Been thinking about a lot of factors concerning them. While living in Missouri, a group of Amish from either Indiana or Ohio "spun off", moving to an area west of Salem, MO. I forget the name they go by, relatively unimportant. They consisted of perhaps 10 families, and gradually opened several types of businesses, based on what the Amish normally produce for themselves only. A bakery, open to the public, operated out of an old home, and a roof-truss design and construction business run by two brothers. Within a few years, those guys had established their operation as top-notch! Our neighbor drove all the way out to Licking, about 20 miles west of Salem, weekly, to buy Amish milk, as they did not Pasteurize or homogenize it. No point in the health concerns for now, but I wondered about the legal aspects. In northern Indiana, my wife born and raised there, a large contingency of true Amish live and flourish, centered around the towns of Nappanee and Shipshewana. They operate antique stores and several excellent restaurants, among others. Here is what I think I know about them. They keep to themselves as much as possible, commensurate with successfully operating publicly-accommodated businesses. They remain generation after generation within their own faith, nearly exclusively. They seem to have their own churches. They own farms, and raise as much of their own food as possible. In the store I mentioned elsewhere, in Sedalia, MO, they sell much produce and other food products directly related to their own farming operations. They are as a group, basically self-sufficient. Here's what I don't know, but seek to learn more about. Religious groups, Catholic, Protestant, Methodist, etc., are exempt from the obligation of paying taxes on their property, and their income, as they are considered no-income businesses. Poor way of saying it, maybe, but one factor which my Dad always resented. Comparatively, where do the Amish fit in? Must they pay property taxes on their farms? I suspect yes, though if that's so, it's hypocritical, is it not? How about income taxes, state and Federal? I do not recall whether they collected sales tax, in Sedalia, as some stuff offered for sale was not food, and thus taxable. That's yet another of my insufferable imponderables. Frank
"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's." Yes, the Amish pay taxes. Many Amish colonies do not maintain a church building but those that do will not even claim tax-exempt status on their church building, choosing to pay taxes on it. Self-employed Amish do not pay Social Security, and those who are employed by Amish employers are exempted from paying into the Social Security system, as they do not participate in it. Those who work for non-Amish employers do pay Social Security taxes, but they do not collect Social Security when eligible. Otherwise, the Amish pay property taxes, state and federal income taxes, county taxes, sales taxes, etc.
@Ken Anderson You stated the facts, and I am glad to learn them. Now, would you state what you personally think of them? Frank
As you said - they are as a group, basically self-sufficient - which gives me an impression that those group of people can be used as a model for self-sufficiency particularly in the rural areas. I'm tired of hearing people asking help from the government. Why not make your community self sufficient? I like that idea of doing things in a traditional way like what the Amish do with their milk. There is a farm here called Gawad Kalinga which is owned by a certain Tony Meloto. He is making his farm a model by being self-sufficient by earning from the farm products like milk and cheese, eggs and other food items. We have plans of visiting that farm but will have to wait because it is in a distant province.
I discussed more facts and offered some opinions in this post, as well. Briefly, it is very difficult to be Amish. It's a way of life as well as a religion, but I think it would be a nice way to live. Both their religion and their way of life makes more sense than most people on the outside might think. Often, we find ourselves bemoaning the fact that things are changing so much that our values are being left behind, or they don't seem to fit into the culture in which we live. That's not so much the case with the Amish.
When I was working on a road repair crew, we were sent to an Amish area to do some work. It was the summer of '88, a very hot, dry summer here. A buggy with a young Amish girl driving trotted by. Some minutes later, she came back by. Some of the guys waved at her. It wasn't too long, back she came. Then, our boss on the job says, "You guys without your shirts on, get 'em on, else she's gonna wear that horse out going back and forth like that".
Are Amish folks more happy, more happy than non-Amish folks? Are Amish communities growing in number or diminishing in number?
That's hard to judge because they would probably use a different scale of measurement. To outsiders (English), they often appear to be dour and somber, but those who I have gotten to know well enough to be invited into their homes, at least, seem content. The head of the Smyrna colony, who serves as the bishop, although I don't think he holds that title, seemed particularly grim when I first met him, but he turned out to have a very sharp sense of humor, albeit subtle, of the sort where you sometimes don't realize until later that he had been joking. His kids were joyfully working in the fields and it was clear from their interaction with their father that he was someone they respected, but had no need of fearing. They are growing, mostly from within. Lacking an outreach system, very few people join the Amish church who weren't raised to be Amish, but they have a lot of children and most of them become members of the church. Many of those who may move away rather than joining the church at adulthood later return.
A problem with our understanding of the Amish is that the Amish don't make movies about themselves, television shows, or podcasts, nor do they generally write books for the purpose of explaining themselves to others. Consequently, what information we get about the Amish is brought to us from outsiders, who may not have their facts right, and from those who have left the group, who obviously have reasons for having left. In other words, the only inside information we're getting is from those who have quit. While some of these accounts make what seems to be an honest attempt to portray the Amish objectively, we're not hearing from those who are Amish and happy to be Amish.
Amish, as a whole, don't believe in insurance policies. They believe that insuring your barn or house insults your friends and neighbors, that it shows you don't trust them to come to your aid when needed. A barn burns down and tomorrow morning there will be Amish farmers showing up at the bank all day saying, " Put a thousand dollars from my account into Yoder's." Next guy puts two thou in. Guy after that may be only able to put in five hundred, but he's jonny-on-the-spot with it. When Yoder's lumber gets in, everybody comes over for a barn raisin'. Yoder isn't expected to pay it back, but he is expected to line up at the bank when Siggenfus's barn gets hit by lightening the following year. It's the Amish way to help thy neighbor.
"Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar, give unto God the things that are Gods". My dad paid income tax, sales tax, and real property tax, however his furniture business he did not have to pay Social Security Tax, other than that I did not bother sticking my nose in his business practices. The Amish do not rely on the government to fund or support them in any way, that is the concern of their community to help each other in times of need. Every thing in Amish life revolves around community, unity of that community, there are severe consequences to those who do not abide by community standards, from what I can gather kind of like Jehovah's Witnesses
Store bought pasteurized homogenized milk is one of the three white poisons noted by doctors around 1944-1948 to have already caused a tremendous increase in disease they saw and measured in men coming into the military, then also noted in infants, babies, toddlers, little children, teens, and adults. This can be easily discovered by anyone doing a search online for white poisons. (in the food given babies and all people). There are usually legal ways to buy the healthy non-disease-causing milk from sources , but it is rarely if ever found in regular stores or outlets because of pernicious laws.