There’s a kerfuffle in Wisconsin over threatened application of The Law to the Amish.
Up to now, they’ve successfully dodged Uncle – been exempted on religious grounds from a great many busybody-isms, including laws requiring the presence and use of seat belts and child safety seats in all motor vehicles.
Their horse-drawn buggies lack motors, of course – as well as seatbelts and child seats.
They don’t have air bags or back-up cameras or tire pressure monitors, either. The Amish don’t believe such things are necessary and therefore do without.
They also believe it’s their decision, their business – and just want to go about their business, leave others alone and be left alone in turn. After all, they’re not harming anyone else. And if they harm themselves, the Amish take care of themselves.
It seems reasonable enough.
That doesn’t wash for the rest of us, though.
Why should it work for the Amish?
Such is the entirely logical argument of a busybody with a gun – i.e., a government worker – by the name of Bill Winch. He is a member of the Wisconsin Rapids Board of Supervisors and doesn’t think the Amish ought to be exempted from anything – including other laws requiring driver’s licenses and mandatory insurance.
He has proposed a new law precisely to that effect.
Amen.
Winch goes further. The buggies of the Amish should also be fitted with automotive safety glass, windshield and side glass – no matter what it costs the Amish and how impractical it is to install such things in a horse-drawn buggy.
For their saaaaaaaaaaaaafety, of course.
Their horse-drawn buggies should also be required to have headlights and turn signals – just like everyone else’s car. If this requires expense, so be it. And new buggies manufactured after a certain date surely ought to be required to have at least driver and front seat passenger air bags and comply with some sort of government crash test regime.
Amish teenagers must not be allowed to “operate” a buggy until they have attained a certain Uncle-prescribed age – and then only when accompanied by an adult – and never accompanied by other teens, unsupervised.
Bully.
It might cause some eyes to open.
Logically – as a matter of principle – either all of us and not just the Amish should be left in peace to go about our business or no one should be left in peace.
Why should the claim of the Amish that seatbelts and insurance and all the rest are meddling twaddle contrary to their beliefs carry any more weight than the belief – just as ardent and probably better-articulated – of the Libertarian who also believes that it’s no one else’s proper business whether he has or wears a seatbelt?
Winch is absolutely correct.
Or at least, he is a consistent authoritarian control freak.
The arguments used to justify everything imposed on the non-Amish apply just as much to the Amish. If these justifications are morally valid then the laws based upon them should brook no exceptions. 
The Amish, no matter how pious, are not immune to the forces of nature. If an Amish buggy driver wrecks his buggy, he might be injured – just like anyone else. And if he is not buckled up – if his buggy lacks shatterproof automotive safety glass – his injuries could be more severe than would otherwise have been the case.
Undeniable facts of physics.
So why should the Amish – but not the rest of us – get a pass?
Why should they get to live a simple, unencumbered, exempted life? One free of not just government busybodyism but also the financial pressure of having to constantly earn money in order to pay for all that busybodyism? The Amish man can farm his land, raise his crops and not have to worry about coming up with thousands of dollars every year to pay for mandatory this and tax that – including Social Security and Obamacare taxes. Or air bags and seat belts and back-up cameras and shatterproof safety glass. He has no dealings with the DMV. 
This makes him a very free man.
Which is very unfair to the rest of us.
An outrage!
So perhaps this new law applying the law to the Amish is just the medicine needed.
Sympathy for the Amish might transfer to the rest of us. It might occur to some that it is unjust – tyrannical – to molest people who just want to be left alone and who aren’t causing harm to anyone else. It might get people to thinking about whether the justifications elaborated to push, promote and impose all the aforesaid busybody-ism are in fact legitimate.
And if they’re not . . . well, we might be able to roll some of this back. And for everyone.
The Amish are, indeed, throwbacks.
And not just because of their buggies and beards. They are living fossils of a species almost extinct: The Free Man. They’re not interested in your goods and don’t want to control your life. If you’re interested in their lifestyle, you’re free to emulate it and even to become Amish, if that is your desire.
In return, the Amish only ask that you leave them free to be Amish.
But that is too much to ask for people like Bill Winch.
. . .
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No religious exemptions, for anything.
Practice your religion in the privacy of your house.
No Burkas in TSA lines, no special diets for convicts, no skipping out on things everyone else has to do.
Laws to apply to everyone regardless of race, color, or creed.
That’s fair and impartial; anything else is not.
>”Laws to apply to everyone regardless of race, color, or creed.
That’s fair and impartial; anything else is not”<
LOL! A "law" is nothing more than a written expression of someone’s idea of morality/value system/religion/philosophy. Why does someone else get to dictate a “public” religion for us all, while mine must be restricted to essentially my own home (And even then, not really- say, if you happen to be a Rastafarian, or a Polygamist, etc.).
How about this: We all practice our own religious/philosophical/moral/behavioral beliefs in every aspect of our own lives, public and private with no interference until and if such time as we physically harm soneone else or their property?
There’s nothing “fair” about tyranny.
And “religion” when practiced beyond mere ceremony, extends to every facet of life.
Hi Erik,
How about no TSA lines – and no TSA?
These things make my blood boil as they are so obviously police state precursors and yet so many Americans are oblivious to the horrendous danger right before their eyes.
Speaking of Amish and buggies, we automotive enthusiasts should look to see what past attempts had been made to force Amish horse-drawn buggies off the roads in various states and how they were able to win the fight to be able to continue using them. I’ve heard that decades back there were court battles over this, but haven’t been able to find much so far in online searches.
The reason this is relevant? You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to realize that a lot of authoritarian types want to force electric cars, driverless cars, and ride-sharing on everyone once the technology seems mature. We’ve discussed Bob Lutz’s ramblings that cars that require drivers will one day be outlawed. If the powers that be attempt to ban conventional motor vehicles that require a human driver, or ban older vehicles with internal combustion engines, any court rulings that favored the Amish would be precedent for fighting those future bans.
The idea is that you can’t simply outlaw older methods of transport, but would need provisions for their continued use. Just as we haven’t outlawed walking or riding bicycles yet, so why should today’s vehicles face that treatment just because some bureaucrats and tech geeks want to force the issue?
Of course, any attempt to ban today’s vehicles would also have to target the Amish again. Can’t have their horse-drawn buggies spoiling the narrative about the brave new tech, you see.
The Amish might be the key to preserving automotive freedom. Wouldn’t that be ironic?
You’re right Ekramp. I don’t know the details either, but I know the court upheld the Amish’s right to use the roads because since they do not use motor vehicles, but rather the traditional means of transport that man has been using forever- animal traction- that to prohibit or regulate their use of the roads would be depriving them of their right to travel. If I had to guess, I’d imagine that the relevant cases were decided in the 40’s or 50’s.
I know that since the 70’s, various states have been pushing on and off to get the Amish to use slow-moving vehicle placards and/or lights, etc. Apparently, THAT is something that every generation of politician enjoys trying their hand at. I guess they don’t have enough to keep them busy.
I would suggest that Mr. Winch be subjected to watching some video programming to cure his bureaucratic stupor. Specifically, he should be subjected to the “Quantum Boogaloo” episode of “Phineas and Ferb.”
Yes, I know: I propose that this grown man watch cartoons. He needs to be shown that his extreme bureaucratic demands of saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafe-ty of others leads to a dystopian result, where all the fun has been removed from life.
Hi Travis,
Amen!
The cure for much of what ails us – as a society – is to get across the idea that micromanaging (or even managing) the lives/actions of other adults is a moral outrage. That absent harm caused people have a right to be left in peace, no matter what we might think about the way they chose to live their lives. Because they are not our lives to live.
Make the bastard watch Justin Beiber or Teletubbies! (I would have said Sesame Street, but the tool would probably like that multi-cultural pro-homo crap!)
Aren’t you the one complaining about ‘clovers’? Imagine needing to get somewhere fast and being stuck behind one of those things. That said, my guess is the Amish have the wealth and votes to get what they want.
Clovers are not defined as “slow drivers”.
Clovers often speed recklessly.
Clovers are drivers who self-righteously and maliciously attempt to enforce speed limits on faster drivers by any means at their disposal, including deliberately speeding up when one attempts to pass them.
The Amish who drive buggies are NOT clovers.
Libertarianism/Anarchy isn’t about personal convenience. If it were, we could all just as well be statist, and just push for the scenarios that we personally prefer….like the statists do.
Also, from a property rights perspective, the Amish homesteaded the regions they now inhabit long before the rest of us came along with our cars and paved over the cart trails they blazed, without bothering to consult them.
Who are we to presume that the roads through Amish country are ipso facto, “our roads”?
Since the Amish are pacifists, they obviously must have acquired the land from the Indians without resorting to violent conquest. They probably obtained it the same way William Penn obtained it, by buying it from the Indians.
The various Amish style groups have grown in population and the individuals in such groups have acquired a lot of land within recent decades as a result.
>”they obviously must have acquired the land from the Indians without resorting to violent conquest. They probably obtained it the same way William Penn obtained it,”<
Probably why there are still so many Amish in PENNsylvania…..
In reply to Bevin, BrentP, and Nunzio: I decided to see what I could find on Wiki about the Amish. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish
My ancestors on my fathers side were among the early groups to leave Switzerland for Pennsylvania in the 1730s. My mothers side came from Germany in the 1800s. My closest direct ancestors are of the Elkhart-Lagrange affiliation of the old order Amish.
The purchase of property isn’t directly addressed, but if you scroll down to the last paragraph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish#Native_American_reconciliation , it says: “As early as 1809 Amish were farming side by side with Native American farmers in Pennsylvania. According to Cones Kupwah Snowflower, a Shawnee genealogist, the Amish and Quakers were known to incorporate Native Americans into their families to prevent them from ill treatment, especially after the Removal Act of 1832. Beginning in 2003, Mennonites held a reconciliation meeting with Native Americans, resulting in subsequent meetings asking for forgiveness. The Amish, as pacifists, did not engage in warfare with Native Americans, nor displaced them directly, but were part of a wave of European immigrants who forced Native Americans westward.“The Lord told me to honor the Native Americans because they’re the gatekeepers of the land,” stated Melvin Lapp, who was raised in an Amish family and helped in a gathering between Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and twelve Native American tribes. In 2012, the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society collaborated with the Native American community to construct a replica Iroquois Longhouse.”
To me such revelations are of crucial importances.
They prove what defenders of the NAP and anarchism have been saying all along, that not only can people live in peace without government, they can get along swimmingly.
In fact it is only the arrival of government, in the form of the “Indian Removal Act”, that problems and injustices arise, as the result of violations of the NAP by the government.
bevin, whaddya want it to be like, the Wild West? I’ve heard that too many times.
