Local FBI Warning In Pennsylvania! The FBI issued a warning, in a Lancaster County, Pennsylvania newspaper, that they suspect a terrorist may be hiding in the Amish community here. This photo provided the first clue that triggered the investigation: 
Posted on 10/27/2004 3:39:30 PM PDT by MadIvan
HIS horse and buggy safely tethered, straw hat perched on his head and plain dark suit brushed as neatly as his long beard, Dan Stoltz, an Amish builder, watched in quiet awe yesterday as his hero, George W. Bush, emerged from Air Force One to greet the roars of the crowd.
“We’re voting for Bush. We like his values,” Mr Stoltz declared. And as Mr Bush looked down to see not just baseball caps, but clusters of white bonnets, boaters and trademark beards, he knew beyond doubt that this year the Amish have hitched their buggies to his re-election bid and are coming out to vote.
Mr Bush landed in the heart of Pennsylvania’s Amish country, among its rolling fields and unmechanised farms, aware that if just a few thousand vote for him here and in the neighbouring battleground state of Ohio, this deeply conservative community that shuns modern life might just deliver him another four years in the White House.
Although pacifists, the 52,000 Amish in Pennsylvania, and 55,000 in Ohio, are natural Republicans, even more obsessed by cultural issues of abortion and gay marriage than matters of war and peace.
“An Amish vote is a Republican vote. And if we don’t vote, we pray Republican,” said Chet Beiler, a former Amish and now Republican activist who has been dropping off registration forms in Lancaster County’s Amish farms and shops. Already 2,000 have signed up and promised to ride their buggies to the polling booths on Tuesday.
Mr Beiler has been working with the Bush campaign, which has aggressively courted the Amish vote all year. Campaign workers are even offering to drive them to the polls. But reaching out to a community that does not watch television, drive cars or have telephones in their houses (some have answer phones in their barns), has not been easy. So on July 9, Mr Bush came to Lancaster for a private meeting with 30 Amish.
“They loved Bush,” Mr Beiler said. “He’s anti-abortion. He’s against gay marriage. He’s pro-faith. He’s plain spoken, as many of them tend to be. And we recognised that this year, the Amish are excited enough about President Bush to register in large numbers and in a swing state this close, it could make all the difference.”
Mr Bush usually campaigns in open-neck shirts, but yesterday he took to stage next to his wife, besuited and immaculate. Thirty yards away, Sam Stoltfus, 60, an Amish farmer who began the journey on his buggy to Lancaster’s airport at 4.30 am, looked on in delight.
“We are sort of swept up in Bush fever,” he said. “You could hold up a dead mouse with a sign ‘I love Bush’ and we’d still probably think twice about stomping that mouse underfoot.” In Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County, and Holmes County in Ohio, election boards have seen a surge in Amish names among those registering to vote.
“A lot will vote this year,” Donald Kraybill, an Amish expert at Elizabethtown College, in Pennsylvania, said. “I’m expecting about 20 per cent to turn out for Bush, or about 3,000 votes. And remember, because they don’t have telephones, they have been completely under the radar for the pollsters. If Ohio, particularly, is as close as Florida in 2000, they could make all the difference.
This is a very unusual year, and it’s very unusual to see all this activity.”
The Amish are not natural political animals. They are deeply reserved Christians, descendants of Swiss Germans who settled in Lancaster and Holmes Counties in the early 1700s as part of William Penn’s “holy experiment” in religious tolerance.
And not all are comfortable with voting. Many want to maintain their seclusion from modern life and are concerned that if their profile is raised, the privileges that let them maintain their way of life, including an exemption from paying taxes, will be threatened. Many elders are cautioning against getting involved in the election.
But when the Amish feel that their core values threatened — and they see John Kerry as a threat — they are willing to emerge from seclusion. They came out in large numbers in 1952 to vote for Dwight Eisenhower against the Unitarian Adlai Stevenson, and again in 1960 to vote against the Roman Catholic John F Kennedy. Mr Bush’s decision to invade Iraq also does not sit comfortably, but social issues trump everything.
