Read on Twitter
Spent some time with my pops. He’s a smart man, well read self taught. We were talking about Menonites and Amish b/c ran into some in OR.
I don’t know much about them except what he told me. I believe most of what he says. Basically many people from The UK came to America for religious freedom. Dutch Amish being one. I gathered from this conversation a few things.
These people have had this land since the originals came here, so the land is essentially inherited. The only cost is maybe property taxes? From like the 1700s? They are self sufficient. No electricity, no gas, only thing they need is water they have that they also have a well
Or some sort of pump system made from wheels of some kind I would imagine. Essentially self sufficient. They have a ton of product they can barter or sell I guess— high quality craftsmanship. That’s maybe how they take care of paying the state.
They are pacifists so, they have religious exemption from any draft. If they wanted to, and they do, they could literally never leave their own mini society and be fully sustained.
So I started thinking about this only because being in the mountains with no reception and connection to this media hose, is my preferred state. I can’t marry into the Amish. But, I started thinking about how if the rest of us decided to just give up on America-
The Amish could not be as free as they are. Essentially, the rest of us who keep a stable society around them protect their lifestyle immensely. Without us it would not be able to survive in this day and age.
So in some ways, weird ways I circle back to this theme of America and freedom and liberty and unalienable rights and how this system we are holding together by the seams is still following through on the dreams of people over 200 years ago.
In some way we preserve and protect and allow for the most simple and basic freedoms behind massive infrastructure and world power. So interesting.