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Hi I'm Mike Barchetti. I love the unique and the strange. I am opinionated, and love to discuss things. Humor is the spice of life, because nothing is ever off limits. With that being said, I am a very sarcastic and vulgar person. Besides my love of discourse, storytelling is something that I live for, and whenever the two meet, I am in my element. I'm very outgoing, and like to meet new people, so give me a shout!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Meet the Amish (2012)

It is inevitable. The lavish way of life that we take for granted will end. Whether it be by nuclear holocaust, disease, economic collapse, alien invasion, or zombie apocalypse, our stock exchanging, Big Mac consuming, Call of Duty playing, Honey Boo Boo watching days will come to a close. In the post-apocalyptic world, a self-sufficient civilization is crucial. It would need to be a civilization that produces its own sustenance, its own clothes, and its own shelter. It would need to be a civilization that could thrive with the lack of electricity and technology. With all the death and chaos that would surely be ravaging the world, it would need to be a civilization with a strong moral and religious structure. And sure, those magical fireplaces that these people make would be nice too. Meet the Amish, champions of the future of mankind.

The Amish, Mennonites, Pennsylvania Dutch, crazy horse buggy hobos, or whatever name you give them are a peaceful God-fearing people. They reside in very small and isolated villages in the vast rural areas of Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, and Indiana. Their way of life is simple, meager, and mostly technology free. The Amish have an unemployment rate of zero, because everybody has a job and everyone works. They seem to find solace in manual labor. The culture of the Amish is one that places a heavy emphasis on family and religious values, as each member of the community is required to attend the weekly service, for fear of banishment (Like survivor, only real). Like living breathing time capsules, these villages often resemble colonial America more than modern times.

After the fall of man, it will undoubtedly be proven that slow and steady wins the race. A culture that has changed little in 300 years, of existence, may one day be the only and/or the most advanced culture around. They will already have farm with crops and livestock, not to mention that they would have access to water and the tools to cultivate and work those farms. With the inherit knowledge of manual labor that each Amish individual possesses, building new homes, and making clothes would be simple. Voila, a self-sufficient village where the only problem would be the closed gene pool.

We have all seen film set in post-apocalyptic times, and you know it's never about just obtaining the resources for survival, but it's also about protecting those resources for survival. In any post-apocalyptic situation there will always be bandits, raiders, marauders, diseased mutants, Mongolians, parasitic aliens, or zombies, and to survive you will need to be able to protect yourself. The Amish have that mastered, for underneath the simple, peaceful, and religious appearance lives a skilled and ruthless warrior. Each Amish individual is taken from birth and is trained in hand-to-hand combat with countless weapons. Their bodies are taken from the womb as soft clay, and are forged in the fires of Jakob Ammann (17th century Anabaptist leader and namesake of the Amish religion) into solid steel. The Amish are also masters of illusion and of sorcery (How else do you think they get those fireplaces to work?), and it is because of their cunning guile that they are able to conceal their true warrior identity underneath their innocent appearance.

Though the Amish have quietly mastered the art of war, it is their sorcery that they value the most, for until now they have successfully masked their true identity to the world. On the surface the Amish men and women are simple, peaceful, and innocent looking individuals. However it is this quality alone that always masks nature's most dangerous predators (i.e. poison dart frogs, dingoes, chimpanzees, polar bears, gas station burritos, etc.). Each Amish person is a master of illusion, and is able to conceal just about anything with a plain and meager appearance. They are also able to summon the spirit of Jakob Ammann in the form of a cleansing holy fire that will vanquish any enemy that may arrive at their doorstep.

Becoming an Amish warrior and/or sorcerer takes not only a rigorous training regiment put together by the Four Elders (Amish Elder Counsel probably located somewhere in Lancaster County, PA or something), but they also need a strict diet with only the finest organic foods. The actual farming techniques are held in very high regard, and to even learn their ways a person needs to be an established member of the village, for an extended period of time. The manuscript that contains the farming techniques that the Amish employ has been passed down for centuries, and was written by the founder of the Garden of Eden. The Amish grow nothing but the finest crops and raise nothing but the fattest cows. Like hair was to Sampson, the food of the Amish-men is the source of their mental and physical strength.

At the end of the civilized world, the Amish nation will look a lot like it does today. It is possible that they would remain untouched by the chaos of an ending era. It is possible that the Amish would be none the wiser that the civilized world even ended. With this in mind, I hope that they are accepting applications to become a member, because with the thought of having to survive the never-ending wastelands of a post-apocalyptic world haunts me, as it should you. Have you ever seen The Road with Viggo Mortensen or Book of Eli with Denzel Washington? I'll take some hard manual labor, and a baptism into the Anabaptist Church (The official religion of the Amish) over that any day of the week.

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