quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:

quote:

Originally posted by BOATTRASH1:
Fairly common knowledge some run puppy mills. And they are certainly NOT kind to the dogs.

NOT kind to their horses, either. (Amish)

My experience is exactly the opposite. My Amish acquaintances are extremely fond of their horses. I raise draft horses and have dealt with an extended Amish family in Delaware for over 30 years. For decades I have taken my mares to their farms for breeding and training, and my horses have always been well cared for. The Amish do expect their horses to work for their keep, and I suppose some people would consider that unkind.

America has the largest animal powered agricultural industry in the world, in large part due to the Amish and their bonds with horses. There are annual events that show our ingenuity regarding truly sustainable agriculture. You can learn a lot by attending one of these events.

https://horseprogressdays.com/

It is quite unfair to make blanket statements about the Amish, or any other group of individuals.

I'll never forget the day we stopped the car to watch a guy working a field with a big string of draft horses.

After 25 minutes in the very warm sun.

Turns out " the guy" was a 17 y.o. man and the horses he was driving were 10 across

That's right, ten giant ass draft horses in a wide line.

The reins had to weigh 35 pounds.
I was awe struck
Imagine
Turning a string of ten Belgians at the end rows 50 or 75 times a day.

A) I’m PA Dutch, but Dad’s family were “gay Dutch” (Brethren then Dutch Reformed) from very early on, Mom’s was Mennonite.

B) They will not sit in judgment of another person, which is the reason predators can seek them out - and why they have a complicated relationship with the outside world.

C) I never heard of any particularly abusive bishops, but they are pretty well socially integrated in Lancaster and York PA.

D) The technology is a combination of rejecting anything martial, pride, and sloth. I know washing machines were a big fight, after the state forced them to have power in the barns for refrigeration, etc.

E) They do not confuse people and animals, but I have never seen an abused one.

F) For historical reasons, they pretty well refuse to admit the government exists, as far as possible.

G) Lincoln massacred them, and FDR enslaved them. The political class tends to really hate them.

I never knew of any groups to reject any medical treatments, other than fetal tissue stuff

"Curious about the Amish"

Sounds like a porn film.

"Lisette and her buxom sisters help neighbor Gunther erect his pole barn..."

.

Do they pay federal and state income taxes?

There's a large Amish community in our area. In fact, an Amish family live across the creek from us. Different communities, seem to have different rules. What's OK here may be strictly prohibited a few counties over. Whenever a farm comes up for sale around here, the Amish are there with cash in hand, so they can clear cut any wooded areas.

In addition to farming, logging is a big around here. All their sawmills are gas powered & they have diesel powered cranes for unloading trucks. Alot of the Amish have construction companies, and they all have new pickup trucks, driven by someone they hire to haul their power tools from site to site. They last a few years, go out of business & start up under a different name shortly after. And contrary to what people think, their workmanship is shitty, unless of course, they're working on an Amish project.

It seems like every Amish around here has a new Kubota tractor, or a Bobcat loader, and they're driving up & down the road like personal vehicles. I see teams of horses in the field pulling gas powered balers. You see Amish women mowing grass with the old manual reel type push mowers, and their husband coming around behind them with a new Sthil weed trimmer. My neighbour washes his horse, then dries it off with a gas powered leaf blower.

It's weird!

I grew up in a county that was one of the major Amish communities in the US. They claim to adhere to the scripture "Be in the world but not of the world." Meaning, they have to live in the world, but shouldn't give in to the worldly attitudes. This is in line with Christianity - Jesus called us to be different and follow Him and not the world's systems.

That being said, even as a child, I noticed a LOT of hypocrisy. Can't own tv's, cars, phones, but they sure used them. Our Amish babysitters were glued to our tv. Many make a living as 'Yoder Toters' - driving large vans of Amish to neighboring areas for work, medical appointments, etc (yes, Amish in my area attended doctor appts). One Amish neighbor would use our phone to call long distance, and we had to lock our garage (separate building from the house) because he wouldn't tell us about it and ran up a lot of phone charges. Not all Amish are saintly and pure. Some are great people, and some are downright dirtbags. The tourists have a tendency to treat the Amish like saints, but they are humans like everybody else. . .

