<p>The important thing is that the children were airlifted. If any of the Amish had tried to prevent that, and insist that they go by ambulance I might have a problem with it. But I can’t fault the parents-- in times like this I’d think they’d want to adhere MORE closely, if anything, to their belief systems. And they, like the teachers in the schoolhouse, probably had mere seconds to make their decision-- car or plane? It’s hard to judge anyone for decisions made under circumstances like that.</p>
<p>Irene, that’s exactly right and parallel to what I was saying about IF religious convictions got in the way of saving the life…and so yes, the children were airlifted. Had they not been, then THAT may have been an issue. What the parents did to adhere to their beliefs as far as going to be with their children, is not the same as any life threatening decisions due to beliefs.</p>
<p>FOr those who think I am off my rocker with regards to the Amish and the repsect for their “traditions”- here are some articles that will enlighten some:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2005/feature_labi_janfeb05.msp[/url]”>http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2005/feature_labi_janfeb05.msp</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.amishabuse.com/[/url]”>http://www.amishabuse.com/</a></p>
<p><a href=“Sex Abuse Case Shocks Amish Community - ABC News”>http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=189191&page=2</a>
<a href=“http://www.newsnet5.com/specialassignment/2342993/detail.html[/url]”>http://www.newsnet5.com/specialassignment/2342993/detail.html</a></p>
<p>Guess its is hard for me to understnad any faith whose usual response to sexual abuse by one of its own is shunning and who basically are outside the law…and who punish the victims…and get away with it because it is
taken care of in the community…why are relgious groups shielded from the law…</p>
<p>CGM, that is an interesting topic that you bring up (sorry I don’t have time now to open the links), but I don’t see how it has bearing on the topic of this thread. If someone is a victim of a crime, do we then look up their religious beliefs, actions of others from their religious group, and/or same with race? Who cares what others in their religion do? Who cares if even the victims hold certain beliefs unrelated to this incident? I see them as PEOPLE who were victimized and they were apparently not victimized due to being Amish but just happened to be a school nearby where this guy lived and maybe an easy target. He wasn’t targetting Amish people per se. I think the topics you bring up are unrelated and could be a thread themselves but take away from the topic at hand with these victims and this tragedy. Again, if my kids were victims, I would be appalled if someone then discussed people of my race or religion, or even religious beliefs I held, simply by the fact I belonged to said religion. It would have no bearing on the issue at hand.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Exactly who among us is numb to kids getting shot? Whatever gives you that idea?</p>
<p>I care because the Amish hide the child abuse and spousal abuse in their community and deal with it in a manner that I find repugnent, and we are to think all is peaceful and swell in the closed world of the Amish and that this horrid shooting destroyed that peace, when in fact, much is pretty ugly in that world, but hidden as best they can…and we never here much about the ugly because that world doesn’t have take to the laws of the rest of the US- to shun a child rapist as punishment? Not as is as it appears</p>
<p>to think that a tradition prevented me from getting to my dying child as quickly as possible, somehow it bothers me, but when it is expediate, they will take cabs for convience</p>
<p>A quote from the grandfather of a victim:</p>
<p>“We think it was God’s plan and we’re going to have to pick up the pieces and keep going,” he said. “A funeral to us is a much more important thing than the day of birth because we believe in the hereafter. The children are better off than their survivors.”</p>
<p>what that quote tells me is that life here is not as valued as life in the hereafter…</p>
<p>I agree with a lot of what you are saying, CityGirls’Mom, except for this:
That reminds me so much of the United 93 movie, when one of the passengers (Elizabeth?) was on the phone with her mother, crying. She said something about, “I know this is going to be worse for you than for me.”</p>
<p>Also reminds me of John Donne: “Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, may be so ill, as that he knowes not it tolls for him.”</p>
<p>Another interesting poem by John Donne:</p>
<p>THE FLEA.
by John Donne</p>
<p>MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas! is more than we would do.</p>
<p>O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we’re met,
And cloister’d in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.</p>
<p>Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck’d from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou
Find’st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.</p>
<p>{Aren’t we glad we have decent sanitation and pesticides? 
