Saturday, March 28, 2009

Cracks in the system

Did the Amish church commandeer Daniel Stoltzfus' employees? (Intell March 4.) After the employees are gone, how is he supposed to pay off the loan? Amish businesses have so many exemptions nowadays that his profit margin may not have survived after hiring non-Amish employees, so without cash flow or a means of generating it, he wasn't going to qualify for a loan with a non-Amish lender. Not only did he lose his livelihood here, he also lost his home.

The courts so far haven't granted Stoltzfus any reprieve, but it seems to me that this situation reflects the very essence of why we are a nation of laws. Because without laws we become groups of feuding tribes.

Is that what the judges who are hearing these cases want for the shunned Amish like Stoltzfus? In essence leaving them to wander like outcasts between the Amish and the non-Amish, neither citizen nor church member?

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