Paul Brady – Arthur McBride

Sheet music available here.

Lyrics:

Oh me and me cousin one Arthur McBride
As we went a-walkin’ down by the seaside
Now mark what followed and what did betide
For it bein’ on Christmas mornin’.
Out for recreation we went on a tramp
And we met Sergeant Napper and Corporal Vamp
And a little wee drummer intending to camp
For the day bein’ pleasant and charmin’.

“Good mornin’, good mornin’,” the Sergeant did cry
“And the same to you gentlemen,” we did reply
Intendin’ no harm but meant to pass by
For it bein’ on Christmas mornin’.
“But,” says he, “my fine fellows, if you will enlist
It’s ten guineas in gold I will slip in your fist
And a crown in the bargain for to kick up the dust
And drink the King’s health in the mornin’.”

“For a soldier he leads a very fine life
And he always is blessed with a charming young wife
And he pays all his debts without sorrow or strife
And always lives pleasant and charmin’.
And a soldier he always is decent and clean
In the finest of clothin’ he’s constantly seen
While other poor fellows go dirty and mean
And sup on thin gruel in the mornin’.”

“Well,” says Arthur, “I wouldn’t be proud of your clothes
For you’ve only the lend of them as I suppose
And you dare not change them one night for you know
If you do you’ll be flogged in the mornin’.
And although that we are single and free
We take great delight in our own company
And we have no desire strange faces to see
Although that your offers are charmin’.”

“And we have no desire to take your advance
All hazards and dangers we barter on chance
For you would have no scruples for to send us to France
Where we would get shot without warnin’.”

“Oh no,” says the Sergeant, “I’ll have no such chat
And I neither will take it from spalpeen or brat
For if you insult me with one other word
I’ll cut off your heads in the mornin’.”
And then Arthur and I we soon drew our hods
And we scarce gave them time for to draw their own blades
When a trusty shillelagh came over their heads
And bade them take that as fair warning.

And their trusty of rapiers that hung by their side
We flung them as far as we could in the tide
“Now take them out devils,” cried Arthur McBride
“And temper their edge in the mornin’.”
And the little wee drummer we flattened his pow
And we made a football of his rowdy-dow-dow
Threw it in the tide for to rock and to row
And bade it a tedious returning.

And we havin’ no money paid them off in cracks
And we paid no respect to their two bloody backs
For we lathered them there like a pair of wet sacks
And left them for dead in the mornin’.
And so to conclude and to finish disputes
We obligingly asked if they wanted recruits
For we were the lads who would give them hard clouts
And bid them look sharp in the mornin’.

Oh me and me cousin one Arthur McBride
As we went a-walkin’ down by the seaside
Now mark what followed and what did betide
For it bein’ on Christmas mornin’.

For me, the biggest problem with libertarian thinking isn’t what its critics say: that is promotes some kind of immorality in its defense of self-interest in the context of capitalist economics.

Where I got off the bus is when I realized how terribly unsustainable libertarianism is, the naivete about how money corrupts, money being to power what matter is to energy. And lastly, the lack of consideration given to how unequal the playing field is, how much class does matter, and how libertarians seek to make a “clean break” from interventionist corporatism to capitalism without addressing the massive chain of abuse which has resulted into the polarization of the wealthy and the poor.

Unsustainability – most libertarians support the free market on the basis of rights and morality, not out of pure utilitarianism, but most tend to believe that a free market in a libertarian context would also provide the greatest opportunities to the greatest amount of people. I think this, too, is a matter of faith. So long as you allow the top few percent to own the vast majority of wealth, you will always have an underclass voting itself, amending the constitution, rioting, or revolting to get some of the upper or ruling class’s money. This is why Marxism refuses to go away in the Third World. Conservatives and classical liberals like to insinuate it has something to do with bankrupt political and economic ideals in an academic context (“Ivory tower Marxists”) but in reality the reason why socialism and communism continue to find purchase in the third world is because of crippling poverty, including things like landlessness, where you can inhabit a piece of land for generations, but someone just deeds it out from under you (a Zapatista complaint).

Labor movements, social welfare programs, guranteed minimum incomes — all of these proceed from human need, and I see no indication that the somewhat benign term “self interest” applies here, as much as “crass greed” does. Libertarians practically celebrate the concepts of wage slavery, sweatshops, and so forth, because – they say – that the people working in them would be “worse off yet” without them. Good luck, 5 years down the line, making that case while the peasants get restless. How anyone feels about the morality of who gets how much pie and who has to share, the reality is that humankind will only put up with so much before organizing, revolting, striking, or otherwise influencing the system such that it is more equitable for the poor – and more offensive to libertarians. No document will constrain that.

