The Angry Exile: What libertarians are up against.

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 22 January 2010

What libertarians are up against.

I hate to sound like some tedious Red Wedge comic but looking through some of the reader polls at the online pages of the Daily Mail is really fucking depressing. Want to be able to sell your company or your shares in a company to who you choose? Not if 84% of Daily Mail readers have anything to do with it.

Want to be able to drink more cheaply or, if you're a publican, to be able to make a business decision to try to increase trade by having happy hours? Again, not if 61% of Daily Mail readers get their way.

Want to have the freedom to drive in your old age providing, naturally, that you're not significantly more of a risk behind the wheel than anyone else? Well, you got that bus pass for a fucking reason you know, or so say 70% of Daily Mail readers. As pointed out in the comments, I well and truly stuffed that one up by reading the poll the wrong way round. Details, Angry old son, details.

And if you fancy a career change and you have a few skills and the gift of passing them on to others you ought to know that 67% of Daily Mail readers agree with DING* the fat foreheaded fuckwit that you can just forget it unless you have a degree.

I don't know if it's the Mail leading the thoughts of parts of its readership or the other way around, and from where I sit it doesn't matter much anyway. It just goes to show that many people are petty, small minded, authoritarian pricks who'd happily ban anyone else from doing anything not because it causes them any real harm but just because they disapprove. Show them anything that they don't do and so often you get a Pavlovian response of 'ooooh, that shouldn't be allowed, there ought to be a law against that sort of thing'. Well, thanks to fuckwits like that there's been on average a law against something new every single fucking day in Britain for the last thirteen years, and despite the fact that many of these laws have been brought to bear against the kind of people whose reflex reaction is often 'shouldn't be allowed' many of them still want more of the same.

Do we really have to end up with the government we deserve? And if so why the fuck do those of us who really do believe in freedom have to get our lives dictated by pricks whose definition of freedom is being allowed to do what they approve of?

* If I could remember who came up with the Dave Is Not Gordon thing I'd tip the bush hat their way.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: Sorry to piss on your fire, but you got No3 wrong - the 70% were in favour of elderly drivers still being allowed on Motorways.; 22 January 2010 at 06:30
Dick Puddlecote said...: Yes, but that's only because a lot of them are close to that age. ;-)

Daily Mail readers are a serious danger to society. At least with Guardianistas there is a (faulty) ethos, with Wailers it's just looking after number 1.; 22 January 2010 at 07:07
Angry Exile said...: Anon, you got me bang to rights. I've changed it a bit.; 22 January 2010 at 11:07