“I don’t agree with war at all,” John Fisher, an Amish welder and father of seven in Lancaster, said. But he added that Mr Bush’s “focus on the family” will win his vote.
As President Bush roared into the autumn sky and on to a rally in Ohio, the Amish untethered their horses and slowly guided their buggies through the enormous post-rally traffic jam, and back to their farms. But next week, many will be back out again for their President.
A SIMPLE LIFE
# The Amish were founded by Jacob Amman in the late 17th century as a Mennonite splinter group. They left Europe for Pennsylvania in the early 1700s because of persecution
# A list of unwritten rules, the Ordnung, ensures that the Amish follow biblical injunctions to the letter
# Today three quarters of all Amish communities live in Indiana, Pennsylvania or Ohio.
The total population is more than 100,000, all living in the United States or Canada
# Traditional “Old Order” Amish object to the use of electricity and prefer horses and carts to cars. They use little technology
# Women wear dresses of one colour, a white apron, and black bonnets. The dresses have no buttons or fasteners other than pins
Not in Pennsylvania. I don't know about other Amish areas, but not in Pa. The price is usually lower, but the craftsmanship is questionable. Here they live off of a reputation that isn't necessarily true.
"They're excellent craftsmen too. "
Yes, excellent craftsmen/women, excellent work ethic! Pride in work BUMP!
Great furniture! They even do special orders. e.g. home office and entertainment center pieces.
I got a nice carved key rack and bread/onion/potato bin.
Practical stuff -- can't beat it.
I toured some of their factories last year this time with the National Tree Farm convention in Ohio. They have to have factories to make buggy parts -- but also make bent wood for chairs, etc.
The next time you are on this side of the pond, Ivan, you ought to go out to the Amish country in PA. The food is great and it's sooooooooo clean!!!!
BB
I've been more than pleased, which is more than I can say about any local contractor I've worked with. More than that, I'm not afraid of their being around my house, "casing" the joint.
One drawback: You do have to go get them and take them home. My wife does this, since I work away from the house, and they show no qualms about loading up in a minivan driven by a woman.
You be careful out among them english!
"Not in Pennsylvania"
There is prob. more commercialism in PA than most other places.
One store I like to go to when I am in MO has a sign on the counter: write down what you buy and put the money in the bowl.
Only place I ever saw something like that! Of course, mostly their trade is other Amish.
Sorry, I do not know what the Religious rules are for Amish. :-)
Local FBI Warning In Pennsylvania! The FBI issued a warning, in a Lancaster County, Pennsylvania newspaper, that they suspect a terrorist may be hiding in the Amish community here. This photo provided the first clue that triggered the investigation:
If the Amish like GW then I like him!!!!
Try near 100000 split in both states(50000 k each if I read the article correctly)
We hear a lot about the Amish in PA and OH, but there are a lot of them, and related folks, in Iowa. I wonder what's going on out there.
Ever hear of the Amana Villages?
"Bush is 'simple'. In the Amish sense"
I think the term is "plain." "Simple" is the Shakers, or Quakers.
This interests me. I grew up among Ohio Amish and I don't recall them voting at all. Obviously they do now, and good for all of us that they do.
Do the Amish have radios, tv sets or secular newspapers? They are what I call a people who base their vote on reality, the record, personality, and faith - not on biased blather. They no doubt read alot of books, and think for themselves, God love 'em.
Bush will probably lose the Amish vote after they see the "finger" video on their sattelite TV's.... ah, never mind... :)
Seeing these photos gives me a good feeling. I dont claim to know much about the Amish except things Ive seen or read but they can rest assured as long as there are people like W running things they can worship and live as they please.
Huh?
Eli Lapp: "You be careful out among the English, Book."
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