Now that you mention it, yes, that’s what I’d like….the old West. The wild west was what was portrayed on tv and movies when in reality people worked together and since most of them had spoke different languages people tended to be nice to each other, esp. when anyone of them knew they might depend on another for survival.
The bullshit promulgated by television and movies was for yankees while the rest of us had lived with the generations that had BTDT.
Dear 8,
Yep. The Wild West, before government came along and messed it all up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNfdii-r38g
Ten Bears: These things you say we will have, we already have.
Josey Wales: That’s true. I ain’t promising you nothing extra. I’m just giving you life and you’re giving me life. And I’m saying that men can live together without butchering one another.
Ten Bears: It’s sad that governments are chiefed by the double tongues. There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see, and so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life… or death. It shall be life.
Dear SB,
I have to agree with Nunzio on this.
Minarchism does not hold back those who are eager to violate the NAP.
Minarchism gives the green light to violations if the NAP.
It allows the camel’s nose inside the tent. After that, the process just accelerates.
The goal of morally awakening mankind, of “deprogramming” the masses who have been indoctrinated with the Myth of Authority is obviously a Herculean task.
But what alternative do we have?
I’m reminded about the joke about the drunk who lost his keys in the dark alley, but insists on searching for them under the street lamp because the light is better there.
We don’t have a choice. We have to search in the dark alley. We have to zero in on the NAP and mass awakening.
Bevin, I just do not see a “mass/great awakening” happening short of a zombie apocalypse. The massive tide of stupidity will have to flush itself out before man can even attempt a NAP based society, IMHO.
But I most certainly do agree with you that we must continue – and with great vigor – sharing the philosophy of the NAP. “Fight the good fight” and “Tell the truth and let the heavens fall where they may” are a part of my soul.
Dear SB,
It may indeed take something on the order of a Zombie Apocalypse to set the stage for an NAP Awakening.
Interesting that you should mention the ZA issue.
The plot/theme of The Walking Dead is exactly that — what sort of post-apocalypse way of life is human and moral, i.e., consistent with the NAP.
The Rick Grimes group constantly struggles to live up to this ideal.
Bevin, TWD is – or was – a fascinating study of Humanity. To me the most glaring aspect is the lack of pursuit by all of the survivors for “money”/gold/diamonds/etc.
Such things become worse than useless in the grand scheme of things; yet for some reason those living in the current non-zombie apocalypse world are obsessed to the point of self induced slavery over these things of false value.
Treatment of/attitudes towards the Injuns was one of the very first things that got me formulating an anarchistic philosophy when I was a child.
I’d see adults watching Westerns, and saying things like “Oh, those poor settlers!” and “Those lousy Indians!”.
When I’d say “But the Indians were there first, and the ‘settlers’ are stealing their land, and killing them”, they would reply with something like: “The government gave that land to the settlers, and made some reservations where the Injuns are supposed to stay”.
As if some mere men somehow acquired god-like status, and get to decree who is entitled to what; and legally steal; and that the Indians should somehow just recognize the superiority and authority of those men….and if for some reason they don’t, then they deserve to die.
The absurdity of it all!
Is it any wonder that the great great grandchildren of those men are socialists/communists; and that this country is ruled even today by those who control and redistribute the property and wealth of others?
Nothing really has changed, except that the god-like men have acquired even more power and control, and the full assent of the people whom they rule over- but those people are so deluded, they actually think that THEY are the ones in charge, and are calling the shots by casting a vote for which tyrant they want to rule over them.
Nunz, “The government gave that land to the settlers…”
The question of “land ownership” has fascinated my for decades. Who owns what land and how?
“I own this land because I bought it fair and square.”
Who did you buy it from from?
“I bought it from the government.”
Where did the government get the land from?
“The government took it from someone else.”
So you are in possession of stolen property?
Crickets…
Fascinated “me” not “my”…
Skunk-B, I heard this song once….
It said: “This land is your land; This land is my land….”
It didn’t specify where who’s boundaries were…but it didn’t mention anything about Injuns.. 😉
The interesting thing is: The government somehow came to own ALL the land, because if we don’t pay them extortion to stay on it, they take it back.
Bevin, “…that not only can people live in peace without government, they can get along swimmingly.”
A couple of years ago I would have agreed with you. Maybe I am getting too old and cranky but I no longer see it as such. I have come to the conclusion that Libertarianism is but a pipe dream. Such a society is clearly the only moral choice which means it is only for moral people. The vast majority of people are not moral and have no desire to be. People may talk a good game but in reality do not practice it.
(Moral BTW is defined as following the NAP.)
Skunky, the trouble is: The amoral/immoral who would adbuse others in a Libertarian society, are the same ones who abuse others in an authoritarian-collectivist society.
It’s just like “gun control”- the laws only control the people who obey the laws- so therefore, the innocent are the losers. They get victimized by the very laws which were supposed to “protect them; they get victimized by the people who abuse others, who don’t obey those laws; and they get victimized again, because the abusers are the very ones who sing up to enforce those laws, and therefore be able to inflict their abuse without fear of retribution or punishment.
At least in a Libertarian society, all are free to protect themselves; and there is an equality of power, so that the abusers do not have an automatic advantage; and it would be impossible for abusers to take a job which would elevate them above the status of any other common man or protect them when they did evil.
tl;dr version: Look how crime flourishes the more tyrannical a place becomes. All laws do is hinder the actions of the innocent and make them ineffectual at protecting themselves and their own interests.
Nunzio, do not disagree with you except to say that it is a matter of numbers. The vast majority of people have zero interest in practicing the NAP. Indeed they are strongly – even violently so – against it (although I have yet to hear any of them make a moral or logical argument against the NAP). When 98% of the population are busy bodies then it is impossible to convert them to MYODB (mind your own damn business) sensibilities.
A NAP based society, that is to say a truly self governing society, requires a people who actively govern themselves as individuals. This is something US amerikans have proven to have zero interest in doing let alone the capability to make it happen.
Dear SB,
When 98% of the population are busy bodies then it is impossible to convert them to MYODB (mind your own damn business) sensibilities.
It can’t be impossible. After all, it’s not as if an anarchist society has never existed.
Several have. Amish society does not recognize federal and state legal authority. It pays some taxes under duress but does not acquiesce to their rule.
The Amish have no governmental authorities. They have no “Amish Police”. They rely solely on the withdrawing of social approval (shunning) to enforce social order.
Their societies work at least as well as mainstream middle America, and a damn sight better than the insane LGBT “gender fluid” cultural Marxism promulgated by the alt-left.
Also, the market anarchist Icelandic Commonwealth existed and worked for 290 years, longer than the US of A.
Medieval Ireland? Ditto.
It has already worked before. It can again.
Bevin, your examples are solid. But my argument is that I do not think it is possible to get US amerikans on board.
I honestly think that it would be easier to convert muslims into militant atheists than it would be to convert US amerikans into MYODB Freemen.
Dear SB,
Whether Murcans can be awakened or not I agree is a huge question mark.
But I have to believe people can be.
Maybe it won’t happen in the Americas.
Mr. Bevin, America, and all of the Western “democracies” are too far gone.
I briefly explain that here:
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2017/12/28/lincoln-partners-heimatsicherheitsdeinst/#comment-677114
Bevin, yours is a good point about it not happening in the Americas.
The question then becomes Where can Liberty minded people go to build a NAP based society?
The Free State Project sounds good but from what I have read it wants to keep the USD as its currency. That is a dead end right from the start.
If I may butt in….
Skunk, Free State Project is a joke.
Thinking that they’re going to somehow overcome the established power of one of the most powerful governments in the world, right on their own territory, and right under their nose, is just a recipe for disaster. Didn’t work in 1860 with half the country wanting to be free, at a time when the gov’t was a lot less powerful, and people generally of higher moral character….and it sure as hell isn’t going to work today.
And even if it could work, TFSP aren’t real Libertarians/Anarchists. Just a little reading between the lines of their own stated policies makes it abundantly clear- for instance: They advocate that ADULTS shouldn’t be forced to wear seatbelts.
Right there, we see to whom they think your children belong, and that they obviously intend to maintain some sort of control over what goes on in your car.
They’re minarchists.
And choosing to concentrate their efforts in one of the most tightly controlled areas of the country…. I mean, don’t they even have enough sense to pick their battles wisely? Picking NH as the state to concentrate their efforts in would be like a right-wing pro-gun home-schooling fundamentalist Christian group picking CA. as the place to set up a community!
And just being an organized group….. That’s the way to call attention to oneself. They’ve already long been on Uncle’s radar. Probably infiltrated long ago, too.
I’d stay far away from anything like that.
Nunz, yeah, I did not do any further research on TFSP beyond their using the USD as its currency. That is where I stopped my interest in them. They probably have many more issues that expose them as only slightly less busy bodies than what we have today.
‘Zactly, Mr. LePew. Ya just read a few sentences from their own mouths[….errr…fingers?] and it’s enough to see where TFSP is coming from.
They’re probably even too much to be called minarchist. I guess they’re kind of analogous to the Republican party of 50 years ago- which is sure better than what we have today the elephants behinds and braying donkeys….but even if they could roll us back 50 years, nice as that would be…we know how it ends…right back where we are today.
“They are living fossils of a species almost extinct: The Free Man.” Yet, they do not want to speed in automobiles and smoke pot. Cannot be Libertarians, then!
Sally, I hear you. A free man smokes pot…or anything else when he pleases. He speed because speed limits make no sense and he considers himself a “free man”.
Going well below the “speed limit” or smoking untaxed plain-old tobacco [neither habit of which afflicts me] is just as frowned upon by the overlords; just as much an act of rebellion….if not more so.
Imagine if a lot of people started driving 20MPH below the “speed limit”? We’d be seeing PSA’s admonishing us not to drive too slow!
Bailiff: “Case number 83666, Yourtown vs. Snorhlotz. Mr. Snorglotz is charged with slowing”.
You can’t have people impacting the productivity and costs now!
Going too slow is dangerous!
Going too fast is dangerous!
Going the speed which the government decrees….is safe, comrade!
This brings up an interesting point though: People are so used to complying with dictates, rather than thinking for themselves, I kinda think that if we were lucky enough to see the dictates go away, we’d have to live through a period of attrition in which the non-thinkers would either learn or perish.
Even WITH the dictates….many of the non-thinkers don’t quite “get it”.
Example:
When I was younger, my idiot sister had a male friend over her house. I rememkber him telling us how he had been jailed for being wrongly convicted 😉 of being at fault in [what was probably a pretty bad] traffic accident.