Money corrupts — this is why lobbyists have their way with the American system. The idea that somehow very rich people wouldn’t instantly corrupt a minarchist state in their favor is laughably naive. The US Constitution was supposed to prevent the growth of the state, among other things, and it has failed miserably in this regard because people (politicians, administrators, supreme court) have failed. Libertarians continue to believe that by simply abolishing large swaths of government (which I’m in favor of), that that will destroy the mechanisms by which the very rich basically own the US government. I say, whatever is left, will be corrupted, and grow yet again. Because every man has his price, and every politician, administrator, law enforcement official, and so on, can be bribed — as they are now. The idea of a government purely of laws and not of men is a superstitious religious belief — oh how I wish it were possible. I used to believe it was; I no longer believe this to be the case. Every week we see rich people getting off with a slap on the wrists – if that – having committed massive fraud (google Union Carbide Bhopal), while middle, working class, and the outright poor wind up in jail serving ludicrous sentences for petty crime. All institutions can be gamed with the right amount of cash. Libertarians will quote the old adage that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is interesting the degree to which they will turn a blind eye to centers of wealth, which are just condensed centers of power.

Anarcho-capitalists refuse to see this too – money will create a state which serves the person funding it, because every man has his price.

As it is now, he who can spend the most amount of money on lawyers and legal fights in civil court has the upper hand. I see this as only increasing in the kind of minarchist regime libertarians propose. The farmer caught with stray Monsanto seed having blown on to and grown in the corner of his field will have no choice but to capitulate repeatedly to Monsanto, as he does now. You can outlaw all sorts of lawsuits, but that won’t prevent people bringing them, twisting their arguments to fit them into pre-existing, legal avenues of relief.

Lastly, libertarians offer zero redress for past wrongs. “A free market….starting now!” while rich families who started on third base from the time they were born are on “equal footing” with those who never even got a turn at bat. There is nothing libertarianism has to offer the very poor, except the questionable explanation that the reason their cities are blighted is because of “government intervention” or “high taxes, preventing business investment” which explains a little bit of the problem, but not most of it. (Why would anyone do business in Manhattan or San Francisco if it was really all about regulation and taxes?)

The libertarians get it half right in their suspicion of and rejection of the state, but with me, personally, they fail completely at addressing the corrupting power of money. Their belief in the free market’s sustainability (whereby depressions are just “market corrections” proving capitalism works) doesn’t really address the generations of resentment, hatred, and alienation such events cause. This negative feeling is what sabotages the minarchist state. As much as the non-initiation of force principle is enough for libertarians to live on, it’s not enough for a hard-working father who has to face his children on Christmas with nothing under the tree because the auto plant he worked for dutifully for 20 years just shut down.

In fairness to libertarians, libertarians themselves are not the weak link. In their passion to prove that minarchism or even statelessness (as many libertarians are really anarchists) works, they will open their wallets, and they will donate to charities. Libertarians, by and large, are not the dishonest corruptors of the system they advocate: it’s the people in power who view libertarians as useful idiots who help them continue to perpetuate graft and fraud as a “way of doing business.” that are the problem. Those who would benefit most from what libertarians propose aren’t even libertarians: it’s the very wealthy who will use libertarian concepts to prevent taxation and regulation (resulting in unsafe mines, factories, and so forth, among other things), and who will use the money they make to use government in their favor should that be a better alternative.

I credit libertarians with, especially recently, front-burnering issues of corporate welfare and so on.

But in the end, greed is what drives business – not a celebration of the non-initiation of force principle, nor not even building railroads or making Rearden metal. What drives business is money, and businesses are whores, and they will do anything ranging from cold (firing loyal workers in depressed areas) to fraud (taking bailout money) in pursuit of this goal.

I used to believe, or wanted to believe, that businessmen were moral. I used to accept the lines the way Rand drew them – honest businessmen making these important things whose benefits trickled down to everyone else vs. second handers and leechers.

This was a stacked deck. It wasn’t some intellectual realization based on something I read, but something I’ve come to understand having worked 12 years now in a corporation, and before that for smaller businesses. I’ve never worked for anyone I’ve actually liked or whose character I’ve respected. I’ve never worked for anyone who wouldn’t at least flirt with dishonesty for a quick buck.

