May 16, 2018

The Danegeld



It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
  To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
  Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
  And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
  And then  you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
  To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
  We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
  But we've  proved it again and  again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
  You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
  For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
  You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
  No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
  And the nation that pays it is lost!"


Kipling wrote that in 1911.  

Now 107 years later we have a different and more enlightened perspective on such matters. We know now that the Dane need not be a burly, ax-wielding honky, it might instead be a termagant harpy. 

And we have learned that we don't teach enough Kipling in school.

In the last few months this sort of thing has stepped up quite a bit, a few months ago Jon Del Arroz (and his family) endured doxxing and harassment before being banned from World-Con  and last week, John Ringo was booted from Con-Carolinas. This last one while not as viscerally frightening as Del Arroz's ordeal, was more disturbing in some ways because Con Carolinas had always had a rep as a fairly welcoming and heterodox convention, where people to the right of Mao's Red Guards could feel welcome. Well, no more. Correia, who as it happens, got canned by Origins yesterday had some thoughts on that at the time

Every time a con knuckles under to these thugs it empowers these little twits, and encourages them to do it again. Soon every con will be Wis-Con,  unless people like John Ward stop paying the Dane-Geld to these bullies. 

Of course, this assumes that encouraging this sort of blacklisting is not a bug, but a feature to John Ward, who may not be the Charles the Bald in all this...he might well be Quisling instead.  

UPDATE: Gail Heriot notes the date. It turns out that Correia's defenestration took place on the eve of an appropriate anniversary. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:52 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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