Using the Amish

"The permit itself might not be so bad, but to change your lifestyle to have to get one, that's against our convictions," Borntreger said as he sat in his kitchen with his wife, Ruth.

If his convictions were important enough to him, he would seek a solution other than just defiantly ignoring a law he knows his neighbors are required to abide by. He's turning the teaching about "going the extra mile" on it's head if you ask me.

"They just go ahead and don't listen to any of the laws that are affecting anybody else. It's quite a problem when you got people next door required to get permits and the Amish don't have to get them," said Gary Olson, a county supervisor in central Wisconsin's Jackson County, where Borntreger lives.

This defiant posture is particularly out of character for the Amish whose faith asks of them, "to be like strangers in a foreign land, towards civil authority". It makes me question whether the Amish in these cases are being "coached" or egged on by non-Amish acquaintances, who want to push back against zoning regulations and are using the Amish to advance their cause.

The recent political atmosphere has repeatedly produced a marriage of the conservative agenda and the Amish.

Here's a letter to the editor I wrote that highlights the incongruities of such a relationship;

"the Amish have, only recently, successfully petitioned Congress for an exemption to child-labor laws prohibiting people under the age of 18 from working in woodshops. Amendment HR 1943 sponsored by Rep. Joe Pitts and signed by President Bush in January 2004 permits Amish children, ages 14 to 18, to work in woodshops but prohibits operation of machinery.

It makes little sense that a community known for its generous charity to each other would seek, through a child-labor law exemption, to gain access for their children to work in an area known to be fraught with injury and death.

The minority views attached to HR 221 reveal no hearings were held where opposition views could be presented, the Department of Justice was not given enough information to make a decision on the constitutionality of the proposed legislation and it was stuck onto the end of the year Omnibus appropriations bill (HR 2673) which ruled out debate and an up or down vote on its own merit.

A chilling display of Republican arrogance and disdain for the deliberative process. Conservative ideology agrees with Amish belief when it insists government interference is always bad. But Republicans have a track record of passing legislation that favors the rich and powerful while leaving the weak and the poor to fend for themselves.

Are these the kind of values the Amish community wants to be known for?"

We're expected to buy this argument that the Amish are unable to practice their faith because of the big bad zoning requirements, and yet, there has never been a time in all of their history in which they've enjoyed such a cozy relationship with the civil authorities.

Here in lancaster county President Bush has repeatedly had these "spontaneous" (yeah right, these things are never spontaneous!) private, no press allowed, meet and greets with the Amish.

Here's my take on it. I smell a rat, and it's not wearing a broad brimmed hat!