Money is what matters. Money is power. It will always be that way, and there will be no justice or freedom until some way is found to blunt its influence on the world.

I have no alternative system to offer. Having brought these ideas up before, the response is always the same: “Well what kind of OBVIOUSLY STATIST alternative to you propose? COMMUNISM?” or some bullshit response like that.

I propose nothing.

I simply say that libertarianism is unworkable in the long term, our progression from a somewhat libertarian society to what we have now in spite of the apparent guidance of the US Constitution proves it.

Power corrupts. Money is power. Money corrupts. And personally speaking, I dread a future based around money and business. I have little interest in either beyond the fact that money is necessary to provide food, clothing, and shelter. But as long as I’m working 50, 60, 70 hours a week to keep my health insurance premiums paid, you can tell me about freedom all you want, but I sure don’t feel free. I’m long since past the point where the conceptual abstraction of “freedom” is enough. If I don’t have the time or energy to dance, it ain’t freedom. And that’s what it is now: work, work, work, spend, spend, spend, until you die. All of life has been reduced to this. It’s dehumanizing, and it has created a corrupt, selfish (and not in that good Ayn Rand way that leads to awesome motors that run on nothing), dreary consumerist world.

One need look no farther than the health care debate, a debate which offers such lousy alternatives that I don’t care who ultimately wins.

Through taxes or being gouged by capitalist enterprises, the fact remains that many peoples lives, financial stability, and so on, will be considered expandable sacrifices to a bankrupt principle of laissez faire economics. Whether through fraud, waste, and the expropriation of my money through taxes, or through private enterprise gouging consumers, ultimately, the outcome is the same: Many of us will not be able to afford health care.

It’s all about money.

2000 years ago it was all about money.

2000 years from now it will probably be all about money.

I have no solution. All I know is neither state socialism nor libertarianism offers a realistic fix for these problems.

The idea of children going without health care, or having to go bankrupt and destitute because you or a family member gets sick and the bills pile up, is just not something I’m comfortable with morally, and it relates to no credible moral system I am aware of.

But these are, apparently our choices. (Libertarians may comfort themselves with things like, “Well if we enact tort reform,” and so forth – but this will have a minimal impact at best.)

That is, unless your daddy was filthy rich.

This is a culture where teachers are paying money out of their own meager paychecks for pencils and paper and crayons, and Britney Spears is worth millions.

I continue on, paying my own way in life, but I am so tired. So god damned tired. I don’t even know why I get out of bed in the morning. Money has ruined music. It has ruined art. It has created a gaudy, offensive sea of glowing, pulsing billboards fucking up my view of the night sky. It has torn up ecosystems and sentenced the lot of us to terrible crackerbox developments, and paralyzing monoculture where I feel my own imagination shrivel up and die. Or is it the work – the relentless, neverending work, to prove I’m worth something as a human…to stay…employable, in this “market correction.”

I still like libertarians and they are welcome in my home, but I fear their overall solution to the problems of the country or world have little or no future. Nearly 40 years of crap performance in elections would seem to be ample evidence for this.

But I guess I like libertarians because they are dreamers – even romantics. For all the “stiff upper lip” posturing that comes with arguments for self-sufficiency as the foundation for our culture, libertarians really see a romantic future where passions – for business or otherwise – would be unleashed and unrestrained, leading to the betterment of our species. I still respect it because I used to feel that way myself.

But any future in which all I do is work, and worry about money, and have to spend all of my free time analyzing banks and investment houses to see how they’re squandering my wealth and encrypting fraud and loss in novel financial instruments, is not something I have the energy to fight for anymore.

tl;dr: Money ruins everything.

A while back, I ordered a netbook to use primarily for “getting stuff done” while out-and-about, and also for writing blog entries on. What’s ironic is that since getting it, there has been what is most likely the longest period of neglect suffered by ventolin.org. Well, it’s at most a shame, as things have been very hectic lately…

However, I had a remarkable day when I went out to Blanchardstown to pick the new laptop up. On the bus was a pair of African women, who had the amusing and interesting habit of peppering their mile-a-minute speech in their own native language with very Irish interjections. One would start “It’s just, like,” before launching into a rapidly told story and ending with “d’ye know the way?” I eventually got off, found the depot, picked up my laptop and left, only to return a few seconds later when I realised I had no change for the bus. After planting a €5 note down on the counter and asking whether I could get change, the chap behind the counter refused, pulled out some loose change and insisted I simply take it.

