Shouldn’t social-service agencies be trying to encourage self-sufficiency rather than discourage it? One would think so--but one would be wrong.

An earlier post discussed California’s efforts to sign up illegal immigrants for food stamps, and Virginia’s efforts to impose dependency on working-class families. Courtesy of the lads at Say Anthing comes this insult atop the previous injuries: Ohio is trying to convince the Amish that they should start accepting food stamps. As the Cleveland Plain Dealer explains:

Accepting public assistance is verboten within the Amish culture. It simply is not done.

But Taylor is under orders to at least try to get them enrolled.

The Ohio Department of Job & Family Services is more concerned with food-stamp participation rates—meeting bureaucratic quotas, in other words—than with respecting the wishes of the Amish. Which lends yet more credence to the postulate that government programs eventually become focused chiefly on their own self-perpetuation. 

I,feeling like a traitor to my own beliefs, agree that trying to force help on a self-reliant people, against their religious beliefs, is going way too far and has to be strictly politically motivated. Somehow, I’m just not worried about them allowing their kids to go hungry out of false pride or any other reason. They have proven themselves much too organized and productive, quite capable of providing for themselves. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

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