One man is as good as another? What a strange idea!

One man is as good as another? What a strange novel idea! ‘They clothed these ideas with a written Constitution which may be one of the supreme political works of man and which certainly the supreme political work of any committee in history. These ideas permeated the whole society. The result, particularly when expressed with popular uneducated credulity could be offensive and baffling. Nineteenth century English writers who visited United States found the day to day expressions of those ideas irritating. They contrasted, in their books and articles, the manners of the Americans at common tables of their rooming houses with their fantastic confidence and pretense of pitying superiority. It was not just that Americans were brash and uncultivated. They possessed a true pride, and it was this pride that visitors like Charles Dickens found intolerable. Mark Twain, particularly when abroad, singularly exemplifies this pride. American ministers of the Court of St James found themselves unabashed in the presence of Queen Victoria, even though they alone refused court dress. A tobacco chewing drummer in dry goods felt and expressed equal of the heaped-up nobility of Europe and made it plain when he came across them. He or his fathers had crossed the Atlantic to get out of the rut of privileged society and the glittering edifice of kings bishops and title folk, of formal manners and insecurity, and dammit, he was in a country where the son of a African student could become President and what do you think of that? It was heady stuff. And it is still working’ P11 Time Life World Library ‘The United States’ –one minor adjustment to the text! On that historic day April 27th 1841 two tiny ships cast loose from Gravesend Lower Thames cutting forever the physical tie to Olde England and by mid September had arrived twelve thousand miles away at Nelson New Zealand. And when I went to my Nayland School reunion where I was the youngest first day student in 1961 –the reunion organizer speaking in the native Maori language excited me telling us that his ancestor Richard Ching and 29 year old laborer was aboard Will Watch a 200 ton vessel jammed with 45 precious souls who established from their landing Nelson New Zealand. And why am I telling you this? Well the Ching family has never produced a Prime Minister- sons of a poorly educated laborer- conceivably no threat to anyone. Yet wander around Stoke Nelson looking at the monuments and the reoccurring name to be seen is –Ching. Jesus said the meek shall inherit the earth- and yes in the case of the Ching family there throughout in Stoke Nelson New Zealand- Jesus is right! And why am I saying this? Well you see we from those first ships arriving in Nelson in 1841 when we had to live native style –eat native style to survive and then go on to thrive in a new land- We have been keeping an eye on those mentioned above; kings, bishops and titled folks with formal manners and their insecurities; and we have been bench marking ourselves against those ‘better folks’ to see who in the end is the winner. And so one hundred and one hundred and seventy years to the very day after Richard Ching the uneducated but hard working laborer saw the ship slip her moorings from England. I can declare as far as Who is the Lord of the Manor of a place called Stoke Nelson where Richard Ching settled? – Ching family Are The Winners. The Meek Do Inherit the Earth! Regardless of our ‘station’ in life- I too writing this am a humble day wage laborer- Regardless of where we are or where we come from in the end if we have the quality- our descendants will..