Waiting at the bus stop now, I flagged down the first bus that came along and asked if he was driving into town. It turned out he wasn’t, but ordered me on-board anyway, saying he’d give me a free trip down to another bus stop which was serviced by many more buses than the previous one. I happily obliged, and thanks to the man’s kindness, spent maybe only a minute or two at the next bus stop before I was headed back home.

Home, where I opened the door to find a curious package in the hallway. A book, by Alan Watts – and despite there being no note I knew just who had sent it, given we’d both recently discovered the eachother’s interest in his work and ideas. A lovely surprise with a friendly nod-and-a-wink.

I’d started the day with the not-so-minor annoyance of having to trek quite a bit across the city in terrible weather, but with the help of others’ acts of kindness and goodwill, everything changed beyond recognition.

A good day!

Not only is there to be a secret list of blocked websites, such as exists in Australia, but the government is pushing for more data to be collected from citizens and retained for a long period of time.

A video which caught my attention a while back was entitled Du bist Terrorist (You are a terrorist). With soft ambient music playing, and deceptively pleasantly designed imagery, the two-minute video parodies the Du bist Deutschland ad-campaign with a soft, reassuring voice informing you of what the German government has in store for you, in terms of heavier and more invasive surveillance — because You are a terrorist.

Earlier this week I found that the same people had created a new video in the same vein, entitled Rette deine Freiheit (Save your freedom). The video focuses much more on the coming internet censorship in Germany than just data retention and physical surveillance.

Since there was no English translation available, I decided to translate it and re-upload to Youtube. The result is below:

The translation is by no means perfect, but at least it’s something. There were a few tricky problems with it:

• Einfach wegschauen: Literally “simply look away”, the video describes this as the method tried-and-tested by members of families with a history of domestic abuse. I was going to translate it as “simply look the other way” in its first instance, since this is the closest phrase in English that pertains to such a situation. However, this doesn’t exactly capture the double-meaning employed in the video, since it implies wilful ignorance which isn’t quite applicable to what the government is doing, so I decided to settle on “simply block it out”. I’m not sure I’m happy with this, however. Suggestions?
• In the sentence, “In Prävention, Therapie und Personal investiert hätte dies vielen Opfern helfen können: Reinste Verschwendung”, the meaning that is sarcastically implied is that the money that could be invested in preventative measures, therapy and personelle is much better spent on building an internet block. I don’t think I captured this very well.

In any event, there’s likely to be an official translation soon (I just saw an “Englisch (bald verfügbar)” notice at the top of the official page now — perhaps my emailing asking for a transcript of the video got them in a rush) and these issues will cease to be.

One last thing — if you are interested in learning more about the situation in Germany regarding internet freedom and the child pornography scare, I’d not only urge you to visit the links above, but also this shocking, but morbidly fascinating account of one techie’s work in the murkiest of subcultures. Thankfully, he doesn’t go into detail about actual child abuse, but instead details exactly how child pornography rings work, using the internet and computers.

Put simply, it proves what anyone with a clue already knows: current proposals for internet censorship will have absolutely no impact whatsoever on paedophiles and child pornographers and will only serve to infringe the rights of normal, law-abiding internet users.

Thanks to Áine and Patricia for help with one or two minor parts of the translation.

The computer performs a frequency analysis of the sound spectrum, aided by Ablinger himself, which is then fed into the piano player and out comes the child’s voice.

(Video in German with English subtitles)

While I wouldn’t have much hope for people trying to work out what the piano is “saying” without the aid of seeing the words as they’re heard, I think it’s a pretty interesting experiment. The auto-player in itself is something to be marvelled at. Neat!

Ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia are planning to protest today in the city of Dunajska Streda against a law they say violates their basic human rights. Under a penalty of five to ten thousand Euros, as of today it will be a crime in Slovakia to use the Hungarian language in public places.

As the Hungarian weekly Heti Világgazdaság states, every Hungarian doctor in Slovakia will from now on be required to speak Slovakian with their patients, even ethnically Hungarian patients, even if neither party wishes it so.

[Explanatory note: There are 550,000 ethnic Hungarians living in Slovakia. They are there because after the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed in World War I, the Allied Powers drew the borders of Hungary in such a way as to marginalize the Hungarian nation. A full 3.3 million Hungarians were left out of Hungary, and have been living as minorities in Slovakia, Romania, etc. for the past ninety years.]

The protest marks the culmination of several nightmarish weeks in Hungarian-Slovak relations, during which time the Slovak government refused entry to the Hungarian prime minister, and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences declared the new Slovak language law a violation of fundamental human rights.

