“Some years ago, I wrote a piece in praise of the Amish view of fighting in wars and how they conduct their affairs, mostly apart from the State. They don’t work for the government, and try to live their lives as far removed from the tangle of the state as one can do in this modern world. Now, this alone hardly makes them virtuous. I don’t believe that having electricity or an automobile makes me a lesser person or less virtuous than someone who uses kerosene lanterns and rides in horse-drawn buggies. Nonetheless, I do think there is something compelling about the Old-Order Amish, and I will say that they are not the people who are encouraging rapacious behavior abroad by U.S. armed forces. Nonetheless, it was not electricity or cars that corrupted the Amish; it was the easy-credit regime produced by Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, who are quite removed from the horse-and-buggy world of that corner of the mountains of Pennsylvania.” (07/03/09)