The Angry Exile: UKIP's libertarian pretensions.

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, 17 January 2010

UKIP's libertarian pretensions.

I've blogged before on why I'm unlikely to vote UKIP, though with the Libertarian Party still being in its infancy or at best perhaps taking its first few steps I'd been keeping UKIP in mind as an alternative to just spoiling my ballot. That would be a shame because it's not a completely straightforward exercise retaining a vote as an ex-pat as you've effectively got to re-register every year. To be fair they do send out a reminder a while before you need to renew - mine came both electronically and by snail mail - and you can fax your response back. So not hugely taxing but you do have to do it, and if you never gave them an email address and move without remembering to tell them where you went then you're stuffed. Bye bye vote. So having made the effort to retain my vote in the UK I'd prefer to use it positively if I can and UKIP was my plan B if there's no Libertarian candidate on my ballot. And I do mean 'was' as in past tense because it seems UKIP are shaping up to be just as illiberal as the rest of the political cock knockers.

The UK Independence Party is considering a call to ban the wearing of burkas, it has been reported.
It would be the first national party to call for a total ban on the Islamic headgear; the far-right British National Party believes they should be banned from schools.

Oh for fuck's sake. Okay, fair point that even the frothy chops of the BNP haven't gone that far, but when will the fucking mainstream media read the BNP manifesto and see that they're a fucking far left party? Hello? Re-nationalisation of 'key' industries? Does that sound terribly right wing to you dead tree fucktards? But that's by the by. The point is what the fuck are UKIP thinking? Are they seriously advocating that being of a certain gender and cultural/religious background means you are not free to dress as you please? Fucking looks that way to me. According to Lord Pearson, the UKIP leader,

“We are taking expert advice on how we could do it. It makes sense to ban the burka — or anything which conceals a woman’s face — in public buildings. But we want to make it possible to ban them in private buildings. It isn’t right that you can’t see someone’s face in an airport.”

Oh Christ. That would be up to the people who own the fucking building, not you, you witless authoritarian twat. Haven't you fucking noticed that there's no law banning people from wearing crash helmets in banks and shops, but that you still can't do it even though there's no law against it? Let me explain why, you thick fuck: if I own a bank or a shop and I want to be able to see your face I put up a sign to that effect, and if you ignore it instead of getting served you get asked to leave. Same goes for public buildings, only it'll be a council or a government department's policy rather than that of a company or a business owner.

He added: “We are not Muslim bashing..."

If you're not going to apply the law to motorcyclists and people wearing V masks then you're batting a fucking sticky wicket with that claim.

"... but this is incompatible with Britain’s values of freedom and democracy.”

AAAAAAAAAAARGH! The only fucking thing that's absolutely and fundamentally incompatible with freedom is telling people that in what claims to be a free country they are in fact not free to walk around dressed how they like whether it's in a burqa or a Borat thong. Unless there's a fair chance of it harming someone else and you can fucking prove it, and short of a dynamite hat or a suit made of razor blades I can't think of much that qualifies, just take your warped views on freedom and cunt off into a small, dark hole somewhere.

[The Times] newspaper said Ukip would make an announcement on Sunday describing the burka as a threat to gender equality and claiming that it marginalises women and endangers public safety because terrorists could use them to hide their identity.

Yes, it does marginalise women but what the fuck do you do about it? Rip the veils from their faces? Yeah, good luck with that, fucknuts. Look, I don't like it much either, but if women choose to go all submissive and look at the world through a letterbox what can you do? It's not as if their view is so restricted that they can't see the alternative unless the burqa magically obscures the millions of British women who show not just their faces but as much as they as individuals choose to. If a woman chooses to hide her entire body under a shapeless mass or strip off and go naked or anything in between it's entirely up to her. As for the terrorist bit, it's depressing how quickly UKIP has joined the mainstream parties in using the terrorism bugbear to sell any half thought illiberal policy that they've just dreamed up.

So come June the 3rd, unless Gordon the gobshite doesn't hold out till the last possible minute*, I'm back to voting for the UK Libertarian Party or thinking up the most creative, amusing and offensive way or saying that all the parties are either thoroughly repugnant or have at least one policy which I oppose strongly enough for it to be a deal breaker as far as my vote goes.

* Or suspends the election altogether.