My friend Mike was talking about the Amish today after watching Devil's Playground. This reminded me of this article;
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=27&id=27349

Also, I have always been curious about the exacts of the Amish obligation to US taxes so I found this;
http://www.amishnews.com/amisharticles/amishss.htm

The Amish are probably the best example of a group of people living what they believe in the US, they are separists and somehow they get around(or try to get around) a lot of laws...such as this;

http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=17130

.... but I don't agree with people and their little daydream of simplicity. This is where I think about the outcome of Don't Buy New Stuff, intentional communities that return to simple things, grow your own food, make your own clothes, blah blah blah. There is such a snobbery in those circles, i'm jaded., like oh i made this pair of socks and i say to myself, nice, your such a douche bag...
There are a lot of problems with both the Amish and the Mennonites, first (again) this whole domination over the women, the rules the sexism, I have a hard time thinking that in our day that religion should suppress basic human rights and that it is their right to suppress women because there is freedom of religion...