The teens have cars (they love pickups where I grew up), but give them up when they turn 'officially' adult and choose to go straight Amish. Some 'jump the fence' and become 'English' (meaning, not Amish). My next door neighbors both used to be Amish - their kids my age had 20 sets of aunts and uncles. When they hosted Christmas or Thanksgiving, there would be 20 cars and 20 horse drawn buggies. Turning English isn't necessarily a shun-able offense.

Some Amish sects are more strict than others. Some don't even have indoor plumbing. Our neighbor had a wood shop with a diesel generator. All his tools (drill press, saws, lathes, etc) were run by a series belts strung from the ceiling. The generator spun the drums, and each machine had a clutch. Engaging the clutch brought the belt into contact with the spinning drum/wheel, powering the machine. It was REALLY cool.

There was even an Amish 'terrorist/radical' element. They were hard-core conservatives, and they were in violent opposition to those who took more liberal attitudes than them. They would grab Amish men who opposed them and forcibly shave their beards. This was an act of violence and a deeply shameful act - married Amish men were commanded to wear beards. Shaving their beards is like shaving a woman's head - they would not go out in public and it was deeply humiliating. This was just in the past 10 years or so.

Now, they have solar arrays to power their cell phones and golf carts. I saw an Amish girl at a bakery named 'McKayla.' That NEVER would have happened 30 years ago when I moved away to join the Air Force. Amish can't have land-line phones, so they would pay to have a pay phone installed at the end of their driveways on the road. So, it wasn't "their" phone, since it was a 'public' phone, but really, it was theirs. Again, lots of hypocrasy.

I thought, in the 80s, that Amish would be extinct by now. There are more than ever, though. They have huge families, so even with half the kids jumping the fence, they still grow.

They have wacked ideas concerning labor, as well. I saw a family making hay. The father and older brothers were in the field throwing bales of hay onto the wagon. The wagon was pulled by a tractor. The tractor was driven by a 5-yr old boy, who was standing up holding the wheel. I worked on a farm as a teenage, so I know this was criminally dangerous, as he could hit the brakes, OR the clutch - not both at the same time. Sure, he could steer (barely - he could also barely see over the hood of the tractor), but if anything went wrong, somebody could die since the tractor was driven by a CHILD.

Amish have a fatalist attitude (at least, where I came from). Anything bad happening, such as a tractor accident that killed a 5-yr old driver, would be attributed to 'God's will.' The child died because God willed it - NOT because the family criminally endangered the child's life. . .

Tractors - they almost all have them where I came from. The tractor isn't 'worldly,' but apparently the air in the tires IS. So, they either had metal rims lined with rubber, or had standard rubber tires completely filled with liquid instead of air. They used PTOs for running the hay bailers and bail elevators.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

They’re pacifists and don’t have guns

Any hungry hordes of survivors will take them down pretty quick.

My money is on the Amish. In the area of Ohia where I grew up, EVERY Amish household had LOTS of guns. They saw deer season as an opportunity to get 'free' meat. They would go out in hordes and stage military operations against the deer. In the event of a nuclear holocaust, I'm sure some would welcome others into their homes. Others would likely batten down the hatches and defend their property/food/etc. Of course, in my area, the vast majority of people owned guns. I imagine it would get really ugly really quickly.

quote:

Fairly common knowledge some run puppy mills. And they are certainly NOT kind to the dogs.

Yup. Puppy mills are large sources of income in recent years. Even young children can work there, and they make a fortune. Amish aren't known for being good animal owners (from where I came from, again), so I can't imagine what conditions for the dogs are. As for horses, of course people vary. However, I saw our neighbor beat the living crap out of one of his horses. It was in the early 80s, but I still remember it as though it was yesterday.

Amish pay taxes, and from what I've heard from my father (who attended Amish school until grade 8 and who spoke Pennsylvania Deutsch (the dialect of German they spoke in my region) like a native), they even served in WWII (not sure about Korea/Vietnam).


Tourism is a major enterprise in my hometown. I would hear tourists gush about how the Amish are so pure and holy - even as a teen, this made me want to gag. Amish are humans like the rest of us. Some are great people, some are horrible, and most are somewhere in between. I find their religion to be faulty and overy-legalistic, but that's really none of my business.