I’ve always taken accounts of injustice very seriously, but…..this guy, being one of my sister’s friends- and thus a bar-fly/dirtbag/loser, I knew better than to give his story any heed. [Since when do they jail one for being at fault in an accident?!].
He’d emphasize: “It wasn’t my fault! The lady pulled out of a side street in front of me! It was her fault! I had the right of way!”.
I ended up needing a ride to pick up a vehicle, and this guy was handy- so grudgingly, I accepted his offer to take me.
Going down the two-lane one-way suburban service road, with cars parked along the sides, and side streets every few hundred feet, and a speed limit of 30 or 35MPH…..we were doing close to 90 in this guys old station wagon…in the right lane, no less. Had anyone been pulling out of one of those side streets, they never would have had time to see us.
(And it wasn’t even a flat or straight road!)
So there’s a guy, who had been in an accident in a similar circumstance [I’d imagine he had been over the BAC limit though- hence the jail part] ….and he’s doing the exact same thing which led to that accident…again. He apparently had no clue about line of sight vs. speed and distance.
I think those are the people whom the laws were initially enacted for- although they are also the least likely to abide by such laws. And of course, once the power structure was erected, now it’s more about controlling all people/society as a whole…and revenue collection. The morons just provided the justifications that the tyrants needed.
As you likely know people who can’t think for themselves is the desired product of the government schools. An engineered condition to generate more management.
In my area many years ago a woman via general incompetence drove up on to the sidewalk and killed a kid. she got a $79 traffic ticket. Thus one has to do something pretty bad to go to jail. Even dui fatalities take strong circumstances it appears. Especially decades ago.
Ah, Brent- a PERFECT illustration of the absurdity, hypocrisy insanity, and contradictions of the system!
Kill a kid: $79.
Harm no one, but get pulled over for having a burnt-out bulb or rolling through a 4-way stop, and some machine says that you have 1/100th of a percent too much alcohol in your blood…and it will cost THOUSANDS.
The “Heroes” believe driving under the speed limit to be even more suspicious than driving over it. I got pulled over several years ago for driving too slow in town. I had a porker behind me and at the time my speedometer was not working so I slowed down. On go the bubble-gum lights. I didn’t tell the cop anything other than showing my papers. (My only answer to them is always “I don’t answer questions.”) Guess the guy had met his quota for the week since he just let me go on my way with a warning once he saw that my papers were in order.
Hi Axis,
I know you’re being facetious… right? 🙂
For the others who may be reading: To be a Libertarian does not mean you smoke pot or approve of it. It means you accept the right of others to do so, if that is their wish.
To be a Libertarian means you do not worship arbitrary rules – including speed limits – set forth by the government, nor condemn those who do not. But it does not mean you have to drive faster than you are comfortable driving. Only that you do not insist others drive no faster you feel comfortable driving.
Merry Christmas!
Eric, I was perfectly fine with her characterization. Just more reasons why being a libertarian is badass!
But seriously, together you both make a compelling call to exercise the freedom you have left to poke uncle in the eye a little. If, in uncle’s eyes, driving a horse and buggy without a seatbelt is as equally a revolutionary act as speeding or smoking dope (it is) then that’s actually awesome. Because this means that uncle has incredibly thin skin. So beyond just lamenting uncle’s intrusion, I’d go a step further and urge everyone to exercise their remaining freedoms to the full limits of the law. It takes no more than speaking freely, moving freely, or starting that business you’ve been thinking about (then taking a lot of tax write-offs). Be as much of a free man as uncle will allow you to be, then push for more. It’s contagious and the best way we can change the prevailing ideals. No bloody revolution necessary. Just embrace your freedoms at every opportunity. It’s simple but it does take some vigilance.
Really thoughtful article btw. Thanks
Hi Dutch,
Agreed!
This is also my personal approach – even though I am often reproached for it. I get emails from people demanding I advocate resistance. But I think end-running is smarter. Evade. Work the system. Laugh at the system. Point out to others how ridiculous it is for one man to presume to order another man around.
Then, wait.
Give it time.
In time, enough people will come around. And when they do, the revolution will have already taken place!
Eric, that’s how things got this way and the way to fix it. the trouble is government has the schools.
That is the obstacle to overcome.
Thst stupid jerk in wisconsin, is a perfect example why we left thst stupid country, never toreturn. Sickening, stupid, and revolting. It is impossible to describe thefreedom here. Amazing!!!, expat tom
Where are you Tom? I’m looking to become an Expat in the very near future.
Hi Tom,
Agreed!
Also: The expat option is interesting to many here; I’m sure I speak for them (and myself) when I state that we’d love to hear your story. Where did you vamoose too? How do you live? What’s it like?
I suppose it’s already been pointed out that the Amish pay income, property and sales taxes which must mean that they need to have cash or cash equivalents to pay these taxes.
In Vermont, bona fide native tribe members (however that’s defined) are exempt from having to obtain hunting and fishing licenses and don’t have to register their vehicles with the DMV.
Some hippie communities, in the past, wanted similar exemptions but the state said no.
It seems that the Amish/Native American exemptions are granted on the basis of custom and tradition. Of course, it’s still the State that grants or refuses to grant the exemptions.
Why can’t all of us “identify” as Amish and enjoy their freedoms? Yep, from now on, I am claiming to be Amish. That is, right after this post on an electronic machine. 🙂
Merry Christmas!
Exceptions seem to be what it is usually all about. A guy can move from some third-world hellhole to a civilized society and bugger a young boy to relieve his urges, and since that is what they do where he comes from, and an exception is made, and there are no repercussions or punishment. We’re living is a crazy world, as you so often point out so well as you have in this case of the Amish.
Speaking of the Amish, I can’t be the only one who was a fan of the series “Banshee”?
Premise
A man is released from prison after serving 15 years for planning to keep $15 million in diamonds that he was stealing on behalf of his employer, a Ukrainian mob boss named Rabbit.
His former lover and accomplice, Rabbit’s daughter Anastasia, took off with the diamonds. Rabbit is after him because he thinks the man will lead him to his daughter and the diamonds.
The man flees to the small fictional Pennsylvanian town of Banshee, where Anastasia has been living under the alias of Carrie Hopewell, the wife of the DA with two children. Lucas Hood, the new sheriff, arrives in town and is immediately killed when he intervenes in a dispute between local criminals and a bar owner.
The man takes Hood’s identity and has to impersonate the sheriff and deal with ex-Amish crime lord Kai Proctor, sort things out with “Carrie” and get his share of the diamonds while evading Rabbit.
The ex-Amish gangster is a truly interesting character, as is the (fictional) depiction of Amish life.
That was one of the best series ever. Still miss it.
Being retired and low-income I do all my shopping on foot since a vehicle would be too expensive. I gave up my 18-speed mountain bicycle years ago, considering that it was too dangerous riding it in traffic. Having driven for many years I try to practice pedestrian safety while the memory of driving reminds me of that point of view. And being on foot gives you an incentive to practice safety. My Driver’s License is only good for identification now even though it’s still valid.
I was reminded of an experience that Could Have turned out bad. Once when driving I cut across several lanes on the freeway and barely made it to the off-ramp. You do things in your younger days that as you get older you realize the foolishness of!
You’re neutered.
During an attack on this country, most of the electronic equipment we depend on is likely to be damaged beyond repair. That includes the auto you drive, the furnace motor in your house and anything else with an electronic base to it. That also includes radios and television.
Since these Amish appear to be living in the 1800s technology wise, it is entirely possible they will be the most likely survivors of such a mess.
Lawyers spend 3 years learning how to create problems in law school and one year learning how to resolve them. So I am not surprised that this official wants to change things so the Amish are forced into a battle with the law.
Or battles. The Amish are fairly wealthy after all since they have all this farm land and a community dependent on no one but themselves.
I have been to communities in Ohio run by the Amish. One thing I did notice is all these wires running everywhere. The Utility companies invade this community even though they want nothing to do with electricity! They do not bury the lines underground as is being done in other areas of Ohio.
So all that electromagnetic polution is everywhere anyway.
Never mind that cancer runs rampant sometimes where these power stations reside.
If I were them, I think I would move to an isolated place out west. Possibly close to the mountains.
One day it will all come back to haunt those in government trying to interfere with their ability to worship as they please.
It’s deeply dismaying, but not the least bit surprising that the rights and liberties still enjoyed by the Amish and Mennonites are continuing to come under attack.
Once a political entity succeeds in establishing its “authority” in a given geographical vicinity, it will inevitably attempt to capture any fish that initially escaped its net. No rationalization is too absurd to invoke in its relentless quest for total control over the lives of other human beings.
And they’ve found the “perfect” way to snag the stragglers, Bevin, and in such a way that makes the oppressor look like the good guy in the eye of the average comrade: They make it about “the children”. (It’s never “their children” or “Your children”- it’s always “The Children”- as if all children are somehow national communal property- a la Plato).
You can’t have THE CHILDREN doing work on the farm, for that is “child labor”!
You can’t have THE CHILDREN being taught by members of your community in a building with no running water or indoor terlits, for that will surely result in disfigurement and death!
You can’t have THE CHILDREN avoiding vaccinations, as that might result in good health!
I fully expect that soon they will be saying it is “too dangerous” for THE CHILDREN to ride in horse-drawn buggies…… Most (if not all) states already have laws on the books, which if applied to the Amish would make them guilty of “neglect” for not having electricity in their homes…..
Uncle has made it so that one’s children can now be used as weapons against them.
You hit the nail squarely on the head Nunzio.
Remember Janet “It was the children” Reno, who gassed then incinerated the very “children” she claimed to be so concerned about?
How about the swarms of “Child Protective Services” Janet Reno clones that descend like harpies on parents in the land of the free?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr9pQ1pIbiU
I took time off from work(self-employed at the time)to watch the Waco genocide. I’d gladly retaliate, in any way possible, against those who made that happen.
The MSM, who back then, shilled for the garbage who attacked those unfortunate people, should be vilified, then crucified.
When they gunned down the 17 year old working on top of a silo it should have been evident what ungodly creatures they were.
Of course, nobody ever showed the then, now infamous, vids of them raining auto weapon fire through the roof of their house.
So where was the outrage from people who thought like me? They were all too confused to pit what had happened before their eyes(counting not taking what the MSM said for proof) and what was happening….two totally different things. I recall CNN doing a pretty good job of “wondering”. Well, they came down on that chicken and it’s now serving it’s feeder.
I would say that Ruby Ridge and Waco are better markers for the Amerikan Police State than 9/11.
They were the trial balloons to see how the Sheeple would react.
As we all know, they fell right in line.
Good morning, Bevin!
I remember both of those incidents. Each appalling. In the case of Ruby Ridge, an FBI sniper murdered a teenage boy and an unarmed woman holding a child. He got away with it.
