I live in the Midwest and have some Amish working on a remodel of my home, so I go to pick them up and drop them off each day. We've had a lot of time to talk. I don't have anything to go on besides the following (which isn't much, but its weird enough to question). The first being... I'm sure the DS hates the Amish, like they do all people groups that not only don't need them, but also that they cannot control nor brainwash. These people don't take vaccines but somehow manage to live an average of 85 years old. They are completely off the grid, or can be in a matter of minutes, and still survive with little inconvenience.
So, how would you rid the Amish from the earth? You need to disrupt/create chaos in their little world, as well as try to off them silently or without their knowing.
One thing the Amish do have are landline phones. In our area, they are not in the homes, but at the end of their property with some sort of answering machine/service. They do not usually directly answer their phone calls, only check for messages, but they will call back. This is how they communicate with other Amish as well as the occasional "English" (American). This Amish man was telling me that their community was having a horrible time with the phone companies. Their landlines were being switched off from time to time with horrible phone service, and he felt they were purposefully trying to get them to complain as when they did they were pressing the Amish to get cell phones. They told them they are going to be switching over to fiber optic. This is very troubling to them as fiber optic means continuously run electricity. They will use electricity to light their homes but its run off a gas fed generator outside their home, and only in use when its pitch black outside (like it is these days about 6:30am when I pick them up).
The other thing that I find interesting (and this may or may not be related, but I find it oddly interesting) is that there are 3 very large solar farms going up in our county and they are all in Amish country. Alliant Energy has a 30 year lease with the landowners (I don't believe any of the land owners are Amish). Why is this a big deal? Well, for one, we only have sunlight (I purposefully said SUNLIGHT, not daylight) for an average of 3 hours per day in the winter months here. Very odd place to put solar farms! Secondly, we have a lot of storms, potential for heavy snow for as long as 4 months, often have hail and even are prone to tornadoes... stupid place to put these panels considering it takes 5-15 years to get a return on your investment. The odds of damage are huge, in my opinion. Lastly, studies have shown the heavy metals in solar panels — namely lead and cadmium — can leach out of the cells and get into groundwater, as well as affect plants. These metals also have a record for detrimental effects on human health... which is why I theorize (like good conspiracy theorists do!) that they might have a bigger operation underway to get to the Amish than providing energy.
Thoughts? Do any of you live near the Amish and see/hear similar things? I could be way off but thought I'd share to find out what others are seeing.
It's sad. They are super nice, based people in general and very hard workers, very entrepreneurial as well. And I will say we do love living in our community in spite of the occasional issues.