The Angry Exile: Government: not there to help and certainly NOT your friend.

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

Thursday 30 September 2010

Government: not there to help and certainly NOT your friend.

Anyone who is not aware of that by now really ought to pop over to the Australian Libertarian Society's blog, Thoughts On Freedom, where this morning theReal World Libertarian sets things out as they are in his home state.

At this time each year the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland releases its annual survey on government red tape. On the release of last year’s figures there was an outcry from business when it was revealed that the government had enacted 31 bills with over 5,000 pages of new or amended legislation, costing an additional $497 million to comply with it. This represented a 9.4% increase in regulation in that year.

As this brought the total pages of regulation to just under 80,000 it should have been reasonable to assume that the government would find its way clear to leave well enough alone for a while and possibly cut some of this red tape in order to streamline things.

Unfortunately the governments in this country only know one way to cut red tape, and that is lengthwise.

...

Twelve months after the business community outcry over red tape in Queensland, Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland (CCIQ) has revealed that the Government has failed to reduce the burden and has added an additional 7,900 pages of new and amended legislation.

CCIQ's latest estimates show state-based red tape now costs the Queensland economy $6.5 billion per year. This is an increase of $780 million since last year.

...

Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland President David Goodwin said the latest results show that the Queensland Government has no real commitment to reducing the cost and burden of doing business in Queensland.

"Every dollar spent on complying with regulation is a dollar not spent on growing Queensland businesses and employing more Queenslanders," Mr. Goodwin said.

This is only the state based cost, we have a federal government which adds another layer of costs on top of this and a host of local authorities all eager to put more rules in place that they can extract fees from. While Goodwin makes the point of dollars, “not spent on growing Queensland businesses and employing more Queenslanders,” there is another aspect to this.

Every dollar spent by business on compliance with the vast array of regulations is a dollar they have to increase their prices by in order to remain profitable. In fact it is more than just that dollar as it is reasonable to accept that as profit margins are based on the margin required to make a reasonable profit on the total costs of the enterprise, consumers are paying that as well subject to competitive pressures.

...

The criminal code exists to deal with such matters as theft, fraud, misrepresentation, and so on. There is no need to make another set of rules just to bring business to heel.

Quite, and of course it's broadly the same all over the world. The fact that it's got this bad and getting worse is a clear sign that politicians and bureaucrats simply cannot help themselves. They don't mean to do it, but to paraphrase Sir Humphrey Appleby they so often mistake activity for accomplishment. A huge part of the problem is that the Sir Humphreys of this world are so often guilty of the same thing.