It’s always a thorny issue when governments get involved in mandating and prescribing the use of language in their respective societies, but it’s surprised me that such an incredibly racist law brought in in Eastern Europe has gone almost completely unnoticed in the news media — especially when one considers the background to the Hungarians’ presence in Slovakia.

Edit: Ah. Literally minutes after I clicked “Publish” (I didn’t know my blog was that closely watched! ;) ), a story about this appeared in the third most prominant position on the BBC News website.

The first article I read, entitled “Fucking shut the fuck up” is a serious analysis of the syntax of one of Van Morrison’s on-stage outbursts. Short, readable and interesting – even a few of the comments are good – it’s a must-read.

The next is an article on timing and silence in spoken discourse (summary from John Gumperz , “Contextualization and Ideology in Intercultural Communication”):

Conversations are often punctuated with relatively long pauses and silences. In informal gatherings, Indian people may sit or stand quietly, without speaking. If addressed, they may look away and remain silent for a relatively long time (at least from the perspective of mainstream Americans) before responding. When a person is asked a question and she has no new information to provide, nothing new to say, she is likely to give no answer. In all such cases, American Indians themselves interpret the silence as a sign of respect, a positive indication, showing that the other’s remarks or questions are being given full consideration that is their due.

The blog post is essentially a series of quotations from the literature such as this, comparing the differences in implied meaning of silence in Native American and Anglo cultures.

The final post is a link to an article from Ben Zimmer that’s appeared in this week’s New York Times’ On Language column. It describes the transformation of the word “fail” from verb to noun, due to it becoming an internet meme:

Time was, fail was simply a verb that denoted being unsuccessful or falling short of expectations. It made occasional forays into nounhood, in fixed expressions like without fail and no-fail. That all started to change in certain online subcultures about six years ago. In July 2003, a contributor to Urbandictionary.com noted that fail could be used as an interjection “when one disapproves of something,” giving the example: “You actually bought that? FAIL.” This punchy stand-alone fail most likely originated as a shortened form of “You fail” or, more fully, “You fail it,” the taunting “game over” message in the late-’90s Japanese video game Blazing Star, notorious for its fractured English.

In a few years’ time, the use of fail as an interjection caught on to such an extent that particularly egregious objects of ridicule required an even stronger barb: major fail, überfail, massive fail or, most popular of all, epic fail. The intensifying adjectives hinted that fail was becoming a new kind of noun: not simply a synonym for failure but, rather, a derisive label to slap on a miscue that is eminently mockable in its stupidity or wrongheadedness. Online cynics deploy fail as a countable noun (“That’s such a fail!”) and also as a mass noun that treats failure as an abstract quality: the offending party is often said to be full of fail or made of fail.

…with another London winter looming and my lease running out, I decided I needed a change. Within days, I had arranged a sublet on a cheap apartment in Berlin and found a friend gracious enough to give my boxes basement space.

After this article, which is definitely worth the read if you haven’t come across it before, there wasn’t a peep out of her, and I’d become suspicious that she’d perhaps fallen prey to Berlin’s wilder side and been checked into a mental institution. Thankfully, that was just my imagination running riot, and she’s back today with another article:

Six months on, I’m in the throes of a full-blown crush and like all newly besotted people, I’m kind of insufferable. On a bad day, I’ll argue that Berlin is woven from a blend of cashmere and unicorn milk known to solve nine out of 10 Middle Eastern crises and eliminate e-mail spam.

Apparently, the shower in her profoundly beautiful apartment was going on the blink. She writes of the German work ethic:

… Ten minutes later, a plumber phoned and told me he was terribly sorry, but it would not be possible for him to attend to my situation until perhaps 3pm. At that point, it was noon.

And of the unique reaction to the world-wide downturn that Berlin has taken:

A recent article in Der Spiegel online confirmed what I guessed already; the recession is not hitting Berlin in the same way it is affecting the rest of the world. With jobs not there to be lost, and consumerism already scaled back, Berlin appears to be practically immune to the black panic gripping the rest of the world.

Or, as one gallery owner quoted in the Der Spiegel piece puts it: “Berlin is now the only place in the world you can go where everyone isn’t depressed. In this evolutionary cycle, they’re perfectly adapted for survival.”

Clearly, much credit must go to the quality of Berlin’s social services (high) and its price of living (low) but increasingly, I wonder whether some tiny, seemingly trivial differences may, in fact, be the opposable thumbs of city evolution.

Thanks to John for bringing this new article to my attention!