The Angry Exile: The Liberal Democrats.

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, 22 August 2010

The Liberal Democrats.

No, not those ones, the ones who are not that liberal and democratic only when it suits them, but these Liberal Democrats, who do actually believe in unashamedly liberal policies. According to the Australian Libertarian Society's blog Thoughts on Freedom, who I hope don't mind me quoting them en bloc below, the LDP had a pretty good night in the three eastern states and missed out on winning a New South Wales Senate seat by only 20,000 votes.

Yesterday’s election result shows Australia has a new political force – the Liberal Democratic Party.

In only our second federal election (and the first under our proper name), the party gained over 2% of the Senate vote in NSW and Queensland and 1.5% in Victoria. It is fifth highest in these states.

We also negotiated an excellent flow of preferences in NSW and will either win a seat or (more likely) be the last ones eliminated.

A couple of parties representing narrow interests did OK – the Sex Party, and Shooters and Fishers for example, but the LDP differs from these because it stands for individual choice and freedom, embracing the interests of all the “freedom” parties and combining them into a coherent philosophy.

Federal elections are tough for small parties. It’s nigh on impossible to win a seat in the HoR and a Senate spot is a long stretch. We have every intention of keeping at it, but our immediate focus will be on building our brand by getting state divisions up and running. There are seats in State parliaments that are a lot easier to win than a seat in the Senate.

Our focus will also be on fund raising. We believe our vote would have been a great deal higher if every voter had known who we were and what we stood for. Achieving that is simply a matter of money.

Pretty good for a party contesting a federal election for only the second time, and perhaps a reason for some cautious optimism for the LPUK. Electoral success in terms of winning actual seats is clearly not going to happen overnight either here in Oz or in the UK, but fighting elections is still worth it for libertarian parties if only to get your parties name more widely known from being seen on ballot papers and on election results. That can lead to people wondering who the hell [insert name here] are, what they stand for and whether they might have been worth voting for, and maybe then a little surfing to try to find out more, which might be why www.ldp.org.au is currently down having exceeded its bandwidth - maybe a few Sex Party or Shooters and Fishers Party voters, and dare we hope even a few disenchanted liberal (note lower case 'l') leaning main party voters, have been checking it out.

Incidentally, the point that it's hard for small parties to win Senate seats and even harder for them to win a seat in the House of Representatives is something that Brits should keep in mind when the Cobbleition's promised referendum on Alternative Voting and the accompanying debate on other electoral systems comes up in the UK. I've not made any secret of my liking, albeit with caveats, for Australian style preferential voting and that I'd be in favour off, though again with caveats, of AV in Britain, but the fact remains that a small party must still grow into what I think of as a minor party for it to be of much benefit. Even then it's worth pointing out that the one of the most well known minor parties, the Greens, has only just this weekend won it's very first House of Reps seat. Not only has it taken them 18 years and has come about 15 years after they first got into the Senate - and I'd say with the benefit of a lot of media exposure in a small g green sense - it's also been after their British co-worriers won a seat in the Commons under First Past The Post. The HoR isn't exactly elected by AV but the preferential voting system used is similar enough that I think the point is relevant, and the Senate election is basically Single Transferrable Vote PR... and yet it's still a bastard for small parties to get in the HoR and a serious challenge to get in the Senate. If anyone thinks adopting AV in Britain will immediately mean results for smaller parties they should think again. They'll no doubt benefit, but I feel the likes of the LPUK (being the only ones I would personally like to see gain from it) will still need to get their name and values known and their arguments heard and won in public before even STV, much less an AV type system, will translate into winning any seats.

Just my tuppence worth, or 2¢ as the case may be.

Declaration of interest: I am not a member of any party in the UK or Australia, though given the option on a ballot paper of either the LPUK on that side of the world or the LDP here they're likely to be my preference (pun not intended but not easy to avoid). I don't always agree with absolutely everything either of them say, but as I've said before, I'm fucked if I'm going to keep holding my nose while voting for people and parties I think are bastards just because they're a safer bet to win than parties whose values are mostly close to my own.