The Angry Exile: Libertarian, my arse.

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

Tuesday, 21 July 2009

Libertarian, my arse.

I was going to rip into the dribblings of a tedious little censor happy prick writing for The Daily Wail who not only wants a film banned because it's depraved, a film he's not actually watched before playing moral arbiter, but has the shameless audacity to claim that he's "strongly libertarian in tendency". My two cents is that anyone who supports banning a film, let alone one the content of which they've not even experienced at first hand, is no more libertarian than a book burning religious nutjob and is raping the word if they say they are. Not only that but The Daily Wail have done their level best to promote the film by including in this article decrying its hedonistic and sexually depraved content a couple of photos. Fucking tools.

A more thorough fisking of this fuckwit has been made unnecessary because there's nothing I can add to what Leg-Iron has already written on Old Holborn.

Can a film critic claim to be libertarian while calling for the banning of a film he hasn't watched?

This (oxy)moron thinks so.

There's a new film out filled with sex and violence. Sounds like fun. I know there are those who think Libertarians would have infant-school day trips to watch it, but not so. It would be the parents' responsibility to decide whether their child can watch it and once they're old enough to join the Army, they're old enough to make their own decisions. Joining the Army can be a life or death decision. No bigger decision is possible so if they're judged old enough for that, they're old enough for anything. Currently the Army takes recruits at 16 and a half years old and they could be killed defending the country before they're old enough to go into the booze aisle of a supermarket. If you think that makes sense, I have a very nice bridge for sale.

Back to our authoritarian libertarian, Christopher Hart.
A film which plumbs new depths of sexual explicitness, excruciating violence and degradation has just been passed as fit for general consumption by the British Board of Film Classification.
General consumption? You mean they'll shelve it with Disney films?
They have given the film an 18 certificate.
Aha, this is the restricted general consumption that goes along with compulsory volunteering, killing in the name of peace and A* grades without knowing the subject - also known as 'freedom is slavery, war is peace, ignorance is strength' in that order. I see.
As we all know, this is meaningless nowadays in the age of the DVD because sooner or later, thanks to the gross irresponsibility of some parents, any film that is given general release will be seen by children.
Ah, but Libertarianism is all about responsibility. Corrupting children harms them, and the central tenet of Libertarianism, 'cause no harm to others', is therefore violated and the parents will be held responsible for their actions. As it is, they aren't allowed to take responsibility, so many of them don't. Besides, films like A Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist, Hellraiser and much stronger stuff is all on DVD now. If parents are likely to let their kids watch this one (which I doubt many would) then those kids have already seen some blood and boobs. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it's happened already.
You do not need to see Lars von Trier's Antichrist (which is released later this week) to know how revolting it is.
Actually, I would need to see it to know how revolting it is. There's no other way to judge. I'm not going to take your word for it just because you didn't like it.
I haven't seen it myself, nor shall I
Huh? So you're telling me I shouldn't be allowed to watch a film you have decided is utterly without merit, and you haven't even watched it yourself? How did you come to this conclusion, pray tell?
and I speak as a broad-minded arts critic, strongly libertarian in tendency.
You're not sounding very libertarian here. You're sounding New Labour to the core, I'm afraid. Are you trying to give the impression that libertarianism is the same as Labour, Tories, Lib Dems etc? It's an interesting new approach but it's not working.
But merely reading about Antichrist is stomach-turning, and enough to form a judgment.
Is it? Depends who wrote what you're reading, wouldn't you say? Someone who didn't like it, wrote a review and exaggerated? Someone in PR thought it might be a good idea to hype it up? The British Board of Film Censors actually watched it and let it through. They didn't rely on second-hand reports. Neither will I. As a 'libertarian critic', neither should you. At this point I'd like to ask - isn't watching films your, ah, job?

...

It seems 'Libertarian' has become a 'cool tag' now, and is used here by one of the most ferocious Righteous I've come across. He clearly has no idea what 'libertarian' means.

Here's a clue for the clueless, Righteous Hart. It does not mean 'total control'.

Read the rest, and if you agree why not pop along to and leave a comment on this authoritarian knobber's not-actually-a-review. The film doesn't sound like my thing, and I've troubled myself to read reviews by people who watched it (or so I assume - they certainly don't mention with self important pride that they haven't done their fucking jobs as film reviewers), but that's because it sounds like a piece of pretentious arty wank and with the price of cinema tickets here I'd much rather see something either funny or exploding. I certainly don't object to other people going to see it if they think they'll find it thought provoking or whatever. I certainly don't think it should be banned simply on the grounds of some prudish twats objecting to the sex, violence and genital mutilation when there have been plenty of films with sex and/or violence before. As for the genital mutilation, a couple of months back there was a British documentary on SBS called The Perfect Vagina which discussed - and the title kind of gives it away - women getting cosmetic surgery on their vaginas (and sometimes on the NHS to the outrage of the Exile household), and actually showed an actual young woman's actual twat before an actual doctor sliced her actual piss flaps off...

... because she thought it'd look better that way ...

AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGH

And she was awake throughout because it's done under a local anaesthetic.

AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGH

So don't fucking tell me that a film can't be shown because the main female character is as mad as a box of frogs and takes a knife to what the audience know is really rubber special effects fanny made by the props department when network TV has already shown a real life cosmetic surgeon waving around the severed lips of some poor deluded girl's battered box.

2 comments:

JuliaM said...: "And she was awake throughout because it's done under a local anaesthetic. "

Yikes!!!

And it turns out that 'crossing your legs in sympathy' thing crosses genders, and isn't just reserved for men watching someone take a cricket ball to the unmentionables...; 22 July 2009 at 06:01
Angry Exile said...: Mrs Exile couldn't watch, and I don't blame her. This was more uncomfortable viewing than that Nine Inch Nails video with the S&M couple where he gets his knackers clamped...

... yet tabloid journos falsely calling themselves libertarian weren't calling for it to be banned.

WV "oditio" - sounds like a Harry potter spell for making someone weird enough to allow a doctor to cut their genitals up.; 22 July 2009 at 10:29