The Angry Exile: Bansturbation.

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

Bansturbation.

The Thylacsomilus also commented on the latest outbreak of government bansturbation, this time in Germany.

The German government is planning to ban paintball and laser shooting games in reaction to the recent school massacre in which 15 people died.

Under legislation agreed by the ruling coalition of the chancellor, Angela Merkel, using air rifles to shoot paint-filled pellets at opponents is likely to be made illegal, and would be punishable with fines of up to €5,000 (£4,480).

And why?

The decision, which is expected to be fast-tracked through the Bundestag before the summer recess, comes two months after 17-year-old Tim Kretschmar shot dead 15 people at his former school in Winnenden, south-west Germany, with a weapon he had taken from his father's bedroom. Kretschmar's love of paintball as well as violent video and computer games was widely publicised.

Ah. Because a nutjob liked paintball it follows that people who like paintball are also nutjobs? I'm going to make a pretty cheap shot here, but following that line of thinking you have to wonder why vegetarian non-smoking painters aren't also banned in Germany. After all one of those turned out to be the biggest nutjob in history.

The government has found itself under pressure to tighten gun laws in Germany in what has become one of the main issues before a general election in September.

In other words the reaction of the dedicated non-thinkers is to demand the government do something (far be it from them to do something for themselves). The reaction of the government is to find something with a veneer of plausibility and do it. It doesn't have to be effective as far as they're concerned, it just needs to be something to do. To paraphrase Sir Humphrey politicians prefer activity to accomplishment, and a good old fashioned ban is usually enough to settle the nerves of people like this guy:

"This so-called game plays down violence, leading to the danger that people have fewer inhibitions about shooting each other," said Dieter Wiefelsputz, of the Social Democrats.

You know, I've always thought dealing with gun wielding mass murderers by banning guns was retarded, but that leaves me with no word to describe this. This fucknut seems to suggest quite seriously that playing paintball might turn normal people into homicidal maniacs. If he was suggesting banning more guns, and I'd be very surprised if people aren't demanding that to, I'd simply repeat my usual arguments.... but fucking paintball? It's virtually self-fisking. Paintball may attract someone inclined to shoot people but it won't fucking make normal people more inclined to shoot people any more than being a non-smoking vegetarian painter is going to make people want to invade neighbouring countries.

Predictably the ban-harmless-things-that-turn-normal-people-into-monsters-in-your-fucking-dreams brigade are joined by the usual breed of hoplophobic numpty.

The new law is also expected to forbid under-18s access to high-calibre guns and to make it easier for police to carry out random controls at the homes of registered gun owners.

Claudia Roth, head of the Green party, said that while she was no fan of paintball, the government's plan to ban it was hypocritical and amounted to a "cowardly concession to the gun lobby".

"They should instead be banning high-calibre weapons," she said.

So a large calibre gun that fires slow moving projectiles a short distance is worse than a small calibre one that launches a bullet fast enough to go straight through someone and kill the person behind them, and would otherwise go for maybe a mile? Because the only factor that has any importance at all is the internal diameter of the barrel, right? Bullet design, power of the cartridge, length of the barrel etc. and, from a criminal point of view, how concealable the things is, none of that has any effect on how much real danger the gun actually presents? I mean this sounds like shotguns, which are "large calibre" if you just take the almost 3/4 inch diameter of the barrel, would be banned despite the relatively short range and low lethality, and something like an AR-15 would be okay. Jesus Christ on a fucking shooting range, what there really needs to be a ban on is politicians passing laws on things that they know absolutely fuck all about.

Actually I'd go further - I'd like to see a law banning bans. I'm being serious here. I'd like there to be a hard to change law, something constitutional, which would basically say that any ban the government brings in is automatically subject to a sunset clause of, say, ten years or maybe a couple of parliamentary terms. And before the government can renew such a ban they'd have to prove that the one that's just coming up to it's expiry date has actually fucking achieved something. I mean really prove, not just stand up in parliament and assert that it's been a huge success despite any evidence to the contrary. If they can't convince a court they don't even get to vote on renewing the ban - the ban dies automatically since law has given it a fair go and it's don nothing. The idea needs polishing but I think it's got the potential to stop a government from imposing useless restrictions on their people "for their own good". Well, hobble them at least.