The dead woman’s husband, Randy Weaver, was “wanted” on a trumped-up charge of selling a sawed-off shotgun. He had been badgered by an FBI informant to modify the weapon.
Weaver was a white separatist, which made him easy to target. But the real reason he was targeted is that he and his family simply wished to be left alone.
Dear Eric,
Actually white separatists, whose beliefs do not necessarily require them to violate the NAP, are far less of a menace than the Leviathan State’s henchmen, whose “job” by nature requires them to threaten innocent people with murder if they fail to obey.
I would prefer an America populated with Randy Weavers over an America populated with hero cops like Philip Brailsford.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-08/arizona-cop-acquitted-killing-crawling-man-who-was-begging-his-life-graphic-video
The Murcan Sheeple letting pigs like Philip Brailsford get away with cold-blooded murder in Arizona can be traced back to Ruby Ridge and Waco.
Don’t think these killers are unaware of what they can get away with. They know exactly what crimes the system allows them to commit with impunity.
It goes much further back than that, Bevin. Juries have been letting the pigs get away with murder seemingly forever in this country.
Government is not only legitimate in their site- but it is their god. Their priests can do no wrong.
A judge can sit on a bench for 40 years and hear each pig tell 1000 lies a day, and yet they will always take their word as being truth.
The only difference is: Now, the pigs aren’t just “regular guys”- but they are highly propagandized [often graduates of college “criminal justice” programs] and highly trained [military style]; and KNOW what they can get away with; and the fact that they can get away with such things is used by their superiors to wield more heavy-handed power over us, so that now these incidents of brutality and injustice have become routine- whereas before, they were more of an individual thing- i.e. cops misbehaving; whereas today, such behavior is department policy- and the juries are thus even more likely to let them get away with it.
No argument Nunzio,
I mention Ruby Ridge and Waco merely because they were landmark events that stood out.
If we want to be really hardcore, we can actually trace it right back to the Constitution, particularly this:
Section 8. Clause 1. The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises…
This is the “I’m allowed to rob you” clause in the Constitution.
As Etienne de La Boetie observed centuries earlier, once people are oblivious enough to acquiesce to something as absurd as that, they’re already lost.
The eventual emergence of the police state is merely a matter of when, not whether.
Well-said, my dear Bevin!
That one simple clause is a justification for violence, coercion, and slavery. (As if anything could ever really justify such things- much less mere words on paper).
I willingly overlooked that for a time, when I was a Constitutionalist- because “there was other stuff which was good”[ but eventually realized, isn’t that the way authoritarian-collectivists justify every tyranny?
If we oppose slavery, we can not support taxation. Simple as that.
Yep.
As I put it:
Governments cannot exist unless they first commit two crimes, intimidation and extortion.
Intimidation is threatening someone with physical harm or physical confinement unless he obeys your commands. Governments refer to their intimidation as “law enforcement”.
Extortion is demanding payment for unsolicited “protection” from real or hypothetical threats from other parties. Governments refer to their extortion as “taxation”.
The problem with government is that it cannot avoid being anything other than the very evil it promises to protect us from. https://anenemyofthestate.wordpress.com/quotations-from-chairman-zhu/
So true Bevin. I bookmarked your page of quotes. Very good!
Yes, what we’re saying also highlight the hypocrisy and contradictions of our laws. I always used to be surprised at how many contradictions existed in court decisions and code and statute books, etc. -and I used to think that abiding by the Constitution would eliminate such contradictions- but then I realized that such couldn’t be, as contradictions exist even in the Constitution- like in the giving of the power to tax, and then supposedly protecting our right to be secure in our papers and property. How can we be secure in those things, if the government has a right, from day one, to keep track of our property, papers and possessions in order to tax them; and to even relieve us of them if we do not pay what they deem to be the proper taxes?
The answer is: We have no true right to those things; just the right to “due process” in control and taking of those things- and lately, even that is out the window.
So now it is no surprise how the SCOTUS can decree in one decision that a “right” can not be regulated”- and yet they routinely regulate such things as our ability to bear and possess arms.
Essentially, our laws are just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo used to justify the actions of government in the eyes of those who want to justify it, or who are not conscious enough to see all of the hypocrisy and contradictions at every level.
Dear Nunzio,
Ditto. I used to be a classical liberal, limited government constitutional small “r” republican.
But over time it became impossible to ignore the glaring internal contradictions in minarchism, most prominently its insistence on a territorial monopoly on the use of force.
9-11 was just the icing on the cake; the cementing of the deal.
In my lifetime, I noticed the most massive increase in government during Ronald Reagan’s 2nd term. There wasn’t necessarily any one sentinel event…..but you could just “feel” the difference, as the Feds started to dictate more local policy. It seemed like the EPA was agency through which much of the power was being transmitted (I guess they wanted to keep overt attention off of law-enforcement type agencies, lest people of the time should realize what was going on).
Then, it seemed like once Slick Willy got in, they no longer made any attempt to hide the power they had amassed. Once it had been established, it was time to start brandishing it- so then we started seeing things like Ruby Ridge and Waco.
I’m sure that if/when they murder any of us, they will also apply labels to us, to try and justify their crimes/convince the average sports/war fan that we were dangerous nuts whom they needed to be protected from- you know “Violent anarchists”[who believe in the NAP!]; “cop haters”; “bigots”[If you tell the truth about anyone, you’re a bigot!) or “Luddites” [if you don’t embrace their sickly technology- like surveillance phones and electric cars; or believe their liar/scientists, as in “Global Warming” etc.]. Or: The worst “crime” of all- don’t pay their extortion and fail to fork over 50% of your earnings or fail to report the details of every financial transaction you ever engage in, then you’re “cheating”!
Nunz, “…I noticed the most massive increase in government during Ronald Reagan’s 2nd term. There wasn’t necessarily any one sentinel event…..but you could just ‘feel’ the difference, as the Feds started to dictate more local policy.”
Completely agree with your assessment except I would argue that there was indeed one sentinel event – that bitch Nancy Reagan and her ramping up on the “war on drugs”. This was the start of the police state, not 9/11.
And even though I am not a Christian I sincerely wish you and yours – and everyone else of a peaceable nature – a very Merry Christmas!
Ooooo! Very good point, Skunkmeister! I had overlooked that- Nancy Reagan and her “Just say no to drugs (and yes to the police state)” propaganda!
T’is the funny thing about gradualism: It’s very hard to pinpoint the details!
Thank you for the warm sentiments- Ironically though, I don’t observe Christmas. (I seriously think that avoiding the obligatory gift exchanging and all of the minutia for the last 32 years, has added years to my life! : D )
I hope yall didn’t miss the kangaroo bs with Con-gress and mildly, the DOJ and military tribunal….of a sorts, when crying Ollie North pleaded he knew nothing, nothing. Then they had Reagan on the stand and he really didn’t know anything. He didn’t even remember the members of his cabinet…..so you knew he wasn’t going to even be villified in any way(it would have been different with the internet and that’s just what they’re now trying to avoid). Both Waco and Panama were farces. Maybe not so many people fell for that shit as you’d think. I queried people back then and they were not impressed by the govt.’s snowjob. Of course that was Texas where back then the people of any age weren’t so easily snowed. Now we simply have the fat and happy crowd who, like Sargent Schultz, no nothing.
I meant to put the no in parentheses….”no” nothing.
Hi Eight,
Reagan worship is a keystone of modern “conservatism” and the fountainhead of modern cop/soldier worship. Reagan was queer for anything in a uniform – and so, of course, is Trump. They are Camosexuals.
Reagan also amped up the “war” on “drugs” (i.e., the arbitrarily criminalized substances that Holy Rollers don’t approve of but often partake of themselves, regardless – much like toe-tapping meetups at the bus station bathroom).
Toe-tapping meetups at the bus station. ROTFLMAO!!
That reminds me of the old joke: What’s the difference between a Jew, Protestant and Baptist?
A JEw doesn’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
A Protestant doesn’t recognize the pope as the head of the church.
And Baptists don’t recognize each other at the dirty video store.
Nunzio, that reminds me of why Babdis don’t dance. They’re afraid god with think they’re fucking.
Nunz, glad to hear you do not fall for the “Christmas” trappings either. I think being a Christian is the opposite of being an overeating consumption monkey. And vice versa.
Exactly, Skunster! There is nothing Christian about Christmas. I gave it up the year I became a Christian.
I always amazes me how so many Protestants even observe a patently Catholic holiday!
Also the closing/fencing off of public lands because of “eco terrorists” who’s shenanigans killed loggers and destroyed property. Since the late 1980s and 90s there has been a “look don’t touch” attitude to land management, unless you’re drilling for gas in which case gate off the roads and lock the door behind you.
Yep, no matter how many might come and go….and no matter how many keys I have for various companies, you still unlock and lock behind you, going in and out. A great deal of it is simply ridiculous and doesn’t save anything nor make anything safe. I own a couple of bolt biters. I bought them to bite bolts, chains and welded wire. But the fact of the matter is I could carry these and go anywhere I wanted. I could cut the lock off the gate and throw it into the weeds and nobody would be the wiser. They’d just come up to the gate and thank the gods of petroleum that gate no longer had a lock, release whatever it is that keeps it closed and go on….after shutting it.
I go on large ranches every day with 70,000 acres not being anything to write home about cause that gate into the other place that’s 100,000 acres eventually turned into a quarter million acre ranch. These ranches are covered with oil wells, pipelines and electric wind generators. They have large substations on them so they’re protected with small, chickenshit gates made to keep honest people out while rustlers or anyone else who wants to steal can do so. Someone wanting to do harm would literally laugh at the “security’ they’d need to foil. But the truth of it is, and I don’t’ mean to shit on the DHS(ok, I do mean to shit on them)anyone could do anything they liked on these places. It would be easy with a pickup with a couple letters for a logo on the side to not be looked at twice in the day much less the night when countless vehicles do everything from haul water to haul oil to haul gases.
The DHS is totally powerless to stop this stuff but not to jack with you and me who have no dog in the hunt.
I did too 8,
You just knew the Fibbers weren’t about to allow a motley bunch of “cultists” to get away with defying the “authoritay” of the almighty gubmint for much longer.
By the time the four ATF goons got theirs, you just knew the Fibbers were going to get payback, one way or another.
With government, there is never any doubt about what the real issue is.
It’s unquestioning obedience.
Hi Eight,
I will never forget Waco.
At the time, I was a young editorial writer at The Washington Times up in DC. We watched it happen live. It was hallucinatory. One of the older guys said – and I will never forget this, either – that what was happening reminded him of the burning of the Warsaw ghetto by the SS toward the end of WW II.
