The Angry Exile: "Where is my minority report?"

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, 5 June 2009

"Where is my minority report?"

The Department of PreCrime UK ~~coming soon~~ er, actually it's more or less here already.

Officers are targeting children as young as 10 with the aim of placing their DNA profiles on the national database to improve their chances of solving crimes, it is claimed.
The alleged practice is also described as part of a "long-term crime prevention strategy" to dissuade youths from committing offences in the future.

In English this translates as "we assume that you will commit an unspecified crime at an unspecified date in the future, so in order to solve it more easily then we'll have your DNA right fucking now, sunny Jim."

The claim comes amid widespread criticism of government proposals to store DNA profiles of innocent people, including some children, on the database for up to 12 years.
Civil liberty campaigners have condemned the tactic of as "diabolical" and said it showed contempt for children's freedom.

Yes, and let's not forget that among the few favours that have be done the British people by the European Court is that the government was told to pack in the DNA harvesting, and that the government has simply ignored the ruling - thus showing unusual contempt for a court that UK governments generally kowtow to. Funny thing, isn't it? When the European Court rules on something that fucks up the British people or overrules their desires or opinions the government throws up it's hands and says nothing can be done (because, of course, the worthless cunts have been ceding power to Europe for fucking decades and lack the bollocks to take it back), but on the rare occasions that European Court rulings work against the ~~IngSoc~~ NuLab agenda they suddenly fucking grow a set.

A Metropolitan Police officer made the claims after figures were released showing that 386 under-18s had their DNA taken and stored by police last year in Camden, north London.
The officer said: "Have we got targets for young people who have not been arrested yet? The answer is yes. But we are not just waiting outside schools to pick them up, we are acting on intelligence."

Like you all were when Jean Charles de Menezes was blown away? Hey, don't shoot me, I'm just asking.

"It is part of a long-term crime prevention strategy. If you know you have had your DNA taken and it is on a database then you will think twice about committing burglary for a living.
"We are often told that we have just one chance to get that DNA sample and if we miss it then that might mean a rape or a murder goes unsolved in the future."

Fuck, if you're going to think along those lines why not just declare the whole country a prison now. Anyone with a penis - potential rapist. Anyone with a vagina - potential prostitute. Anyone with two working arms that can stand upright - potential murderer. Anyone good at maths, which probably eliminates 75% of people under 30 or so - potential fraudster. Anyone who buys a pack of fags - potential drug addict and dealer. The Department of PreCrime is working hard on the red ball / brown ball thing to ensure your future safety, but until it's working properly you're all considered potentially guilty of something. What's next, the worthy and innocent-at-least-so-far needing visas to leave the fucking country?

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, said: "This is diabolical and proof positive that Liberty's fears are being realised."

Yeah, with you there Shami. Incidentally, have you wrapped your head round the concept of free speech yet? It's just that some people will inevitably be arrested for DNA harvesting on the grounds of speaking their minds. Given how quiet you were about the Wilders ban I just wondered. Liberty's website still doesn't seem to mention him. Anyhow, go on.

"The current law has created an incentive for the abuse of police power so that youngsters are being targeted purely for the purpose of stockpiling their DNA for the future.
"We hope that dealing with this outrage will be high on the list of priorities for any new Home Secretary.
"Politicians can no longer demand due process for themselves whilst showing such contempt for the freedoms of others."

Sadly I think Ms Chakrabarti is in for a disappointment. ~~IngSoc~~ NuLab love this sort of thing and almost certainly won't give it up if by some outrageous fucking miracle/disaster (take your pick) they win the next election, but senior Tories show virtually zero interest* in reversing the most Orwellian abuses of this disgraceful government if they, as seems almost certain, form the next government. I expect they think it'll all be worth it as long as the Met get a sexy new user interface for the computer system like Tom Cruise had.

Cunts of the highest order, the whole fucking lot of them. Thank fuck I left the UK.

* Well, David Davis did make a thing of civil liberties of course, but I'm far from convinced that his heart was really in it.

H/T to the beloved Mrs Exile, whose comment on the story was simply "fucking brown ball".

1 comment:

JuliaM said...: "Well, David Davis did make a thing of civil liberties of course, but I'm far from convinced that his heart was really in it."

David...Davis...

Hmm, I'm positive that names rings a bell. But from where, who knows. He seems to have become the Invisible Man, when we all thought he was Spartacus.

Such a disappointment...; 5 June 2009 at 22:21