How Amish interact with government on issues including schooling, raw milk, politics, military service, and others.
Not to hammer the political topic, but a Polish friend just sent a link related to yesterday’s post. This time a reporter from one of Poland’s largest dailies, traveling through the US hot on the Obama/McCain trail, has dug up an Amishman who apparently had no idea that the elections were going on right now. ‘But I never heard of Obama’ is the name of the article (translated…
Though I can’t say that all the info it contains is factually correct, just read an entertaining article on the potential for Amish voting in the 2008 election from the Daily Beast. Some may recall that George Bush made efforts to attract Amish voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania in 2004.  The writer in this piece is asking if McCain shouldn’t be making the same efforts this…
Across America in places where the Amish have set up shop, local businesses and government authorities have had to adapt some practices to accommodate the preferred Amish transportation. Traffic Jam off County Road 77 in Holmes County, Ohio Sometimes an Amish group showing up in an area can lead to disputes with locals over horse mess or hoof damage on roads. The smarter businesses, or…
With the races for the presidential nominations heating up, seems you can’t turn around without hearing what so-and-so said about you-know-who, who’s waffling, flip-flopping or what-not. Just 12 more months of it to go. So what do the Amish think about the political process? Well I can’t speak for all of them, but it seems to me that there are some closet political junkies among…
One thing you notice right away if you visit Lancaster County for the first time–especially when comparing it to just about any other Amish settlement–is how congested it is. There are a lot of people in what is supposedly a ‘rural’ county–nearly half-a-million. Some time ago, locals became concerned with what would happen if land pressures eventually caused the ‘garden spot of America’ to end…
The Virginia Amish dog breeder whose kennel burnt down in March may just get another crack at his trade, the Roanoke Times reports. Promising a new facility ‘with amenities that exceed U.S. Department of Agriculture requirements for breeding operations’, the unlucky Amishman’s case for a ‘conditional use permit’ was passed on to the final-decision stage Monday by the Bland County planning comission. This despite activists,…
The Amish settlement at Piketon, Ohio was an odd one to begin with. A few things made the Amish who settled here in 1949 different from most. One was their evangelistic emphasis. Amish traditionally do not try to convert others. Piketon, Ohio was begun by a minister sympathetic to the idea of spreading Amish beliefs. Secondly, they were the first Amish congregation ever to publish…
‘The Amish don’t pay taxes. They’re freeloaders.’ Ryan Robinson of the Lancaster New Era writes (no longer available) that myths such as these persist, apparently even among long-time neighbors of the Amish. Why the confusion? Amish are generally exempt from paying Social Security taxes, a privilege negotiated some years ago with the federal government. But at the same time they also refrain from receiving benefits….
AP Photo The Ohio Amish food safety issue goes higher profile, as the Washington Post, CBS News, and other big media outlets pick up the story today. Meanwhile, Time magazine is running a piece on the controversy surrounding raw milk, another popular Amish-sold product. Should these foodstuffs be regulated? Should sellers be compelled to inform consumers of risks? Or should these practices be shut down…
They love the stuff so much it hardly has a chance to sit on the shelves. Maybe that’s why no one seems to get ill from eating it. Mary Slabaugh, an Ohio Amish baker whose story was mentioned last month in Amish America, is in the news again, this time in Ohio’s Coshocton Tribune (no longer online). Officials are trying to deal with the challenge…