The Angry Exile: I'm all in favour of free speech, but...

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Sunday, 10 May 2009

I'm all in favour of free speech, but...

Many people before me have pointed out that whenever someone says they're in favour of free speech and promptly tack a 'but' on the end they're showing that they're really not in favour of free speech at all. It's one of those things that's a true absolute. Free speech is unconditional by definition since the second you start putting conditions on it it's no longer free. So having had Matthew Parris raise my blood pressure already today (see below) I wasn't exactly thrilled to see "I'm all in favour of free speech, but..." from another Times journo:

It must come as shock to be aggressively banned from visiting a weird little country when you weren't planning to anyway...
This, in essence, is what has happened to the US “shock jock” Michael Savage with his inclusion on a list of people banned from the UK by Jacqui Smith...
...bizarrely and probably by accident, I think Ms Smith might have a point. It's just that she's so spinelessly useless at making it.
“Of course,” she'll bleat, “we're not against free speech, but...” Stop it. Grow some balls. Yes you are against free speech. Almost all Brits are. It's in our nature.

Yes, it's probably true that many Brits aren't really in favour of free speech since so many would also come out with the "I'm all for free speech, but..." line without having considered that the last word invalidates the rest of them. Perhaps more are waking up to this since free speech has been so badly eroded by ~~Ingsoc~~ Nulabour, and the issue has had some extra coverage recently thanks to Jacqboot's retarded decision to impose a similar ban on entering Britain on Geert Wilders. Now it may well be that the opinions of Wilders or Savage or both have some sympathy with certain parts of the British public, and those people object to state censorship on views similar to their own. And it might be that some people disagree with one or both of them but find the opinions of certain other people, Abu Hamza say, just as offensive, and so they object to the unequal treatment that censors some extreme views but permits others. And I'd hope that an increasing number have given the issue some fucking thought and realized that if someone you despise can't say something you find offensive and completely disagreeable then you don't live somewhere that permits free speech. It really is as cut and dried as that, the old disagree-with-what-you-say-but-defend-your-right-to-say-it thing.

So when journos like Hugo Rifkind point out that there really isn't free speech in the UK I'm generally glad that the issue is being discussed. And I still am even though Rifkind goes on to say that he's really anti free speech himself.

Personally I'm quite proud that Britain won't put up with this sort of thing. And that's just me. I barely believe in anything. So what's wrong with Ms Smith? Did you hear her on the TV news? A morass of drivel. “Fallen into the category of blah blah, intercommunity waffle waffle.” And this from a woman who has supposedly devoted her life to the progressive Labour movement. Where's the passion? Where's the fire? Where's the courage in her supposed convictions? Where's the bit where she thumps her chest and says, “yes, this man is vile, damn right we'll turn him away at passport control”?

I can only hope he's joking, because otherwise I have to say that while I defend his right to oppose free speech I disagree with what he's saying. And I hope that he falls out of a window and that his fall is broken rather inefficiently by Jacqboot Smith's brain.