The Angry Exile: The march of intolerance grinds on...

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 19 April 2011

The march of intolerance grinds on...

... and the talk now is of not being free from persecution even in your own home.

Scoff if you like about improbability of home smoking bans. How they would not only be unfair but unenforceable. Dismiss the concept as ridiculous.

Huff and puff about civil liberties, individual freedom of choice and the home being the family castle. Thump the table about government interference and intervention. About the spidery intrusion of the nanny state. But ignore the looming reality at your peril. The smokers’ nagging fear, that their final bastion will be invaded by smoke police, is already here.

...

The Cancer Council of South Australia says home smoking bans are a genuine possibility.

“As people’s awareness and understanding of the harm of second hand tobacco smoke increases, expectation is growing that there be no smoke in shared places,” the Council’s Chief Executive, Professor Brenda Wilson says.

...

“It’s entirely possible and even probable that people sharing apartment blocks will want those to be smoke-free too here in Australia."

Backdoor criminalisation, cry some, pointing to the existing ban on smoking in any kind of business and increasing numbers of smoke free areas out doors. And it's true that attacking smoking in people's homes will mean it's illegal to smoke almost everywhere, though of course the dilemma for governments is that while they really want to be seen to tackle smoking they don't want to be without the tax revenue and know damn well that the rest of us will kick up about increased taxes if we have to make up the difference. And don't kid yourself, governments make more from tobacco tax than even the anti-tobacco crowd claim smoking costs society. Give all that up? Not in a hurry, though they'll continue to make life as difficult as possible for those who still smoke, the poor bastards.

But as I've mentioned before, a rather nasty side effect has been the creation of a wave of hatred directed at smokers. They've been denormalised and dehumanised and demonised, and this wasn't so much a bug as a feature, a needed step to prevent the rest of us shrugging and saying 'oh, they're not harming us, just let them smoke in peace.' That wouldn't achieve anything so every cough, tickly throat, headache, asthma attack and feeling of nausea that could conceivably be blamed on tobacco smoke had to be blamed on tobacco smoke, all so that one minority - the anti smoking authoritarians - could use the majority to pressure and cajole and eventually impose their will on another minority.

The hatred that this has generated for smokers chills my soul. Dick Puddlecote has a collection of more extreme examples of hatred and bile aimed at anyone who smokes and you don't have to look far for more. On news.com.au's page reporting the possibility of home smoking bans there are plenty more.

I would love this to happen here. The neighbour below me is a chain smoker and on days where I have to open my windows, I will get all the noxious fumes. For those like me who live in public housing. Isn't it up to the government to make sure tenants live in safety especially according to OH & S rules?

[In response to an earlier comment complaining about the infringement of rights] you're making a big assumption there. Smokers have no rights.

Yay! Does this mean I might be able to open my apartment windows without the cloud of my neighbours' cancer-ridden smoke wafting in at all hours of day and night? It's not before time. Why not go the whole way and just place tobacco on the long list of dangerous chemicals not available to the general public?

How about a federal order that all non-smokers be permitted a loaded water pistol to extinguish smokers cigarettes?

Yes! About time. I used to live in Liverpool in an apartment and my neighbours used to smoke on their balcony... the smoke would drift into my apartment so i'd have to leave the door closed making my place stuffy... then i would find half a dozen butts on my balcony where they insisted on littering! I couldn't even sit on my balcony without smelling it... i agree it should be banned from balcony's of apartments at least.

Fantastic - bring it on ! We have a smoker who lives in the apartment underneath and the stench from his smoking is nauseating. You can smell it whether you have the windows open or shut , and sitting on the balcony is not enjoyable when he lights up ! A filthy habit !

I wish they would just make it illegal

[...] Smoking is the least private vice and no-one should have a right to do it anywhere but in a sealed box.

20 years over due - bring it on!!! so over the filty smell - its gross and australia wide ban is next!!!!

Smokers have absolutly no rights, They are second class citizens IMO. [...]

Die deutsche Frau raucht nicht!

Oh, sorry, that last one is from Nazi Germany. Can't imagine how it snuck in there, but it is kind of appropriate. Not because old Adolf was the driving force behind the world's first anti-smoking campaign but because denormalisation, dehumanisation and demonisation was the Nazis' stock in trade. Just re-read those comments and mentally amend them so that references to smokers and smoking are references to Jews, communists or gypsies. And consider that in the minds of these hateful little authoritarians the program to control other people and reshape them into an more approved form is never over.

I don't smoke, or at least not any more, so the first wave of marching boots isn't interested in me. I don't drink either (something else Adolf would have approved of, the miserable little shite) so the next wave is marching straight past as well. I hear the marching boots all the time these days, though as yet they've never marched all the way up to my door. But among other things I do like to eat meat, I put sugar in my tea and coffee, I could lose a couple of kilos, I drive a fast car, am not carbon neutral and refuse to do anything out of the ordinary for Dirt Hour. For these and possibly other reasons, some of which I can guess at and others which may not yet have been identified as incorrect behaviour to be denormalised, I know all too well that one day I can expect to hear the marching boots stop right outside, followed by an aggressive knock on the door.

I hope to put that day off indefinitely, but if it happens I know that at least I'll have the sympathy of smokers and drinkers because I've stuck up for them. The commenters above don't yet realise it but even though they've been helping the boots eventually they're going to come marching for them too. Who knows why but there'll be something, some way in which they don't quite conform to the someone's ideal. And even though they're being such a bunch of illiberal, bullying arseholes I'll sympathise with them and stick up for them too when their turn comes, just as I do for the smokers and rinkers. Or at least I would do apart from the fact that the smokers and drinkers and I will all be gone by then.

As Niemöller warned, there'll be nobody left to speak up for them.