The Angry Exile: The inevitable AV post...

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, 26 February 2011

The inevitable AV post...

... was making my brain bleed, but fortunately via a comment over at Devil's Kitchen I've found something that covers everything I was thinking of and a couple of other points beside. Pop over and have a read when you've a spare ten minutes.

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sedgwicknc 20p · 734 weeks ago

Well, I went though all that link. I also have to say I found it a pretty good analysis: nothing much to disagree with, but incomplete.

However, the biggest problem is that it lacks any synthesis: what should be done now. Though, admittedly, it does identify that the proposed referendum lacks adequacy of question on constitutional reform.

Personally, I think we should go for AV for our political elections, though also including the RON-option (effectively none of the remaining candidates). Of course, the RON option is specifically excluded from the Australian version of AV (in both its weak and strong options - and I'll leave explaining those to another mainline blog post).

There are three particular dangers in the upcoming referendum.

(i) It is a waste of a referendum. These events are very important and should only be used for asking very important questions. The 2-way choice is, itself, a hankering after disenfranchisement of the electorate. See, for example, my previous posting on AE and the link to The Beacon: http://angryexile.blogspot.com/2011/02/response-t... See also, more specifically, my recent comment (the first one) on Direct Democracy: http://www.directdemocracyuk.com/blog/2011/02/cam...

(ii) It disadvantages the two main political parties, IMHO at least a bit more than they need to be damaged (though I would like their power to be distinctly curtailed from its current excessive level). This is by not mixing in all those other options (directly elected head of government, but not head of state) and democratisation of the House of Lords (as distinctly different from a clone of the House of Commons - by having a different electorate: each citizen-taxpayer's pound, not just that citizen's existence). Thus, with just this change, minority interests will be as much out of balance above the mainstream as they are currently out of balance below it.

(iii) The electorate are disadvantaged, at the expense of too much power retained by the existing political oligarchies (largely through ruling cliques in those parties). This is by not giving the electorate the right to seek more frequent elections of national government: my proposed annual election by rotation between the 3 parts of national government: executive, HoC and HoL/HoT).

So, analysis is helpful, but needs the support of synthesis: what we should use in place of the current (faulty and outdated) system.

Best regards
Nigel Sedgwick

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