It’s said the best way to corral a feral hog is by steps.
The first step is to put out a bucket full of feed and just let the hog eat. He gets used to the bucket appearing, full of food, at a given spot and at a given time. So he shows up at the given spot and time.
The next step is to put up a piece of fence. Just one piece. Behind the bucket of food. The hog is slightly suspicious, at first. He approaches the bucket warily. But he soon accepts the presence of the section of fence and goes on eating, ignoring the fence section behind the bucket.
After some time has passed, put up a second piece of fence, at a 90 degree angle to the first section. The hog will be alarmed by this and may not come to the bucket for awhile – and when he does, he will be cautious and on high alert. But – as before – he sees he can still come and go freely.
And there is food and he is hungry.
He grows used to the piece of fence to his left.
After giving him time to adjust, put up a third piece of fence, on the opposite side – also at a 90 degree angle to the original section behind the feed bucket.
By now, the hog has become accustomed to these appearance and – so long as he can come and go and there is food – he puts up with it, ignores the strange things appearing seemingly out of nowhere.
You know the rest. The last piece of fence corrals your hog – who is now your pig. It’s time for sausages.
Just so driver’s licenses.
First, we were required to ask permission to practice what was once a right – to travel. No one in colonial America had to ask permission of the government before saddling up his horse. You got on – and went as you pleased.
Roads were “commons,” the means by which a man expressed his right to travel freely.
The first piece of fencing appeared when it became required to obtain a license to “drive” – a term which used to have commercial connotations in the horse era (e.g., the driver of a hackney) but which has come to be synonymous with traveling via automobile. Somehow – no debate was ever held, no vote ever taken – the government transmuted a right into a conditional privilege.
Not long after, it began to catalog us by number and then, photograph. The next piece of fencing. It became functionally impossible to live without this internal passport – whether one “drove” or not. Applying for employment, opening a bank account – all the necessaries of life – now necessitated the internal passport.
