The Angry Exile: The Plan.

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

Friday 29 May 2009

The Plan.

I finally got round to buying a copy of The Plan and started reading it last night. I had an idea of a fair amount of what it would be about from reading other blogs, not least Daniel Hannan's in The Telegraph, so I've not come across anything disagreeable or surprising so far apart from wondering what the pair of them are doing in the Conservative party. Oh, and not sharing their misplaced admiration for the USA which, strangely for a country founded on a desire for liberty, seems to have become very authoritarian and getting more so despite some of the things (recalls, elected sheriffs, elected second chamber, etc) that Hannan and Carswell admire. Don't get me wrong, I admire the same things and have a lot of respect for the Yanks for coming up with it. I'm just saying that on their own they don't guarantee a small government keeping out of the lives of it's citizens as much as possible. I don't know if Hannan and Carswell propose an updated Bill Of Rights as an answer to this, but the American example shows that the wording is absolutely crucial if you want to prevent some court in a hundred years or so from twisting the intent of a clause to empower the state instead of ensuring freedom of the citizens. I'll probably finish The Plan this evening and see what they have to say about it.

Sadly I think the drag factor of the enormous state dependent population in the UK - those millions caught in the benefits trap, the millions more who are outright welfare junkies who prefer state handouts, and the millions and millions of people working in the public sector who see the big state as their job security - is going to be very hard to overcome. I'd seriously consider persuading the missus to move back to the UK if there was some sort of electoral miracle and it did happen, but these ideas take time to spread and gain popularity. Has the UK got that much time left before it's finally swallowed by Europe or implodes on its own? It'd be nice to be wrong but I wonder if change on the scale proposed by Hannan and Carswell or by the Libertarian Party is even possible without the destruction, probably self inflicted, of most of the UK's state mechanism as a pre-condition. The only way I can see it happening is if one major western nation goes tits up in a big way and serves as a wake up call to the others. I've said before that I think it's Australia's best bet, although authoritarianism here is mostly of the low level irritating kind with a few outrageous things thrown in as opposed to the UK's apparent attempt to turn itself into Airstrip One. The question becomes which country will be the warning to the others. Hmmm. Well, put it this way, I've more or less bet that it won't be Australia, but as for the UK... I just hope it won't be but I'm not optimistic.

2 comments:

Sue said...: The EU's new five-year plan for justice and home affairs will export the UK's database state to the rest of the EUThe more you delve into the EU's "Alternative Plan", the scarier it gets. Stay in Australia for now :); 29 May 2009 at 17:11
Angry Exile said...: Not much of a shock though, is it Sue? Yes, I'll be staying put. Australia is certainly no libertarian paradise and is just as prone to statism and over regulation as other countries. But there's no Brussels to worry about. We are a federation of states but they're smaller states and with much more in common than typical between European countries.; 30 May 2009 at 15:38