Amish live on my road and I see the buggies and horses daily.
I guess I could have a worse neighborhood to be in.
House and yards are clean and kept up. No loud music or parties.
It was funny as a teenager in the 80's seeing the Amish girls come into the McDonald's in my Township, go to the ladies room, change clothes and party with everyone. Some cleaned up pretty well, some not so much.

I live in western PA Amish country. They won't sue or judge. The local government forced them to add batteries and lights to their buggies. They don't pay tax so they've been banned from certain areas due to the horse poop they leave in the plaza parking lots. They use trucks and electricity if they are employed by "The English". I don't know if they are serious about their religion because they make so many concessions and they paint satanic hexes on their barns.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:

I don't know if they are serious about their religion because they make so many concessions and they paint satanic hexes on their barns.

I don’t find them satanic at all, where are you getting that?

It’s more of a superstitious/folklore type thing to me.

The word for Witch in German is “Hexe” so these were signs meant to ward OFF witches and witchcraft. Nothing to do with the number 6

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:

I don't know if they are serious about their religion because they make so many concessions and they paint satanic hexes on their barns.

I don’t find them satanic at all, where are you getting that?

It’s more of a superstitious/folklore type thing to me.

The word for Witch in German is “Hexe” so these were signs meant to ward OFF witches and witchcraft. Nothing to do with the number 6

Witchcraft is witchcraft. It's definitely nothing a professing Christian should be involved in.

Found this: https://www.atlasobscura.com/a...igns-of-pennsylvania

Some of them will stretch the letter of the law just like any of us. The rules say no power equipment, but if you happen to hire them for a job and just happen to have tools, they’re more than happy to use them because it’s not “their” tools.

Hexes aren’t satanic. For the most part, they don’t even really have a meaning. They’re fairly recent, and based on the decorations painted in hope chests

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
I don't know if they are serious about their religion because they make so many concessions and they paint satanic hexes on their barns.

Witchcraft is witchcraft. It's definitely nothing a professing Christian should be involved in.

Found this: https://www.atlasobscura.com/a...igns-of-pennsylvania

From your own link:

quote:

Because they are so heavily associated with Pennsylvania German Country, many people incorrectly assume the Amish developed and use hex sign iconography. “Plain Dutch,” such as Amish and Mennonites, reject the hex signs as superstitious or pagan.

Barn stars and hex signs are rather used by the more secular “Fancy Dutch” community of Pennsylvania Germans, which exists alongside the Amish and Mennonites.

quote:

Originally posted by Ironbutt:
My neighbour washes his horse, then dries it off with a gas powered leaf blower.

It's weird!

When I read that, if I were drinking milk I was laughing so hard it would have been coming out of my nose.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
I don't know if they are serious about their religion because they make so many concessions and they paint satanic hexes on their barns.

Witchcraft is witchcraft. It's definitely nothing a professing Christian should be involved in.

Found this: https://www.atlasobscura.com/a...igns-of-pennsylvania

From your own link:

quote:

Because they are so heavily associated with Pennsylvania German Country, many people incorrectly assume the Amish developed and use hex sign iconography. “Plain Dutch,” such as Amish and Mennonites, reject the hex signs as superstitious or pagan.

Barn stars and hex signs are rather used by the more secular “Fancy Dutch” community of Pennsylvania Germans, which exists alongside the Amish and Mennonites.

Yes, I know. The quballah also reject the idea that they are a Saturnarian Cult. Christians reject they employ pagan rites. Freemasons reject that they are Luciferian. The Jews reject that the Star of David is actually the Shield of Solomon and the Star of Remphan. Witchcraft is witchcraft.

In your rush to show off your qualifications and further your bid for Head Forum Inquisitor (Vote Mark 2024), you missed my point.

You claimed the Amish use these hex signs.

But the very article you provided states that this is a common misconception, and it's not actually the Amish in that region that are using the hex signs.

Instead, it's the non-Amish "Fancy Dutch" Pennsylvanian Germans using these hex signs.

Guys

quote:

Originally posted by 229DAK:
Do they pay federal and state income taxes?

Yes, but they do not have to pay Social Security Taxes, if they play their cards right.