LANCASTER COUNTY, PA – Off the main roads, where all you see are endless cornfields, farms, cows, horses and an occasional buggy, it's easy to forget the predatory culture that has eclipsed normal American life in most other places.
A peaceful spirit animates the countryside inhabited by the Amish, a growing sect in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Virginia, Maryland and more than two dozen other states. "English" visitors, which is what the Amish call everyone else, seem to sense that they should behave better. Casually profane language is as unthinkable here as it is in a cathedral.
Pennsylvania Dutch (Deutsch) country is about 90 miles from Washington, DC, but it seems like another planet and another time. Megan Thee Stallion? Drag Queen Story Hour? Disney's boneheaded plunge into sex fare for children? Bud Light's transgender "influencer"? An FBI raid on former President Trump's home? Hunter Biden's crack-fueled sex videos? Yup, all that's from another planet.
Visitors are advised to unplug and get with the local vibe, which hums with family life, hearty foods, whoopie pies and faith. The Amish have some unique customs, but their core is biblical Christianity. After a few days of being around their well-ordered communities, the news out of Washington seems about as relevant as a train wreck in Kazakhstan.
However, if you must, you can sneak a peek online to catch the latest Trump indictment. These absurd exercises in political persecution by Democrat prosecutors happen every few weeks. Like clockwork, they pop up the next day after a big story exposes more of the Biden family's vast empire of foreign influence peddling.
The Biden Scandal should go down as the greatest political scandal in American history. It began with the Russian collusion hoax against Donald Trump. It involves pressure by the CDC, the FBI and other federal agencies to censor dissent in media and social media. It also involves 51 national security experts deliberately dismissing the New York Post's scoop about the Hunter Biden laptop as "a Russian information operation."
Another part is the Justice Department ignoring the burgeoning Biden scandals while going after Mr. Trump and his former staff members and such perceived enemies as traditionalist Catholics, pro-life activists and parents who speak up at school board meetings.
Watergate was ultimately about the coverup of a politically inspired burglary. It was nowhere near the scope of corruption unfolding every day under the Biden banner. What about Teapot Dome, you might ask? Wasn't that huge?
Well, yes, but that scandal, which rocked the Warren Harding administration in the 1920s, was a run-of-the-mill domestic payoff scheme over oil leases in Wyoming. President Harding was never implicated, although he was faulted for choosing as Interior Secretary a man who turned out to be a crook. That was all about greed, not a growing totalitarianism that threatens our basic liberties.
The Biden Scandal does involve greed, of course. Payoffs in the millions have been uncovered in 20 shell accounts to 10 Biden family members from companies in Ukraine, Romania, Russia, Kazakhstan, and worst of all, Communist China. Several credible sources now place Joe Biden while he was vice president on Hunter's business calls even though he has flatly denied any knowledge whatsoever of his son's business dealings.
In a 2020 debate with President Trump, Mr. Biden accused Mr. Trump of making "money from China," adding, "He's the only one. Nobody else has made money from China." Yet, millions in Chinese cash had flowed to the Biden family, as even the Washington Post has finally acknowledged in a recent Fact Checker column.
Beyond mere greed, the scandal raises questions about unprecedented power grabs that threaten our self-governing republic. Refusing to defend our southern border while recruiting millions of illegal aliens for the Democrats' Free Stuff Army is one. Another is kneecapping America's fossil fuel and transportation industries while making America dependent on solar panels and battery components controlled by Communist China.
When the overworked electric grid goes down, we will be in deep trouble. We will not only have useless electric cars, but dark houses and dead computers. We'll have to turn to the Amish to teach us how to live.
Back in Pennsylvania, there's a lot to admire about the Amish, especially how they keep faith and family at the center of their communities. And we can look with awe at their ability to live without electricity and other modern necessities.
But their way of life is land-based and rural. It's not an option for the more than 80% of Americans (265 million) who live in urban and suburban areas.
For all their quaintness and quirks (like their clothing and shunning those who leave the church), the Amish approach life with a commonsense outlook about most things. If asked about America's current political and popular culture, they would shake their heads and say, "ab im kopp."
That's "crazy in the head" in Pennsylvania Deitsch.
This article appeared originally here.
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