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Originally Posted by shakran
You've never looked at a pedigree for a dog or cat have you?
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You never looked at the link I provided, have you? The effects of inbreeding in pets or humans are unpleasant.
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And that's my point. The Amish are CHOOSING to live a life that we view as suffering, but which they view as normal and in fact necessary if they want to get into heaven. I'm a proponent of freedom of choice, so as long as what the Amish are doing does not negatively effect me or the rest of non-Amish society, I'm not going to rag on them for it.
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Does your position here extend to positions on other issues as well? Setting aside the Amish, if the choices a group of people make have negative consequences on other people in that community that are without choice, as long as it doesn't affect you, you don't have a problem with it? That's fine if that's your position. It's different from my own. I'm just trying to understand.
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Idiotic examples that have plenty of parallels in other societies. Remember a couple of years ago when dads were leaving little kids to cook to death in the car all day? Guess that means regular American society has little regard for human life too.
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So, the example cited by superbelt is not representative of the Amish in the same way that a kid dying in a minivan is not representative of American society. This argument is dependent on both societies generally having respect for human life. If the evidence points to a lack of respect for human life (or women or children) among the Amish, then the argument doesn't work. A cultural lack of respect for life is not equivalent to an individual incident in a minivan (or vice versa). The only evidence I have seen, other than what I have cited above regarding inbreeding, is your claims that it is just a difference in clothing and Superbelt's claims that they take huge risks with their children (like having them climb into running threshers). I suspect the truth lies somewhere between. Regarding the misogyny/respect for children claims, I don't know enough about the Amish to judge.
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And he listed a bunch of arguments that basically amounted to "because they don't think like me"
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I do agree that the existence of annoying kids in a culture is not a good enough reason to wish the demise of that culture.
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So I was pointing out that wanting a society to die out OR change simply because they're not like your society is asinine, and was further pointing out that they're not as different from our society as he makes them out to be.
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I think that the comments about annoying kids detracts from the argument, but I do think that a stronger argument for change could be made from the inbreeding/misogyny position. I also think that the original argument for change was made from more than a "they're different from me" position.
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Nice try though. I'll give you that much.
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Do I get a cookie? Or maybe a gold star? An "A" for effort?