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Free Corn
Topic Started: May 3 2007, 12:17 PM (283 Views)
Non Hyphenated American
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Interesting Article....


(Lowell E. Hedges is a retired associate professor of teacher
education and a former superintendent of Elgin Local Schools)
From: Dr. Hedges:
Several years ago I was supervising a beginning teacher in a city
school system. One day during our end-of-the-day feedback conference, the
young man gave a facial grimace and began to rub his back. I asked him if he
had strained his back in the school lab. After a long period of silence, he sat
down at his desk and explained that he had immigrated to the United States
because of political problems in his native country.
The discomfort in his back was caused by a bullet wound he had received while fighting the Communists who were trying to take over his country's government. He was then a member of the underground nationalist force.
Then he asked me a surprising question: "Dr. Hedges, do you know how
to catch a wild hog?" The question was completely out of context
regarding the day's classroom and lab teaching. I replied, "I'm not sure what you are talking about. Tell me."
"First," he said, "you find out where the wild hogs are roaming and
feeding and then you put some corn out in the field. Soon they will
come to eat the corn. You keep putting out the free corn. More wild hogs keep coming to eat the corn."
"So what?" I said. "That's normal for any animal."
" He said. "After the hogs get used to your free corn, you put up a
length of fence along one side of the feeding area. The hogs get used
to it. You keep giving them the corn. Then you put up another section of fence at
right angles to the first. You keep giving them the corn. The hogs get used to
the second fence. Then you put up another length of fence at right angles
to the second section. You now have a U-shaped fenced area. The hogs get
used to that section of the fence. You keep giving them free corn. Then you put
another section of fence with a gate in it, making a closed area except for
the gate.
You keep giving them corn. Now, the hogs no longer are out in the fields,
working to find their own food. They keep coming into the area to eat
the free corn. They get used to the fenced area with the open gate. Then, one
day you slam shut the gate when the hogs are inside the fenced area. The wild hogs are caught - they are your prisoners."
I understood then that the wild hogs were really the people of his native country and that the free corn was the enticements that the Communists were giving to the people.
"That's correct," the young man said. "Now, the hogs will not get anything to eat unless you give them food. You are in control. They depend on you to feed them, or they will starve. They can't get out into the fields and forests anymore to find their own food. They have probably forgotten how, as it is. They are your servants, your prisoners. They must obey you. Or else they starve.
"The hogs," he said, "were so accustomed to having the free corn, that
they ignored the building of the fences that would eventually trap them.
When the gate slammed shut, it was too late for them to realize what they had
been blind to. The free corn was enticing, so effortless to obtain, but
eventually the cause of their loss of freedom. The fence had been
built; the gate had been shut."
At this point in our conversation, the young teacher loudly
exclaimed, "This is what I see happening in America today! People are being offered free corn by the government. People are being blind to the fences being
built around them by the liberals - the socialists - and that is what frightens
me! Just like it was happening in my homeland. The American people do not learn
from history. And history shows that socialism/communism does not work.
Take note of Russia. Has socialism been the best thing that ever happened to that
country? Absolutely not! But socialism is what the American people are being fed,
and they don't realize it. All they can focus on is the 'free corn.' They want
more and more of the free corn. And this free corn is being fed to us little by little, and soon the gate will slam shut. I am very frightened and also amazed, that the American people don't see what is being fed us, and for what purpose."
With that said, the young man sat down at his desk and continued to rub
his painful back. And I was silent in my chair. For I could visualize the
supposedly "free corn" being fed to our nation's people and our growing
addiction to the "free corn". And I could see the gate being slammed shut. We, the
people of the United States of America, because of our ignorance of
history, because of our addiction to the supposedly "free corn," could soon be
prisoners of liberal socialism.
"Wake up, America! The fences are being built! Don't you see what is
happening to us?"
In the agenda of Congress, there is much "free corn" being promised
the American people. In our greed for this "free corn," will we ignore
the incremental building of the fences and the inevitable shutting of the
gate? As I ponder the building of the fences, I remember the old adage,
There is always free cheese in a mousetrap."
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Condor
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Best I have heard.
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Toothless Dawg
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Excellent analogy ... if one ponders the events of the past 40 years, you can see the fences being built. I would say at this time, the fourth side is being built and for a short while the gate is still open. The next couple of years will tell for how long.
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jaytalker
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Kinda of funny that the author saw it being the young doctor's analogy as the result of seeing how Comunism swallowed his country. I saw it for its meaning within the first few lines as did others here.

A great get NHA. We should always keep in our minds to be warry of socialists baring what seem to be gifts.

jaytalker
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