I never really cared much for anyone in a government costume before then. But after that, the wheel turned for me. I arrived at the conclusion – which I still hold today – that it is Us vs. Them. That anyone who serves the government is on the wrong side of the line. No matter how “nice” they seem to be. They will turn not-so-nice the moment you decide not to do as they “ask” . . . when “the law” tells them to turn their attentions – and weapons – upon you.
Well-said, Eric!
And you illustrate a fundamental distinction in why we became Libertarians/Anarchists vs. those who don’t.
Pretty much everyone by the time they become an adult, has seen the injustice of the system- whether witnessing it personally; or knowing a victim, or seeing such in the news [and it need not be on the scale of Waco].
How they react to such stimuli, says it all.
Numb the mind and ignore it, as long as they get theirs?
Join the crowd and celebrate it, because the “heroes” were protecting you from “dangerous nuts” -and everyone agrees that that’s the way it is?
Or,
Admit that we’ve been lied to, and extricate ourselves from being a part of a system which perpetrates such crimes and lies?
This is why our preaching really only benefits the choir. It helps those who already value freedom and truth. Those who don’t value such things, can not be helped.
This is where people like Larken Rose fall flat- as great as they may be. They seem to think that it’s just a matter of cluing everyone in to the fact that we are not free, and that things would be better if we were. But in reality, most people will just never care. As long as they can use the system to their own advantage (or think they can) then they will be loyal to that system. Any injustices are rationalized by saying such things as “They should have just followed the law” or “They shouldn’t have tried to be different”. [“Who do they think they are?!” : D ]
It comes down to values and belief and morality[ and we can not change those attributes in others- we can only help those who are already in the choir, by reason of the fact that they were affected when they saw injustice and destruction of liberty, because they inherently knew that such was wrong, and because they cared enough not to dismiss or justify it.
The majority, who look upon Waco as “some nuts getting what they deserved” will never be helped or swayed by us.
Nunz, you deserve a “well said” too with this post.
Thanks, Skunk! That means a lot, coming from you.
eric, there may be “some” hope. 20 years ago when my oldest sister had a degree in Criminal Justice, an oxyfuckinmoron if there ever was.
But my nieces and nephews all called them “pigs” to which my sister took exception to deaf ears. Even my older sister didn’t worship the alter of the anointed ones with badges.
After my wife and I were raided….repeatedly, for nothing they could pin on us…..the first time…..or any time after that and saw how they trashed out place on purpose she lost heart. Wow, so she finally sees the entirety of the “pigs” and learned what they want, not even your approval but everything you own.
If you don’t want the state or local pigs to take it the feds are waiting in the wings and as more than one federal attorney told us, you don’t beat the feds. Hey, MF, then why am I paying you? I work the best deal you’ll get…..or you can work that deal yourself.
So the entire system is corrupt, and let’s not let any of the defense attorneys off the hook for anything. My ‘state’ attorney(oh, you though you only got to pay for one?….silly you(me))) said the feds came on board because they had nothing else to do. Wanta get fucked for nothing simply because you have no one who knows you or gives a shit? Just wait till the entire Just Us system gets on your ass. When the first charge is proven complete bullshit, they come up with another. You’ll eventually run out of money….and they won’t. Need it say more?
eric, the Us vs Them is not going the way I would have liked. The Us is to be avoided by the sheeple and attacked by the “them”.
Then again, the “us” is a very simply “us’ and their male “us” haven’t be treated very well. The Male “us” could rapidly affect the “sheeple” part of the equation. I’ve seen this for decades, esp with Hispanics. The female are accustomed to being dominated by males(Pope)but the males work in the patch and don’t take domination too well. The whites are practically hopeless. They have no balls at all….which should make you understand why my best friends are from S of the border. This is negating my old college buds who have gone one way or the other. Even the Republican bent are now trying to understand(it’s something you and I understand or understood from long ago)what’s really happening.
I’m sorry to say it’s my generation that’s the main problem….and I don’t agree with them. But, on the good side, they’re dying off by the droves…and when SS and Obamacare are gone they’ll only be able to affect anything if somebody gives them a ride to the voting booths….
No doubt someone would be willing to put me out of my misery if I’d just stand still as Anton Chigurh asks. The problem is, I see the Anton Chigurh’s coming. It’s that 3/4″ piece of rebar I have in my hand when exiting my rig.
Morning, Eight – and Merry Christmas!
My two best friends are outliers, like me. Also self-employed/run their own businesses. One does metal fabrication work, the other runs a repair shop. We live in an area where most people are like us, or at least like-minded. It gives me hope. The cities and suburbs maybe lost to Cloverism, but I hope that doesn’t mean Cloverism is inevitable for the rest of the country.
Good morning and Merry Christmas to you too eric. My main fear is what will happen as the result of the supposed “education” system.
So many people that are 40 years old and older have no reading comprehension. My wife used to work with a dozen other women who thought she was a genius. She could figure out stuff that was simply beyond the keen of even her boss. So, what was it she could do that kept her so far above the norm? She could read directions. That’s sad. Oh, the others, if forced or cajoled into reading instructions could read the words but they meant nothing to them.
How does this happen? It’s much worse when English isn’t your first language but certainly isn’t confined to that group. Maybe you can get someone to understand something if you take them word by word through it….but what do they do when they don’t have you or someone like you? They just go with the flow even if it makes no sense.
As the song says “I hung my head, I hung my head”. I have to hang my head since they don’t have the sense to hang their own.
As for you and your friends, I view this as a small percentage of people. I also find more of the capable living as outliers and that’s not a recent thing either. People who depend on themselves tend to get some distance from the sheeple. I think it’s always been so, the very reason people who settle the far reaches of a territory are simply more capable at pretty much anything. I’ve lived in town twice since leaving home and it never lasted long. I just can’t tolerate intolerant neighbors. As long as no one has to see or hear me I get along famously with everyone else. If I’m out in the barn at midnight with the stereo blasting and making all sorts of noise only the wife has to hear and she learned to sleep through a bombing raid decades ago.
I stepped onto the back porch last night and came face to face with a skunk. I just reversed course and grabbed a shotgun. It got away since it was on the breezeway that’s nearly entirely glass. Your average city dweller would have been at the ER later flipping out cause they couldn’t stop vomiting.
Eric, the clovers are winning, mainly because those guys with the machine shops and cattle farms and welding rigs, send their kids to the pooblik skools, and then to college “to get a good job”- and also raise them on a steady diet of Hollywood brainwashing.
Lots of guys here like me and you too- but only a small percentage have kids who carry on the tradition- 90% of ’em become clovers. (Usually the parents are half way there too, when ya talk to ’em- they’re often cop-sucking military supportin’ types- or like a neighbor of mine, may “talk the talk”, but when NAIS was being implemented, he was among the first to voluntarily sign up….gotta keep every bit of that subsidy flowing ya know!)
Waco! A perfect example, Bevin!
Or: Just like when they’ll send the storm troopers storming in to a house brandishing automatic weapons and stun grenades, while shouting profanities and throwing people around and killing any pets- traumatizing anyone for life….because someone may or may not be growing one or two plants which have been classified as “illegal”- and then after all the destruction and violence, they charge the parents (if any such plant is found) with “endangering the welfare of a child” because they were growing that plant in the vicinity of the child[ren]?!
Such a system, and all who support it, are beyond evil.
Do such scenarios even exist in China?
Children like guns were the excuse for stomping out the branch davidians in Waco. The real reason was people having an allegiance to something other than the government.
Remember Koresh (sp?) could have been taken on one of his regular visits to the local sheriff. This supposedly very bad man (and there’s fair chance he was, but that’s not relevant to this) visited the local constabulary on a regular basis. No mess, no fight, clean and easy. The fedgov did what they did because they wanted to make an example and send a message to every would be group of weirdos out there who thought they were free to choose for themselves.
Fedgov just needed an excuse for the normies but everyone who is the least bit outside the norm got the message loud and clear.
Nothing has changed in 2000 years. Whether you lived in the Roamn Empire, or now in the American Empire, you can have “religious freedom” and worship any god you want to…as long as Caesar is your primary god, first and foremost, and pay his extortion, and abide by his laws at all times.
I learned at a very young age, that if you want any semblance of freedom, the only way to obtain it is to fly below the radar. I wasn’t taught this; quite the opposite- Between the tyranny of pooblik skool, and seeing the adults around me complying mindlessly, only to have it result in things which were against their own interests/principles, the path seemed quite clear….even back then. And to think, how tyranny has progressed exponentially in the intervening decades.
Maybe that’s why communists call themselves “progressives”. They’re all about the progress of tyranny.
I keep saying, six thousand years and nothing changes.
We are progressing towards technocracy. That’s what progressivism is ultimately about. The scientific management of society.
I recently watched another documentary. “Human Resources”. ( http://metanoia-films.org/human-resources/ ) Most of the information I had see elsewhere. And currently listening to this excellent interview with John Taylor Gatto. Excellent because he brings up some stuff I haven’t heard previously here and there. Small bits though since I’ve listened to his lectures and read stuff from him in a fairly large volume. ( John Taylor Gatto Interviewed by Jan Irvin – 2010 on youtube)
Brent, standing in your own living room with a goon with a 12 gauge riot gun up against your head says “If you don’t get down on the floor I’m going to blow your fuckin head off”. I called his bluff for no other reason than I had severely hurt my back the day before and couldn’t get down on the floor. Give it your best shot I told the coward. A deputy sheriff reached out and helped me down to the floor. I can’t bitch too much about him since he used two sets of cuffs on me to allow my hands to be far apart.
To give you an idea of what sort of trash they are, the guy who threatened to blow my fuckin head off dug down to the wedding pics in our rolltop desk, pulled them out on the floor and did a little twist on them. I sure wished at that point I was one of those guys who could bring the cuffs around under your legs like a friend did and choke that sumbitch to death. Death? At that point…..yes.
Must kill the children in order to save them.
The message was/is clear – “help” is available for everyone.
Hey Eric,
At least this guy did not propose an MPG rating on these things, or even a crash test rating. Or would that be miles per bail of hay” MPBoH? And one horse power. Is that enough to reach the minimum posted speed limits?
And these Amish must be geniuses for not using a cow/steer to draw their buggies because had they done so, they would not meet the NOx emission ratings for their buggies and might get the VW treatment! Wait a minute. If they are using horses instead of cows, then is this not getting around NOx emmission standards because a reasonably prudent farmer would use a cow? Cheaters!! Those clever devils have outwitted the EPA! Hope they don’t get caught.
I wonder if they have to get their horses inspected..and registered?
