October 10, 2000

Who Am I?

I am Robert Ossian Wirengard, voting constituent of District 11, Hillsboro County, Florida, a naturalized citizen of the United States of America and the founder of the unincorporated Amend 16 entity.  I am retired and fifty-four years old, but any comfort in retirement erodes as the Federal Reserve Bank continues to pursue an inflationary policy.

I want the U.S. Congress to learn, because we have both the resources and knowledge substantially to eliminate poverty, make inroads against discrimination and deliver on the promise of "an unalienable right to life".

In light of the knowledge - within these writings, but originated from Nobel Laureates - and resources of this great nation, plus the general wherewithal of free markets and our clear history that they work, the only thing that really is missing, is our political will to overcome poverty, its ally of ignorance and our abuse of people.

Through education then, rather than working from platforms of ignorance and misinformation and "spin", our congress and people, at least, will know how poverty may be overcome - such as through a government dividend, reparation or "living wage" replacing minimum wages.  To rest on uneducated notions that there always will be poor or "lazy" people or that "we have to take care of them", is faulty logic.  The more it's thought about, this logic shows a fundamental bias that we do not really believe in people and the power of individual, free capacities.

I do.  I see individuals always seeking more than to survive.  In fact, the will to thrive develops well within our first months of living: infants, science shows, pass away when they only are provided sustenance.  Infants provided touch, talk, even off tone singing, and cuddling are the ones - we - who develop a will to thrive.

And common people are as clever and competent as presidents to handle matters of life, work and love.  Ironically, existing regulations of governance are what have grown to work against these matters.  It is curious that we see Neanderthal men and women having worked together, loved and provided healthcare to each other, and played on musical instruments.  Since then, have jealous "medicine men", the most vicious warriors, the creation of money allied to the inequity of paying for work in the labor market but not the home labour, created today's inequities?

Perhaps the origin does not matter.  To learn or know of how to correct it is what matters.  For having learned ways, tested them with hard numbers and observed behavior, my conscience has become a proverbial "monkey on my back".  Things that are unjust exist all around us, systemically so, and I would like for you and congress to be just as uncomfortable as I am.

In the final analysis, we are left three alternatives.  Either the educated answers must be disproved, in which case the matter of conscience becomes a distant, if not absolving, academic issue.  Or the answers, as a matter of conscience, will riddle us both indefinitely.  Or amends, corrective actions, should emerge, allow and call for a better system - not status quo - to be put in place...and not in future centuries, but now. 

- bob wirengard