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

Tuesday 24 August 2010

What libertarians are up against.

The normally irrepressible Dick Puddlecote has been linking to Longrider and getting a bit fed up with where both their thoughts are leading.

And there, unfortunately, is the problem. The enemies of liberty are not just the politicians, the bureaucrats and senior police officers. It’s not just the petty jobsworths and town hall officials wearing the jackboot that stamps on the faces of the oppressed. It’s the man on the Clapham omnibus. And that is a depressing thought indeed.
Talk of a lasting rebellion is incredibly premature. We're still nibbling at the edges of a nasty disease. That of spineless 'oh well'-itis. The regurgitating of idiot ideology by those whose life skills have been replaced by blind adherence to poorly thought-out authoritarianism. So much so that their only understanding of responsibility is to replicate the fuckwittery of those they see wielding power, without any thought to the obvious consequences of their actions.

Depressing? Yes. Is there an answer? Fucked if I know ... but I can't see one yet in the new morons we have governing us.

Me neither, though I think Dick Puddlecote is mistaken in even looking to government for the answer (I'd be surprised if he really is). I feel the answer needs to come from outside the government, and indeed outside the government apparatus and the statist bastards who compete to run it. I'd agree more with Longrider, whose blog I've read too little of, that the man on the street is as big a part of the problem as any government. Too many are conditioned to do as they're told and too lazy to do anything but accept the thoughts they're told to think. Too many are to prone to a sharp intake of breath and the stock illiberal phrase, 'Ooooh, there ought to be a law against it', inevitably giving some bastard the excuse to fucking make one. Too many are willing to say 'bloody government' at the drop of a hat, but too few are prepared to demand less government, if such an idea has even occurred to them. And too few, far too few, realise that the individual liberty that they'd very much like for themselves hinges wholly on individual liberty for everybody.

That kind of thinking is what we're up against, folks. Frankly I have no real desire to change it more than necessary for my own freedom. If someone wants to enslave themselves that way it's their business, and if they can't be talked out of it then that's that. I don't want to drag people kicking and screaming to libertarianism - it wouldn't be terribly libertarian for one thing - but that's where I want to go. So they can go be right or left if they like. They can go be statist conservatives who have traditional ideas about marriage and child rearing and what recreational drugs should be allowed, they can go be statist socialists if that's what flicks your switch. But if we have the decency not to want them forced to be libertarian, who the fuck are they to demand that we comply with them?

'Yes, we are all individuals!'

'I'm not.'

'Shhhhhhhhhh.'

Art imitating life, there. And it's not just that we should be fed up with the mob regurgitating their force fed thoughts over us and telling us what we are and shushing anyone who says 'I'm not'. It's also because of what the mob can easily become.

Sorry, that's not it. I meant this.*

It doesn't matter whether what drives this hatred is whipped up religious intolerance based on misunderstandings, half truths, coincidences and bullshit or whipped up anti-smoking zealotry based on misunderstandings, half truths, coincidences and bullshit. There's no justification for persecution.

To quote Brian, fuck off.

* Yes, I know they did it before they turned up outside Brian's in the morning. Doesn't change the point.