OT: funny how the Amish don’t vaccinate either, and yet don’t have an autism problem.
Good stuff, Frenchy!
But the horses of the Amish do “emit” a lot of C02… gotta do something about that, one day.
And in re vaccines: This is anecdotal and I understand that correlation does not always mean cause, but… it is striking to me that autism was virtually unheard of when I was young and I can’t recall anyone in my cohort (Generation X, kids of the ’70s and ’80s) having autism.
Then – just like that, it seems – autism is as common as sniffles, almost.
Also allergies. It was the rare kid among kids I grew up with who had a peanut allergy. Now it seems as though every other kid has that, too.
Re: Vaccines:
I don’t vaccinate my animals. My dogs always live to be at least 15-16 (An impressive age for large dogs), and NONE have ever had cancer or any of the other degenerative diseases that so many other people’s dogs of even half their age, always seem to have these days. Mine stay healthy and vibrant right up to the end of their lives; even near end of life, they are never incontinent or anything. They’re not on medications for years and years…
This is the way it was meant to be- for people and animals- but modern medicine, in conjunction with Uncle, has sucked the life and health and money out of everyone.
My currently 15 year-old black lab mix is the healthiest dog I’ve ever seen! She’s getting gray, but she’s still like a puppy! She has NEVER had a shot of any kind.
Don’t believe the CO2 nonsense, or at least, do your own research and be an independant thinker about it. FACTS: The atmosphere is roughly 80% Nitrogen, 20% oxygen. The rest is trace gases and CO2 is 0.03% of the atmosphere. The man made portion of CO2 is only a fraction of that. Plants that grow actually suffer from CO2 deprivation. Dr. Kei Mori, in Japan, grew a tomato plant that was exposed to filtered UV light, higher than normal CO2 levels and higher than normal atmospheric pressure. The tomato plant grew to be 45 feet tall and produced 15 000 tomatoes. No, that’s not a misprint, google it. Other indisputable facts, the romans had vineyards in England but in the 1500’s there was an ice festival on the Thames River every year. Thus, England, long before industrialization, has been both warmer and colder than it is now. The Roman empire grew in a time of natural global warming and declined during a time of natural global cooling. Global warming has historically always been better for mankind and civilization. Read a book called “Unstoppable Global Warming.”
Exactly right Jason,
The earth has been both warmer and colder before the Industrial Revolution than it is currently, making hash of all the AGW alarmism.
Eric,
Funny thing on the allergies. Yeah. Seems no one had an issue with peanuts until…GMO peanuts came along. I cannot eat GMO peaunts without my stomach feeling like the Goodyear blimp. Non-GMO peanuts? No problem.
Hi Frenchy!
I have had the same experience with corn-fed (and probably downer cow) beef. Eat it and immediately feel bloated and vaguely sick. Grass-fed local beef?
No problems – plus it tastes much better.
And Asthma! Everyone today has asthma!
Asthma, allergies, autism, ADHD…..not one kid I went to school with in the 70’s had any such thing. Now, try finding a classroom where at least 40% of the budding socialists aren’t afflicted with at least one- if not several- of the above.
They want us to believe that this came about naturally over the course of a few decades? That devolution occurs that fast? Yeah, right!
More like: Make everyone sick so that they need perpetual healthcare, and will thus always remain tied to the system and be advocates of “sooooooocialized meeeeedicine”.
And this isn’t even counting all of the diseases kids are now commonly getting due to lifestyle and diet. I see among the relatives with whom I don’t bother, their kids in their mid teens are obese, and have stuff ranging from pre-diabetes to heart disease. They’re having organs removed already. They’re in wretched health compared to my soon-to-be 93 year-old mother!
My grandparents came here from It-lee. 3 generations, and no one had any of these issues….but now, the 4th generation are all sickly. Between the vaccines, and eating fast food and sucking on huge cups of soda all day, and leading decadent lifestyles, is it any wonder?
I think that’s more due to the “just one life saved” reasoning more than an overall surge of allergies. In other words, they’re not going to take steps to avoid the source of their possible death, you have to inconvenience yourself instead. After all, it’s their life and you’re just going to go with out peanuts for this flight.
Doesn’t matter that the allergy sufferer could take antihistamines or be ready for a possible interaction. And because corporate America dreads one-off solutions, better to tackle the problem with a simple broad brush peanut ban instead of dealing with an exception once in a while.
Not to mention “ADHD” as well, Eric.
Speaking of the Amish: Here is a hilarious song by Weird Al Yankovich entitled Amish Paradise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOfZLb33uCg
The Power that be always will find the ways to kill us figuratively as well literally
Thomas Edison once said:
“Only 5% of the people really thinks, another 15% of people thinks that they are thinking, the rest will rather prefers to hang them self then to be obliged to think. ”
My comment: politicians ( Homo Politicus subspecies Parasiticus ) ( and their servants) are not part of human race of so called “Homo Sapience” , anyhow , whatsoever !
Therefore we have such a huge majority of sheeple who adore their servitude because they will rather die for others than to even try to be free.
The banality of authoritarianism is on display here. Look at Winch’s picture. He could be your neighbor next door, your uncle, your auto shop mechanic. Yet within him beats the heart of a meddling statist and witless fool.
Any rate, Merry Christmas to all.
When the Fit Hits The Shan, the Amish will be among the few who survive…and among the even fewer who thrive.
If the word “Amish” described a race of people rather than a religion: Then I would be a full blooded Amish man. Both of my parents grew up in old order Amish families, and left the religion upon reaching adulthood. “I” have never been Amish, but I have a great many relatives who are. My family moved away from them decades ago, so I make no claims about being up to date on their culture.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/15/amish-ten-things-you-need-to-know/14111249/
I do know that the Amish and the Mennonites have vastly different viewpoints amongst their many individual “churches” (they do not have church buildings. Fellowship practice travels from house to house). Some churches allow phones in the home. Some churches allow members to have a phone on the porch or in constructed phone booths. Some do not allow phones or computers except for at the business.
They do pay income tax. The reasons for their supposed ‘special treatment’ on some laws has do to with religious freedom. They are very obedient to government laws except for when said laws clash with their religion. They do not pay the social security tax because they never once applied for those benefits:
https://groups.etown.edu/amishstudies/social-organization/government/
The family and the church community continues to faithfully take care of their own sick and elderly people.
It is incorrect to say or imply that the Amish and the Mennonites have been living peacefully without government interference. A simple search for Amish arrests prove otherwise: https://www.qwant.com/?q=government+arrests+amish&client=qwantfirefox
Thanks for the clarifications, Brian!
An interesting aspect in re the Social Security thing: Many of us have also never once applied for those benefits – as adults capable of entering a valid legal contract. Our parents signed us up for a SS card. Mine did. If this binds me – legally or morally – then we certainly ought to be paying reparations to black people even though none of us actually owned a slave.
I fully support the Amish not being forced to pay SS. I merely object that I am forced to, in view of the fact that I would happily agree, even now, after decades of “contributing,” to forfeit any claim to any “benefits” whatsoever in return from being freed from having to “contribute” one more got-damned cent from this moment forward!
I agree Eric. The State, like usual, makes it nearly impossible to avoid its net. There is an opt out form available, but your odds of having it approved are extremely slim to none. You can read more about that and the Amish resistance to it here: https://dailyreckoning.com/opt-out-of-social-security/
The other way to “opt out” is to work a cash business, not pay it, and not apply for the so-called “benefits”. That’s been my method. (I’m well past the age when I could be collecting but I have an ethical problem with receiving stolen property. I much prefer the mindset that prevailed before the “New/Bad Deal” was forced on us, when people believed that worst thing in the world was to wind up on relief.)
Probably the best book on the history and practice of the fraudulent Socalist Insecurity System is “The Social Security Swindle” written decades ago by Irwin Schiff. It used to be available for purchase in ordinary shopping-mall type bookstores. The book is long out of print but there are PDF copies around. Constitution.org had it listed for the longest time but there’s an error when you try do access. I found a live copy here:
https://save-a-patriot.net/files/ss_swindle.pdf
Brian, I don’t know any Amish but know loads of Mennonites. I don’t think they can be compared. The Mennonites I know are generally on the cutting edge of technology. They also do such as (1) speak German on their cell phone, (2) turn to me and speak Spanish and when they see I’m only catching every 3rd word change to (3) an often stilted English. None of this affects how I feel about them simply because I admire them for being so independent(in most ways)and taking care of themselves, extended family included. Then again, on the Texas plains there are two sects of Mennonites with one female group wearing a drab green colored cloth that has some small symbol in a dark color I can’t identify and the other female group wearing a bright, blue cloth of obvious high quality that sticks itself to the women in the high plains wind in a fashion that leaves little to the imagination. I do prefer the blue over the green.
Hi 8SM, et al,
I had always assumed that the Mennonites were a splinter from the Amish, but it’s actually the other way around. The Amish split from the Mennonites because, it appears, the Mennonites would not adopt “shunning”. In any case, tons of misinformation exists. Both Mennonites and Amish originated from what is now the Netherlands and they spoke a variation of German/Deutsch, but were not German in origin. My own experience locally in eastern TN is that dealing with the Mennonites means that you are dealing with deeply religious people who are a joy to work with because they are honest and fair. And I tell them this every time we interact. I don’t care about their religion…they do not seek to impale me with their beliefs. My dealings with Amish are more at a distance simply because they don’t live near me. I have some pretty nice hand built chairs from an Amish shop in Ohio. But they operate through furniture stores and never interact directly with customers. I do know a guy who bought an Amish built house up in Clark Range, TN (middle of friggin nowhere) and it was very well built but no electricity nor any running water….this attempt to assert control over the Amish in Wisconsin marks a typically despicable act by some tin-horn, two-bit, no-account lowlife….in other words, your typical socialist asshole. Unfortunately, the Amish will likely take it because they have no political power, nor would most “Christians” support their cause against government control. And finally, I need to visit in your neck of the woods to see these shapely Mennonite babes for myself….
P.S. – Merry Christmas (not because I’m a big Christian, but rather to thumb my nose at the lefties who want to shit on everybodys’ choice of spiritual or non-spiritual expression). Or as they say in the old country, Buon Natale y Felice Capo d’anon
GC, you know more about it than me. I just like the way they live and do bidness. They’re straight up, as am I. I don’t try to think my way around something to gain advantage at another’s expense and as far as I can tell, neither do they.
I’ve never had a Mennonite bring up religion….which I consider a good thing.
I’m not a fan of any religion but it doesn’t mean I want anyone else to feel that way. I look forward to the day when everyone has an open mind….and heart.
