This message is from: " Dave McWethy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I have at times found the far reaches of political correctness a bit tiresome, but I guess it certainly depends on one's perspective. I see this in my reaction to an Amish joke, which bothers me in its grotesque misunderstanding of these people. In the past decade I have become friends with a number of Amish people, have eaten at their tables and stayed in their houses. I have found them characteristically kind, good humored, sensible, tolerant, humble, and engaged in a lifestyle that rejects the allure of Chevvies or Lexusses. They are deeply family and community oriented. Many are fond of their horses, and handle them skillfully. Some are not and treat them with an indifference similar to someone who doesn't change oil in cars. They live in a country that finds their lifestyle incomprehensible, a country which at times finds them cute and at others threateningly different. They live a very conscious lifestyle which I find in some ways attractive and in others not, sometimes makes sense and sometimes doesn't. The lifestyles of the rest of us probably come up similar on this test.Their own children, if it doesn't make sense to them, are free to choose not to be Amish, and from what I could see were not condemned for that.
I think of a friend whose little son broke his arm. They struggled their way through the medical system, and came out with both a decent fix and a huge bill. Now, a year later he's still working hard to pay off that bill. I think of a group of young girls in their cotton dresses giggling at their images in the side of a red Ford belonging to a visiting relative. I hear the story of a friend's friend, killed in her buggy by a car, leaving 5 young children. I think of a group of men at a house auction, shrewd, hardworking men, all dressed alike in blues and black, who were mostly there for the social event. All in all I think they are pretty cool people since they travel by horse and wagon! BTW I am not so much under their spell that I believe an Amish-trained horse is automatically attractive. It doesn't mean more to me than if one was trained by a Presbyterian. Some are good with horses, some aren't. I don't at all mean to direct this at whoever posted the joke (which I think I've seen posted about six times now,), but just to offer something about these people who deserve our tolerance, if not our respect.
