The Angry Exile: It's me entitlement, innit?

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

Saturday 9 October 2010

It's me entitlement, innit?

No it fucking isn't, you self obsessed, lazy, vacuous, over entitled bitch. I've been wanting to blog this but I'm so furious every time I think of you, your smug face, and your apparent lack of any feelings of guilt or empathy towards those being robbed by the state to give you toys and computers for your children, the Mediterranean holidays and, quite incredibly, fucking breast enhancement surgery of all things - much of which is beyond financial reach of many working people being taxed to fucking support you - that red mist has descended and coherence rapidly lost. Still does, in fact, so to avoid leaving further bite marks in my keyboard I'm going to quote en bloc Trooper Thompson, who has remained calm enough to write this:

I try to avoid the comforting rage provided by so many Daily Mail stories, featuring (and I know not why people chose to expose themselves to the public ire) the latest feckless woman and her brood of bastard children she believes are 'entitled' to all the good things in life at the expense of others, but it's not easy.

It is clear that if you reward people for irresponsible behaviour, that is what you will get, and having five children by four different men is the height of irresponsibility. To what extent the policies that have led our society to this place were intentionally aimed at undermining the family is a matter for some debate. It is certainly the case that the Fabian intellectuals of the 'progressive era' saw families as the enemy. It was families that perpetuated all the human traits they held responsible for holding back progress to their promised land, and thus it was necessary to use education and social engineering to get hold of the next generation and inculcate the 'right' ideas. It is also true that this agenda has been helped along by legions of useful idiots and well-meaning philanthropists, unaware of the bigger picture.

The question is; what do we do about it? Taking it as essential to dramatically reduce the welfare state, we are left with the problem of all those hungry little bastards. It is no doubt true that their predicament is not their fault. Neither is it the fault of the average tax-payer, who has heretofore been expected to pick up the tab. At a higher level, without doubt it lies with the social engineers who purposefully and patiently undermined our society, but the fault lies immediately with the parents, primarily the mothers - the fathers also, whoever the fuck they are. The only way we can reduce this problem humanely - and I will not countenance enforced sterility, or other state-imposed limits on fertility, for this is surely worse than the present situation - is to hold people responsible for their actions, and kill the entitlement culture once and for all.

Within any such root-and-branch reform, there must be a separation of those that have paid in and those that have never done so. There may need to be a prolonged period of adjustment, so the welfare junkies can adapt to their new circumstances (welcome to the real world), but whatever happens, we cannot as a society afford to keep rewarding people for their irresponsibility, for one because it is immoral to take tax money from other people who are more responsible, and for two because our society will collapse without the family.

Quite. Fecundity as a career option has got to stop.