For me, the mask came off in 2004, when the Ohio Republican Party recruited the Amish to register and to vote against a pro-LGBT issue. I never saw so many homophobic yard signs go up overnight. E.g. “Save our children; defeat Issue #1” even though the issue had nothing to do with children. They’ve been political ever since, and not in a good way.
It’s worth mentioning that over-the-top animal cruelty was widespread in Western culture up until the late 1800s, and still exists in pockets. Things like tying cans to cats’ tails to watch them freak out, or beating dogs in the guise of training, not to mention factory farming.
Not a defense of animal cruelty, whether in rural Ohio or China, but I think sadly it’s a more common thing than most of us want to think about. Seems to be easy for humans to desensitize ourselves to cruelty.
Several Amish families bought property near my parents’ house when I was a teen, so I have known a few of them for a long time. The Amish people I know call themselves Dutch, and they call their non-Amish neighbors English.
My experience with them is that they are typical humans. Many are decent likeable people, some will cheat you in a business deal, and one guy turned out to be a murderer.
That’s certainly not a Happy Hoo from Hoo-ville.
< yikes >
[Moderating]
Back in the before times, in the long-long ago, when this thread was started, we were a little more laissez faire about threads titled “I really hate [religious group]”. Now that we’re in the distant future, with our hover boards and domestic robots, we prefer not to have this sort of thing, so I’m closing the thread.
No sanctions to anyone involved, particularly if they posted back when flint knapping was the new big thing.
[/Moderating]