Bob Barr

Amish Exhibit Model to Follow

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

October 18, 2006

Tragedies caused not by nature but by the hand of man are especially difficult to deal with.

Barbaric acts such as the schoolhouse shootings in the heart of peaceful Amish country in Pennsylvania two weeks ago, or the massive loss of life resulting from the acts of a handful of terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, truly test our faith in man and God. Yet the manner in which many responded to these two tragedies present two very different paradigms in how to deal with such calamities.

The Amish responded to the Nickel Mines school massacre in the same way they deal with other forms of adversity—quietly, maturely and responsibly. Unlike school shootings in other, more urban settings, the Amish community issued no clarion call for grief counselors to flood the area, hold their children’s hands and serve as surrogate parents, and then submit large hourly fee statements to the school system. The Amish counseled their own children in their own way, as they have done for generations—with prayer, parental love and sibling comfort.

The Amish, who do not believe in graven images but rather evince deep respect for simple structures and messages, constructed no makeshift shrines of the sort that crop up in other communities across America where tragedy strikes. No Mylar balloons imprinted with canned, commercial messages of faux grief were to be found; nor was there a run on pink teddy bears from the local Wal-Mart with which to create mounds of tacky toys as some bizarre expression of communal grief transference.

Unlike the embarrassing spectacle of government and business leaders in New York and Washington squabbling incessantly over what sort of “monument” to erect as a “permanent remembrance” of Sept. 11, the Amish simply razed the school building in which a lone, deranged gunman visited unspeakable horror on a group of innocent schoolgirls.

Apparently, the Amish elders gave no thought whatsoever to calling for a commission to conduct a feasible study of how best to create an appropriate edifice to recall and relive the tragedy of Oct. 2 for the entire nation. More importantly, perhaps, I suspect not one Amish citizen in that rural Pennsylvania community harbored a moment’s thought about how many taxpayer dollars could or should be earmarked for such a monument.

Before the rubble at ground zero had stopped smoldering after the Sept. 11 attacks, politicos from local, state and federal arenas fairly tripped over one another as they clamored for taxpayer dollars to “compensate” victims’ families. American taxpayers can only wish all those in positions to control the expenditure of tax dollars were as averse to employing those dollars to prove how compassionate they are, as are those publicity shy Amish men and women in Nickel Mines, Pa.

I also suspect there will be no subsequent reports of fraud emanating from Nickel Mines, such as we’ve come to expect in the aftermath of massive federal bailouts of such recent disasters as Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina.

While President Bush called a national “summit” to consider how communities might act to prevent future school violence such as has befallen far too many American schools in recent weeks, months and years, this was very much a “Washington thing,” and not something sought by or for those responsible for running the one-room Amish school in Pennsylvania Dutch country. Whatever “summits” the Amish elders might have convened to address the needs and concerns of their families in the wake of the school shooting were held in churches and private homes throughout their community.

No studies, no commissions, no rush to blame, no taxpayer dollars, no piles of dolls and balloons, no grief counselors, no monuments. Instead, reserved reflection steeped in private grief, public forgiveness and overarching reverence for continuing to live in what they view as God’s vision and image, are the hallmarks of the Amish response to a tragedy that would surely break the back of weaker communities.

Yet this is the way the Amish live, in good times and bad. Indeed, this is how American communities from New England to the Pacific Northwest used to deal with and draw strength from adversity. This is how America used to be before the advent of public policies that witness declarations of “natural disaster areas” even before the “disaster” itself has formed into a “disaster.”

This is how America used to be, in a far distant time, before the amount of “federal disaster relief” became the measure of responsibility for disaster response rather than the strength of individual and community character.

It’s how the Amish still are. Perhaps out of the Nickel Mines schoolhouse tragedy might spring the seed of a rebirth of that strength of character for the rest of the country.

Bob Barr occupies the 21st Century Liberties Chair for Freedom and Privacy at the American Conservative Union Foundation.