I’m an old hippie/cowboy/trucker. I can get along with anyone who so desires the same of me. peace…b
The thing that is nice about the Amish too, is that unlike many “Christian” sects/churches, the Amish actually seem to think for themselves, and do what they do based on personal conviction- as opposed to say a JW, or a Mor
mon, who will consult a booklet or an authority figure in their organization when they encounter a circumstance or question which they have not been formerly instructed on.Even if ya don’t agree with someone, if they are doing what they do because they actually believe in the principle, and are doing what they do because of their belief, ya can at least respect that- as opposed to someone who is just conforming to what the group he belongs to dictates.
Morning, Nunz!
Lots of Mennonites in me area and I’ve found them to be pleasant, polite, MYOB people. I dig that. I wish more people were into MYOB…
Amen to that, Eric!
They mind their own bidness.
They’re honest.
They never cause trouble or commotion.
They’re self-sufficient.
They don’t try to use the system to control or rob you.
Only government employees and “progressives” can dislike ’em!
The sad thing is though, that when the more modern sects start entering into contracts with the goobermint- like when they sign up for their bidnesses to accept Food Stamps- they are taking on obligations, voluntarily, which nobody would be able to force upon had they not signed on the dotted line. This will come back to bite them. It puts them under regulatory authority from which they would otherwise be free.
The older order groups seem to understand this, and thus abstain from participating.
I wonder sometimes, Ready, if that Rumspringa thing isn’t more media BS, like everything else they tell us. Not that it doesn’t exist, but perhaps is limited to just a certain sect or two; or if what constitutes their “worldly pleasures” isn’t quite different from what the media makes it out to be.
I had a neighbor who was pretty tight with the Amish- used to lend them his mule team, etc. He never observed anything like that- or that they’d even have the opportunity to do things like that. They’d marry at a young age, and have adult responsibilities.
From what you read/hear in the media, they seem to concoct their stories from the perspective of “normal” teens who have the opportunity/lack of responsibilities/time to do such things, when in-fact, in the Amish world, they simply don’t. Heck, they wouldn’t even be able to get to a physical locale where they could do such things….and they’re certainly not having sex with/getting drugs from the locals, ’cause ya’d hear about it endlessly if it happened one time.
The Mennonites take the train. I see them all the time in Glenwood Springs, which is a good stopping point along the California Zephyr’s route. The train is subsided by tax dollars. We have to put a stop to those freeloaders! (obviously sarcasm)
The sad thing about this story is that it is the complete opposite of what Jefferson stood for. The idea of government was to keep the mob from destroying “the other” who chose to live their own way. To protect and uphold the rights of the people, not to stampede over them.
Meanwhile Uncle fritters away the hours attempting to justify ignoring the rights of some to uphold the privilege of others.
https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2017/12/tricky-mix
And yes, I see the irony of brining up this (non) issue.
Yeah, some of the sects are getting pretty “out there”. Some Mennonites even drive.
There’s a store in the town where I do my shopping, used to be owned by a nice liberty-minded guy whom I was friendly with. He sold it to some Amish. They have a phone; modern cash register, and…get this: A credit card/food stamp terminal- something which the former non-Amish owner didn’t even have!
They turned that store into a dump. I no longer shop there. (Plus, of course, now the welfare crowd goes there- whom they seem to cater to).
It’s getting to the point where some of the sects are doing things that WE wouldn’t even do! But ya can’t lump ’em all together. The old-style Amish actually moved out of the area to get away from these compromising ones.
Damn, the neighborhood’s going down….what with all these technology users. I’d be packing up for the boonies too.
A few years ago some guys broke down in their old 442 in Amish country. They met a couple brothers there who helped them out, drug it in with horses. Then the brothers rebuilt the 455 in it, in a wooden barn, just using hand tools. It struck a note with me. I didn’t begin using air power till the late 70’s when I got a good deal on a Craftsman compressor that has lived through environmental crud like floods and blowing sand so bad you can’t see the guy next to you. Seems like the older it is the better it is in regards to things like air compressors. It’s a two stage and so many these days are single stage which are ok as long as they last but will never achieve the 180 psi so many good compressors produce. My $.02.
8, I remember when I first moved here, hearing of someone who went to an auction in their fancy-pants Dodge dually 4×4- and while at the auction, it rained really hard and everything turned to mud…and the Dodge got stuck. Some Amish had to pull him out with their mule team.
The guy should’ve known better. Never drive anything that says “dodge” on the front and “ram” on the sides!
Nun, when I moved to the shinery I had to change my only 2 WD pickup for another 4WD. The only exception was the El Camino that, like other El Caminos that have been shinery vehicles, seem to not get stuck in sand.
I had a friend tell me what I needed was a dually with 4 in back. I promptly showed him how duallys split the front tire path so no rear tire ever rolls in the fronts footprint and how it doesn’t work out well. Just roll out into deep sand and see the results for yourself.
There was a reason that GM pickups worked out better and it was a combination of things. The front end is lighter because of reduced engine and transmission weight, the rear end is heavier because of a thicker bed steel and the result is a better balance front to rear which helps any vehicle in sand…..or mud…..or snow or ice.
There is plenty we could learn from the Amish. In many ways they are the closest to living the libertarian lifestyle then anyone. Are they perfect, no, not by a a long shot, but they don’t take more from society, then they largely put in.
Seems like a cycle every 20 years or so, they have to fiend off the busybodies. I imagine its getting harder and harder to fight it off, as there are more busybodies then ever.
There is a large Amish area to the east of me (northern Indiana). To be honest, when the Amish are in traffic accidents, they aren’t the cause of 99% of them. They are the most polite drivers, pulling to the side when they can to allow faster traffic to pass. They do have the most to lose, as a buggy is no match for a car. Some of the smarter areas have installed more places for them to pull to the side, something that should be everywhere, because slow motorists can use them too.
It’s getting to be a very common and frequent thing [persecuting the Amish].
‘Round here a few years back, they were really going after them for not having running water or indoor terlits in their schools. I forget how it came out…..have to look it up- but I think they actually had to curtail having formal schools, and start edumacating their kids in more informal, less detectable groups.
It boggles the mind, the idiotic things some bloated lesbian or ineffectual balding asshole can invent to persecute people who do no harm to anyone.
richb the problem with the slow motorists is that they do not under any circumstances, pull over to let faster and safer drivers get to where they need to go before several centuries have passed. I have seen slow pulloffs ignored by the slow powder puffs because well……………………..
Joeallen, if someone who’s driving faster than you gets on your tail, do you pull over at your first opportunity and let them by?
“Winch made a motion to vote on the ordinance Tuesday, but none of the other 18 members of the Wood County Board seconded his motion, and the issue died.”
http://www.wisconsinrapidstribune.com/story/news/2017/12/19/wood-county-residents-push-back-against-proposed-amish-buggy-rules/962753001/
It’s sad when someone who is in a position to help the public at large, realizes he has no dick, and must punish everyone else for his own insecurities and “short”comings. It’s called prick-waving and dick-measuring, and the women politicians do it too. They have too much of our money, too much free time, and nothing else better to do. If a culling is in order, it is not the deer, nor the Amish buggies that need it.
Crab in the bucket syndrome.
Rather than help one another escape the bucket, they will pull a brother crab back down to certain death, rather than see him escape.
That is a very good way to describe it.
The crabs have been in the pot so long, they now think that it’s their natural habitat.
I think we need to consider the hazards the Amish create on the road. I have an uncle in rural Michigan that has had several vehicle accidents with Amish buggies on two lane highways, one where he was almost killed when he ended up with a horse in his lap. Private roads might solve this sort of problem, but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. In the mean time, why should the Amish be allowed to create road hazards without any consequences?
And there you have it, exactly the point Eric was making.
Instead of emulating and congratulating them for refusing to comply, point to an anecdotal incident and demand they be dragged into the same tyranny all the rest of us suffer under.
Yeah, perish the thought that the car driver should actually drive in such a manner so as to anticpate other users of the roads on which he drives….
There are Amish where I live too….and also slow-moving tractors and tobacco wagons and errant bulls, etc. So when I drive, in any situation where sight may be limited *such as approaching hills or curves) I anticpate that there may well be something stationary….or close to it, in the road, and that if I’m doing 50MPH I wouldn’t have time to stop….
It’s always the attitude that “WE have the right” as if they are only “our roads”; that we are somehow superior because we drive cars, or because we comprise the majority.
What’s next? Shoot all of the deer, because they create a hazard when they jump across the road?
How come they don’t look at it from the other perspective? i.e. “What can WE do to ensure the safety of other road users?”- (That requires action on OUR part, and not imposing constraints on the other users). No….they never think of it THAT way…..
You get the same attitude when you ride a bicycle. People will risk their own life and those of strangers who may be coming the other way, to pass you on a narrow road as you plod up a hill at 5MPH, by going blindly into the oncoming lane to pass you….
It’s amazing. But they want the impetus to be on YOU to accommodate them….as if the roads belong solely to motor vehicles.
Well said, Nunzio!
I’ve had this argument with many self proclaimed libertarians over the years, whose viewpoint is that people should get out of the way and let them do what they want, as long as it doesn’t violate the NAP. In this view, the Amish need to stay out of their way as they blast around a blind turn, it’d be dangerous for the Amish to be on “their” roads. This is just another form of authoritarianism, but in this case, it’s selfish “me” versus the foreign “other” who somehow isn’t equal.
We’re all equal human beings in this world, which means we must look out for each other’s safety and rights, not just our own. The road belongs to the Amish as much as it belongs to drivers, and both have a duty not to harm the other. Yes, horse buggies are slow, so it’s on you in the faster, more maneuverable vehicle to get around them safely.
It’s this mindset which also leads to liberal and conservative authoritarianism, that somehow there is a “we” versus “them”, and “we” only look out for ourselves. It’s selfish.
Oh yeah! The roads belong solely to the 4 wheeler drivers! Or so some of them think! Just yesterday I was at an intersection behind some other cars waiting for a chance to make a right turn in downtown St. Louis. I was occupying 2 lanes because I was going have to really swing out and around in order to clear a utility pole and the curb. The light turned green and we all started rolling when 2 cars passed me and forced themselves in line ahead of me. I guess that trucks, buggies, and pedal bikes are mere obstacles to azzholes like that.
Brian, here’s one you can relate to. Evening before last one of our drivers pulled out to make a hard right turn that was made harder by electric company trucks occupying the right lane of the road he wanted to turn into. It’s right up from the RR 33 and US 87 intersection(wasn’t completed before your departure. The 87 traffic going N is funneled into a two lane access road with a solid stripe going do to just about the intersection he was trying to turn into.
