. The first concern, from a response (“The Founders would not recognize the new ‘Gilded Age’,” published Dec. 10), has digressed to wealth.

Wealth is not an apple tree with a finite number of apples. Wealth is derived from active participation in an economy. Just as all human beings desire knowledge, so they all desire to understand, to participate, and to be creative. This innate nature to be creative is what sets us apart from all other creatures, including some humans, whose only instincts is to seek sustenance, reproduction and survival.

It is the human desire to be creative in seeking fulfillment of those instincts which create wealth. The objection to others who may have greater wealth is derived from the assumption those others are unworthy or just using the animal quality of being cunning.

The creativity of many billionaires is not egocentric cunning; it is exercising true understanding, knowledge and strategic action.

Connect this to land ownership and senators. The 17th Amendment which eliminated the selection of a senator by state legislatures seems to be a reaction to the spoils system of appointments to government positions based on loyalty rather than merit. However, at that time, senators were elected by state legislatures, only appointed by governors in the event of a vacancy. There was a requirement of landownership proposed in the original Constitutional Convention which would have minimized special interests, but it was not established.

Shift now to a consideration of this landownership clause to be established in some future constitutional convention. Currently, the Senate is only an iteration of the House; just another voice in the cacophony of the special interests of the mob, with members reclining in the luxury of a six year term.

Although the Senate has unique responsibilities, it does not apply a different set of requirements for passage of legislation than the House. A requirement of true landownership, which means without the encumbrances of a mortgage or delinquent taxes, would be evidence of virtue used in creative pursuits.

We each hold our own particular office of employment in society by virtue of our skill and education. My contention is that some evidence of virtue, such as landownership, would renew respect for the Senate. Then add a set of requirements to guide senators in decisions, such as, “is this constitutional?” and “can the country afford it?”

Further, if some requirement of evidence of virtue would be applied to the Electoral College, it would reduce the appearance of unfairness or the same suspicion of corruption that existed in the time of spoils.

Jerome Loran

Carbonado