I rant again...

Perhaps I should just get a therapist. Hopefully someone finds my annoyance intertaining... I got pretty worked up about this post of NAT last night and then saw people who agreed with me this morning. So now I don't really care that much.
Then I had to fix the dryer.
Then there was the garbage on the lawn. Stanley the large Great Dane/Aussie Shepherd hid in his doghouse. Stanley and my brother's dog Sam like to bring home unattended bags of garbage. I think the way it works is-Stanley rips the door off and then he and Sam share the bag in front of our house. I am not actually sure that it is just Stanley who does the door. Sam has aways been a garbage hound. Stanley is just bigger. Also, Stanley knows he is not supposed to do this. At first I put a lot of blame on him, but now I am not so sure. Who ever the culprit is... We know not to ever leave bags of garbage or bags of anything that smells good to a dog, outside over night. You can't really stop the habit if you can't catch them in the act... And if I ever do there will be some sore doggie bottoms in this neighborhood.
Wife and child picked up the garbage before the school bus got here.
Here is what annoyed me last night.... It is about Amish people and NAT posters. I'm not completely right nor am I completely wrong. I'm just ranting...

I wandered back over to the NewAgTalk forums this evening. There seem to be a lot of new people on there. More morons than there used to be. Someone posted some photos of Amish people harvesting corn. I found the comments to be offensive.
I'm wondering why it annoyed me so much. I am not Amish.
I replied to the draft dodging comment only to put my post in the wrong spot, so I ended up looking like an idiot. So I left. I don't like NAT so much anymore anyway.
I guess it that I've been reading to many internet posts by people who don't have a clue about people of faith, because they have no faith.
I think it is depressing that no one believes in anything that has any deeper meaning. NewAgTalk provides a pretty good cross section of armchair farmers so I suppose it is somewhat representative of modern America.
It is such a short step from apathy to antagonism. From people who are stupid and don't care to people are stupid, don't know it, and want to impose their stupidity on everyone else.
Now, I may not have all the stuff right about the Amish but this is how I understand it.
Amish people really do things the hard way. They do this because they decided to stop following popular culture way back in the social revolution of the post WW I years. The point is to live a separate and called out life. A life not caught up in the modern rat race. A contemplative life that is close to God. Amish people believe in taking the sermon on the mount quite literal. They do not fight back if attacked, they believe in humility, in helping those in need, and in turning the other cheek.
Of course they do have problems as they are human. Sure at times they end up with a legalistic religious belief. But, why can't we still admire them as people who practice their faith in the daily lives. Why not appreciate that they are first on the scene in every national disaster. That they forgave the psycho who shot up their school.
Why laugh at them because they don't farm half the county and own a giant John Deere 4wd.
When I wrote my little newspaper I defended farmers to the death. I was infatuated by the ideal of the noble and hardworking yeoman who was somehow a part of the earth that he farmed. I thought the whole Jeffersonian ideal of the landowner and his native common sense was still a part of the modern farm.
The more modern farmers I know the less I like them. The de-evoloution of the farming character is just a little ways behind big business, real estate agents, developers, and society in general. Instead of the occasional self serving jackass being the exception to the rule, the exception is the rule, and the far thinking, honest, person with a real belief system is far and few between.
I no longer see the heros of my youth. I think they are all nearly dead. I suppose that is progress.

As for the issue of the Amish being draft dodgers I find that pretty offensive. They attempt to live their faith every day. They did not dodge the draft, they did alternative service which did not involve killing people. Not every fellow in the Army is a front line soldier. Are clerks and typists and mechanics somehow not doing their part because they don't get shot at every day?
If more people lived like Amish do you think there would be so many wars?

Oh whatever...

It doesn't really matter. People don't like Amish for a lot of reasons. Some of the Amish do smell bad. Their slow moving stuff on the highway is annoying. They stick together, they marry to close to home, some of them are greedy and some of them are lazy. I guess you can find what every you want in a group.

I am amazed at the horse drawn technology. I do think that a person could make it as a horse farmer. It would require a lot of self disipine I think. Perhaps an outside job to get started. You could not borrow money. I'm not sure I have the horse sense to do it. I always wanted to try before my dad forgot everything he knew about horse farming. (They farmed with horses till the 1950's.)
Jose our Mexican worker farmed with horses in Mexico. I tried to get him interested in modern horse farming stuff but he wanted a tractor. Hmmm...