Here, dear; I love you. Have a flea that first bit me…}</p>
<p>I only wish they had caught him alive so I could enjoy his eventual execution.</p>
<p>Hmmm…socially repressive, backwards tradition, treats their women badly…</p>
<p>So the Amish are like the Taliban, except with shoofly pie?</p>
<p>Fundamentalists, or religious extremists, of any stripe, are a bunch of socially repressive whackjobs.</p>
<p>Doesn’t matter if they are Muslim, Mormons, Amish or Hassidim. And why is it always the women who are relegated to below second class citizens?</p>
<p>Apparently freedom is sometimes a bit hard to swallow, n’est ce pas?</p>
<p>There oughta be a law. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Okay, this is beyond offensive. The Amish do not impose their way of life on anyone else. they do not proselytize. They live their values in every facet of their lives. The don’t believe in war or revenge. They, in the midst of grief, extend their caring to the family of the perpetrator which caused that grief.</p>
<p>Five of their children are dead, and several more are gravely injured.</p>
<p>And someone feels it’s time to attack them???</p>
<p>That’s astounding in its callousness.</p>
<p>Well said, Garland.</p>
<p>My daughter spent 6 weeks in Lancaster County last summer working a show there and we visited twice. Garland, you said it perfectly. I was shocked to find that the Amish are treated with astounding callousness and (IMO) cruelty in the off-color items that are sold in “tourist” shops in the area that allude to or make fun of their way of life. These people only seek to live their lives as they believe they should…and they do not ask that anyone else do the same. This is not the time to attack them.</p>
<p>okay, if you found what I said callous, that is fine…I don’t care</p>
<p>when you have a community that shields it abusers as the Amish do, who cover up child and spousal abuse, who blame the VICTIMS often in those cases, who themselves report little to the police, who determine punishment for the offenders on thier own, and it is usually nothing more than shunning… I find that horrid</p>
<p>and these “practices” are part of the “tradition” of the Amish, to handle its problems on their own, without external interference</p>
<p>Would any other community that doesn’t report sexual assaults on children, who doesn’t report spousal beatings, who choose to handle those events through church elders internally, would any other group be allowed to get away with that? </p>
<p>When events happen, as awful as the are, the community in which they happened gets looked at, and for those that think the Amish are this ideal eden like community, well, one needs to look beyond the public image of coverings, walking in straight lines, the 8th grade (barely) education, the “traditions”</p>
<p>and practice of letting teens into the “world” for a year, not so clear cut, and the choice to go back is not much of a choice</p>
<p>And if you find it bad of me you bring this into the light of day, I do not applogize, when I learn that as a practice, a community covers up the hurting of anyone, especially women and children, who skirt the law in that regard, I feel the need to share</p>
<p>If that behavior is okay with you and you don’t want to know about, that is your choice, my choice is to not ignore what is coming out more and more, but to wonder why this kind of handling of abuse is allowed to be handled internally and why young girls are so afraid to say anything</p>
<p>and I can see it on this site, on this thread, no one wants to know what goes on behind the scenes of the “perfect” community of the Amish</p>
<p>CGM…I think discussing the beliefs of a certain religion or the behavior of some who belong to that group has no place in this context, sorry. It doesn’t mean it is not interesting or worth examining but it has nothing to do with this tragedy, in my view. It is picking up on what religion (could have been race) of the victims and analyzing that. I just find it distasteful in this context or the context of any crime with a victim. It has nothing to do with it.</p>
<p>CGM–to accuse me of not caring is also astounding, but not surprising, either.</p>
<p>To attack a person because of their religion when they are hurting has nothing to do with caring or not caring about abuse. It is callous.</p>
<p>It makes no more sense then to bring up abuse by some Catholic priests in the context of Catholic children being killed, or to bring up Muslim terrorists in the context of the death of a Muslim child. Any one of those refererences would be offensive. All religions have members who do not conform to the tenets of the religion or who distort what the religion really stands for.</p>
<p>Painting all members with the same brushstroke of condemnation is demeaning and discriminatory, and using this incident to do so is frankly, a little cruel.</p>
<p>it is not becuase of the RELIGION, it is the practices of a community, and I see the difference, do you?</p>
<p>As for context, well, all this talk about a peaceful, caring community being damaged because of this event, welll that community damges its own members</p>
<p>Cruel? Well, they aren’t allowed to read this website are they? They aren’t allowed to go to the authorities for help, for fear of getting shunned, are they? they aren’t given anything but a rudimentary education are they? Women are given no say in their community are they?</p>
<p>Yes, all religions have members who don’t follow the tenets of their faith…but as a social community, the Amish have a standard practice of resolving conflicts, etc internally, without the “interference” of the local authorities- and that include child sexual assualt, if that as a practice is okay with you, regardless of the religion of a people, fine…</p>
<p>If you so choose, look a little deeper into the “traditions” of this community, religion aside…and tell me, if these practices would be okay…</p>
<p>Religion is often used to oppress, and just because it looks just cute and quaint on the outside, does not mean all is fine on the inside</p>
<p>Yes, this event was tragic, but nothing in this world happens in a bubble…and timing is never perfect…and if it offends, well, I am okay with that</p>
<p>All this talk about peaceful, simple, life…you can’t talk about the effect this event had on a community and talk about the community as if all is just so great, and ignore the ugly they have done to themselves and their children</p>
<p>Don’t read the posts then, if it bothers you so much</p>
<p>Me, I am doing more research on the Amish and other communities that don’t educate their children, that make women second to men, that talk about choice, when there is basically none…</p>
<p>The children were in a school.</p>
<p>No force is applied to make women, or men, stay. They do have a choice, and some make the choice to leave.</p>
<p>Yes, you should read more, and not just inflammatory diatribes. I actually have read extensively on this life, which I admire but would not choose to live myself (at least not the gender roles, I aspire to the simplicity and nonviolence.)</p>