This crazy bitch in a pickup came flying(this is a huge problem here since I’ve had countless of them actually vie for my spot and try to crowd me which is really stupid since my truck is not only huge compared to them but I’m running legal overloads to boot)across and somehow got into his inside and had to slam into a curb to avoid running into the side of his truck.
The DOT has a thing for our company, must know some local trucker who wants in on the action. He cited a previous accident months ago against our driver who stopped at a 4 way stop and was turning and got hit by a pickup that failed to stop. Our driver was cited because he was “changing lanes” as the DOT put it. I’d have told them in no uncertain terms I wasn’t changing lanes since he turned from one inside lane to another. But this is how they deal with truckers who are obeying traffic laws. Just how does a trucker become the “at fault” driver when he’s already negotiated a 4 way stop and some a-hole simply doesn’t stop at all? This is a bad thing but my boss has a lot of DPS friends and simply takes their assessment as if it were gold. He’s a born again statist so he gets what he deserves.
I was recently coming in to the yard with him in the pickup since my truck has no headlights and it was dark. We’re going SE on 176, the highway you love to hate, and he’s commenting he hates to say it but they need more DPS out there to “control” traffic. I said I didn’t need them as the day before a water truck hauler almost pulled out right in front of me just because he didn’t look. No DPS is gonna save me from that or the guy running a few days earlier in the dark amongst all ust truckers with his lights off on his pickup.
Just as he said this we come on a vehicle we could barely see in the blowing sand and nearly run it over……a fricking DOT type. He then turned into a private lease road. He wasn’t about making things safe, just wanting to collect revenue for speeders at the end of the day.
At least yesterday coming in we were the slowest things out there doing 75-80 because the DPS are waiting till late in the day to get holiday drinkers. Hope this holiday remains uneventful for you in your big rig. It ain’t easy sharing a road full of idiots. I simply stop at times and wait to see what idiot is going to do next so I won’t be part of it. It’s 10 or 15 seconds….or more, just so I’m not the “bad” trucker who ran over some fool…..or made them run into me. You wish you had the power to make them do something….but you don’t so defensive driving becomes a way of life for truckers.
Of course there are idiot truckers too but not nearly so many as the 4 wheeled variety. I got an object lesson by a belly dump driver early Thurs. morning when he turned across in front of me. He had no time and it was an idiot move. I had nowhere to go but lucked out as I locked up and slid and had a “no driving” zone I barely got around him into it, narrowly missing those big concrete dividers. I WILL see that sumbitch next week since I’ve seen him before. He’s going to get some “learning”.
your uncle seems to be the hazard on the road
I have never seen a Amish drive in a hazardous way. I would say it was your uncle who is the road hazard.
I have. A couple of teenage boys were buggy racing last summer. Narrow two lane tar road, and they were running side by side. After dark. No lights or reflectors. Wife and I almost had a head on with them. They aren’t any worse than any teenagers, though.
geo, reckon those Amish are just begging to have a wreck with a car? Or is your uncle a really bad and inconsiderate driver? Reckon that horse was trying to back him down, a horse vs a car in a game of road chicken? Do you really think the Amish are just being a-holes or is your uncle a very bad driver? He knows these people are out there just like I know certain idiot car drivers are going to be replete in some areas and make allowances for that. If I didn’t drive defensively, as EVERYONE should, I’d have been dead a long time ago or had a lot of 4 and 6 wheeled drivers dead by me. I haven’t killed anyone….yet…..and hope I die with this record intact. I haven’t killed a horse of any sort, much less the ones pulling a buggy and hope that remains the same through my life. I don’t pull onto a RR track and challenge the Northern Pacific either though I may have had the ROW. I’ve seen that big headlamp up close and personal and listened to boxcars hitting my big rig as I ran back the way I’d come hoping to avoid having it thrown over me like a driver did 2 weeks prior at that crossing. Should I have “held my ground”? I’m sure my widow would have been impressed with me not backing down.
that rant is from one narrow perspective. How’s about we go back a ways… back wo then the ONLY way to get about was a horse, or a team and buggy. The Amish fit right in with everyone else, right?
Then along came various creative sorts and figured out how to put a boiler and piston steam engine into the buggy. They couldn’t go much faster, or farther, but go they did, and without the hassle of the critters and their constant feeding and maintainance. Have the hired hand keep the woodbox full, no work for me. Then the gasoline engine began to supplant the steam, somewhere along in there the Studebaker Buggy Works fitted a bank of them lead batteries and a motor, and no smoke stink, fuel to burn, or any of that.
Later on, the “mine’s bigger/better/faster than yours? crowd began to make the motorcars ever faster. Dirt gave way ot graded gravel, then corduroy, then macadam, and later concrete. Now more speed was useful,, as travelling at eighty per on the dirt and mud could get, uhm, rather exciting at times. But the Amixh continued to make use of what they’d made use of for generations. WHO CHANGED? Right, it were the crowd with th motorcars.
All that in, now please tell me WHY the presently anachronistic automobile crowd have any authority to demand the others who have persisted in using the older functional tecnhology should yield to the faster ones? I learned the hard way that whenever I drive too fast to avoid hitting something in front of me, its ALL MY FAULT. So I learned, and continue to discipline yself, that I MUST always allow enough distance clear in front of me, whatever I’m doing and however fast Im doing it, to have enough room to stop no matter HOW stupid that guy in front of me is. If your life is under such pressure you can’t accomodate the slower ones i front of you, perhaps it is YOU who need to change something? I’ve spent time in Amish country in Ohio…. there is not a problem there. There had been util the government DID require that the buggies and traps carry red taillamps at night. At least give the motorists something to see in time to avoid it. Which leads to an amusing fact: in that area, many of the buggies and such have lead acid battery powered LED tail, turn, brake, and headlamps that are a rival to anything on the cars of five years ago. Some merely stopped by a bike shop and bought a couple of ten dollar AAA battery powered red flashing bike taillamps, the obnoxious kind that can easily be seen for nearly a mile.
Which makes me want to mention, during my time there I got an up close and personal look at one of the family buggies…. guy had eight kids, from little to strapping young men, the rig weighed only about 800 pounds, used lightweight plastic panelling, rigid, won’t rot, never needsd painting, is easily patchable, wooden frome (hardwood, well built), roller bearings at the wheels, hydraulic brakes and brakelamp, LED headlamps, sliding sidelights, a place for a small wood fired heater inside for the cold winters……
Unfortunately, Eric, things like this will not wake the sheeple up. In a saner time, it might have, but not today. I say this from persona observation. There are still some Amish around here where I live (Used to be a lot more, but many of ’em moved west.) and the attitude towards them expressed by people in local towns is un-freaking-believeable!
Instead of people realizing the degree of servitude to which they themselves are endentured, and wanting to break free of such, they instead take the opposite approach- that the Amish should have to be subject to the same tyranny to which they are subject to- since (as usual) “It is for our own good”, and because these statists can never picture themselves living independently from the collectivist state.
The state is their church and community. They don’t like- nay, can’t even conceive of, living like the Amish- so the amish are irrelevant to them- and they seem to be jealous of the Amish- not because the Amish are largely free; but because they imagine that the Amish are getting the same benefits from the state that they do, while avoiding paying the price (literally and figuratively) which they pay for those supposed “benefits”.
I remember a discussion on a local forum in which the majority opinion was that the Amish were getting away with murder by not having to pay road taxes, because they don’t buy gasoline nor have to register their vehicles (The thousands they pay in income and property taxes don’t count, I guess… : D )- completely oblivious to the fact that the Amish do not need our smooth-paved roads- only WE do, for our low-slung fancy cars- and that being forced to use these roads, along with speeding cars and trucks is actually detrimental and hazardous to the Amish….but they have no choice but to use them, and are even forced to pay for them.
So, it seems, that the average person has no empathy for the Amish, nor anyone else who chooses to live apart from the system and it’s tyranny. They don’t seem to notice nor care that the Amish’s teenagers aren’t out committing acts of vandalism, or using drugs or getting pregnant; or that a 16 year-old Amish guy is for all intents and purposes a man….while the average statist’s 25 year old is playing video games while living in mommy’s basement, and probably has a few illegitimate kids…..
I’m sure if you go the Topix forums for individual towns in the affected area in WI. you will see the attitude I describe being proclaimed by many if the subject is being discussed- with the prevailing sentiment being “Why shouldn’t they have to do the same things we’re required to do?!”, rather than “Why do WE have to do these things?!”. (The latter will virtually never be expressed!).
The average person today has been so indoctrinated with communistic ideals, that there is just no hope for them- all of the logic and reason and sense doesn’t matter- and if they have no inherent love of self-ownership; self-determinism and freedom, neither for themselves nor their offspring, they’ll only resent those who are free; not because the free are free while they’re not; but because they don’t value freedom, and think that all should be forced to abide by what “scientists” and politicians have determined to be right.
Apparently some of their kids get addicted to hard drugs during the rumspringa and their families and society aren’t able to cope with it. Then again, I found out about this problem years ago after seeing a documentary about it, so I have to imagine they’ve done something to teach their kids about drugs.
Not sure how much truth there is to these “Amish epidemic” stories are (I won’t bother linking to any of the sensationalist stories I read), but my inner conspiracy nut tells me they’re more planted than anything, in hopes of expanding the police state to these normally separate and peaceful societies. Or maybe Uncle is encouraging drug use among the youth in order to destroy their society too.
the whole rumspringa business seems to be an extremely rare thing in most Amish circles. ANything out of hollywood or media concerning it, I’d toss aside as in the same category as Saturday Night Live, or some disney fantasy thing. The Amizh I’ve met and known, and some who grew up that way and are now “out”, those sorts of things never hapened amongst them.
Your proposition that gummit meddling has been used in the attempt to dstroy these groups is the most likley explaiination. WHen one digs beneath the slick surface, seems our owners are amongst the biggest drug pushers on the planet… I mean, they have to do SOMETHING to justify spending all our trillions to fund the “war on drugs”, and to simultansouly find ready markets for all the opium our own CIA have been responsible for since they helped the Taliban commercialise its production and introcuded them to the world market for the stuff. How else they gonna supply the opium needed for all the prescroption pain meds and mind-bending otehr drugs that are so overprescribed?
Yep, Tionico. Can’t have a “War on Drugs” without drugs, just like ya can’t have a “War on Terror” without terror!
They’ve [The “tehy” being the propaganda-meisters] gone beyond Rumspringa now. I’ve even heard the term “Amish Mafia” bandied about in the last couple of years….
It’s hilarious.. they’d have you think that someone who thinks it’s immoral to paint their buggy blue, would have their daughter sleep with some guy to see how she likes it!
Yeah…. as if choosing a lifestyle can be done on the basis of how enjoyable a temporary pleasure is.