8-14-04

Why the Amish like President George W. Bush

Dear Editor,

One of the national newspapers last week carried the story and pictures of President George Bush’s campaign stop with thirty Amish people in Lancaster, Pa., and the lines of Amish folk standing along the roadside waving as the President passed. The report was on the Bush fever that has swept through Amish country. Local ex-Amish were being recruited for voter registration drives among the Amish. My question is what does a peace-loving, world shunning, non-automobile driving culture have to with supporting a war-time president? Why does the clash of cultures not preclude any opportunity for commonality?

I pondered not necessarily these questions, but other questions about life, last Sunday night sitting on the backless benches of an Amish young folk’s hymn signing. My brother and I were sitting, as visitors, on the back row of a young Amish couples basement, our backs up against the block wall. Surrounding us were sixty plus young people and some married couples, properly arraigned on sides by gender. To the hiss of gas lanterns and the deep booming under girding sounds of male bass voices in their acappela singing, I was swept with nostalgic memories of when the world was young and hope still sprang unbidden in the soul.

I thought of the values and the passions that prompt men and women to live like this in the 21^st. century, and I also found why they loved a President so far removed from what they themselves would consider acceptable.

They find in President Bush a man who chooses sides. Any Amish person knows that there are two sides to any issue, he just knows that there is one side he does not wish to be on. Almost daily this is driven home to him. If he is a farmer, he knows that there is rain, and that there is drought, and that both are not good at the same time. If he does construction he knows that there are many types of wood, but that a choice must be made on what is best. Daily he can look out upon a world that offers him many choices in lifestyle and modern changes, and he considers it his sacred duty to decide on right and wrong. To be neutral is anathema to his culture and eventual death to his lifestyle. He finds no sympathy in his heart or amusement for anyone who can see value in both sides of a point. In human relationships he allows it, but not in life choices. That is why he finds admiration in his heart for a President who makes hard choices, who refuses to remain on the side lines of a conflict, who feels like he himself does that it is better to choose and perhaps be wrong, then to fail to make any choice at all. Better clarity than the intellectual mush of the emotional middle.

They find in President Bush a man to whom things matter. Any Amish person has this lesson driven home to him on a regular basis. Things matter. Life is not just a drab gray while the world goes by. To him there are things left in life for which he is willing to die for. Not all things are quite that serious, but he is certainly willing to bear pain and suffering for what he cares for. He does not harness up his horse and buggy, while he could be driving a car, just for the fun of it, but because he thinks it matters. This is not just some vague feeling, but is translated daily into practical ways of expression. The women sew most of the clothes by hand, at the expense of considerable grief. That may look foolish to the rest of us, but it leaves him with an understanding that is then applied to more serious things in life. They find in President Bush a man, who like them cares about things, and does not just talk about doing them. It is not readily noticeable, but passion is embedded in the Amish culture. Passion is needed to maintain a lifestyle against the pressures of an opposing culture. They find in Bush someone who shares with them, not necessarily a passion for life, but a passion that things ought to matter.

They find in President Bush a man who has faith in people. The Amish culture works hard on making their community a safe place to live in. That means that they trust each other. Try to imagine what it would be like to be surrounded not just by your family, or even some extended friends, but by a whole community of maybe a hundred to a hundred and fifty people who you trust with input on your finances, your life choices, and your view of God. Add to that in some degree a trust that any Amish instinctively feels for any other Amish that he may meet as a stranger. You then have some idea of the cocoon of trust, which an Amish person is surrounded with. The parameters have been defined for him in which trust can happen. That is what is so missing in our culture at large. We do not know whom we can trust anymore. George Bush is a man, like the Amish, who supplies the nation with parameters in which he trusts us. If you have love for this country, for God, and for freedom, he may not agree with you, but he trusts you as an American. Bush even trusts, to some degree, the motives and intentions of John Kerry. If you watched “Amish in the City”, you may have noticed how the one Amish boy responded to the ocean upon seeing it for the first time. He trusted it, to the extent of being nearly drowned by wading in too fast and too far. I am sure many of us along with some of the Amish have become cynical by our near drownings in life. Yet they still look with favour on a man who like them has not given up on believing in people.

Lastly, I liked my wife’s explanation on why the Amish like George Bush. She said, “The Amish have good taste”. I hope America reelects a great president this November, reaffirming their taste for honour, decency, and for the things that matter.

Farmville

Jerry Eicher