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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,

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Speaker 2: my name is Norman.

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Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with

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Speaker 3: our super producer Andrew trefors Howard. Most importantly, you are you.

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Speaker 3: You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't

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Speaker 3: want you to know. My fellow Americans, what do you

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Speaker 3: think of when you hear the word abbish?

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Speaker 4: Barack Obama, Barack Hussein Obama.

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Speaker 3: That was like maybe a third Barack at the beginning,

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Speaker 3: And then I just started, who.

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Speaker 4: Is cartoon Barack? And I'm here for it.

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Speaker 2: Wait somebody, it's somebody explain this. What does amish have

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Speaker 2: to do with Barack Obama?

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Speaker 3: Oh, it's just my fellow Americans, is a thing President say?

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Speaker 5: Oh, he's just opening the floor for questions in common?

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Speaker 5: You know, I'll tell you. There is this great documentary

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Speaker 5: called The Devil's Backbone that I remember from many years ago,

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Speaker 5: with an exclusively Aphex Twins soundtrack. It's got all this

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Speaker 5: stuff from like selected ambient Works Volume two.

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Speaker 4: It's very beautifully used. He's not a guy that licenses

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Speaker 4: at his music for stuff, and it's very well used.

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Speaker 5: It obviously describes the Amish practice of sort of allowing

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Speaker 5: young people to go out into the world and live

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Speaker 5: for I believe a year. Some of them come running back,

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Speaker 5: and some of them, you know, stay and become kind

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Speaker 5: of yeah, de amished.

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Speaker 3: I guess wait, wait, wait, Aphex Twin is one guy.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so's Tame and Paula bro It's crazy. Yeah, Richard D.

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Speaker 4: James is a fixed twin.

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Speaker 3: But wait, how many pilots are in twenty one pilots?

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Speaker 4: Only two? There's only two pilots, but really quickly.

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Speaker 5: This film is fascinating because a big thing that happens

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Speaker 5: with a lot of these kids who will go out

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Speaker 5: on this kind of like journey of self discovery is

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Speaker 5: some of them become they get absolutely taken in by

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Speaker 5: the corrupt the corruption of the world and become like

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Speaker 5: drug addicts, and there's all kinds of horrible things that happen,

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Speaker 5: and then some of them come back and live a pure,

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Speaker 5: you know, fully Amish life. It's very interesting phenomenon of

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Speaker 5: the Amish culture that they have this whole kind of

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Speaker 5: trial period called rum Springer.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 2: I was gonna say, guys, I have a very clear

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Speaker 2: picture of a film, also not a documentary, a movie

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Speaker 2: called Kingpin that came out in ninety six, all about

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Speaker 2: kind of that like being corrupted by the world. I

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Speaker 2: think it's Dennis No, Randy Quaid, Randy Quaid, I think

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Speaker 2: that's right. I think is Randy Amish, Yeah, yeah, and

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Speaker 2: amish like guy who doesn't know much about the world,

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Speaker 2: but he happens to be excellent in bowling and then

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Speaker 2: he gets taken in and he goes yeah, gets taken over.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a country mouse, meat city mouse kind

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Speaker 3: of true.

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Speaker 2: Yes, exactly exactly, but with bowling at the heart of it.

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Speaker 3: Jeez.

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Speaker 2: I remember really liking that movie and thinking like quoting

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Speaker 2: it a lot, but I don't know how well it

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Speaker 2: holds up. So sorry if you go back and watch

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Speaker 2: it now and there's problems, but I really liked it.

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Speaker 3: Well. You can hang out with us, folks. If ever

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Speaker 3: you find yourself in our grand city of Atlanta, be

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Speaker 3: you Amish or other, which will play into tonight's episode,

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Speaker 3: you can always hang out with your fellow conspiracy realist.

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Speaker 3: We will take you bowling. You will probably win because

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Speaker 3: I don't know about you, guys, but I am terrible

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Speaker 3: at that sport.

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Speaker 5: It's very difficult sport. I don't have the chops, I

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Speaker 5: don't have the form. If I ever am good at bullying,

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Speaker 5: it's the same way I'm good at darts, which is

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Speaker 5: accidentally good.

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Speaker 2: Guys, I spent a lot of time in Ohio.

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Speaker 4: I won't you know.

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Speaker 2: I won't like take your money on purpose, but I'm sorry.

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Speaker 4: Ohio huge.

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Speaker 3: Okay, okay, bully is huge. Matt's got that shark elbow.

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Speaker 4: I love it.

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Speaker 3: Welcome back, fellow conspiracy realist. As you may or may

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Speaker 3: not know, we have been on and off the road.

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Speaker 3: As a result, we had some microphone shenanigans. We wanted

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Speaker 3: to let you know you are not crazy. Uh, the

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Speaker 3: audio is a little different at the beginning. However, we

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Speaker 3: got everything in line with all prise due to our

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Speaker 3: super producer Andrew rifles Howard. And now on with the show. Now,

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Speaker 3: I'm not gonna get you into the personal bowling curse,

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Speaker 3: which is a story for another day. But we're we're

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Speaker 3: talking about what we hear, what the word amish conjures

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Speaker 3: in our minds. America as a continent or a series

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Speaker 3: of continents and a country is, as we all know,

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Speaker 3: far from perfect, but the idea is pretty fantastic. One

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Speaker 3: of the biggest wins that ever happened in the history

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Speaker 3: of the world was the United States idea of religious tolerance.

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Speaker 3: The US has always, in theory, guaranteed residents the right

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Speaker 3: to worship as they choose, so long as they don't

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Speaker 3: mess with other people. And Christianity Islam, Judaism, they're all

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Speaker 3: these people book right, abramac panopolies of interpretation, doctrinal difference.

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Speaker 3: I would argue Christianity is probably the most diverse umbrella

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Speaker 3: group of those three big concepts, and for the past

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Speaker 3: few millennia, since the time of Jesus Christ, guy who

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Speaker 3: is famously known for, you know, bread and fish and

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Speaker 3: being cool.

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Speaker 4: You know what, It's true.

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Speaker 5: There's a really great song with it's been called King

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Speaker 5: Missile called Jesus is way cool, and it's true.

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Speaker 4: And I don't enough people give him credit for that.

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Speaker 4: And I appreciate that.

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Speaker 3: Ben.

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Speaker 4: You always wanted to give credit where credit is due.

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Speaker 4: And Jesus was way cool.

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Speaker 3: Jesus was our big lebowski. I don't know why kingpen

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Speaker 3: is making me thinking of ye, that's for sure, he did.

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Speaker 3: The dude abides so like. For thousands of years, people

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Speaker 3: have been fighting about which interpretation of Christianity is woosh

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Speaker 3: woosh correct. In tonight's episode, we are examining a particular

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Speaker 3: group of Christian communities, largely in the United States. They're

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Speaker 3: known for their separation from the larger secular world and

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Speaker 3: surrounding neighborhoods. In the US, we usually call these communities

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Speaker 3: just the Amish, but as we'll discover, they are not

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Speaker 3: a monolith, and there is unfortunately a positively unholy intergenerational

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Speaker 3: conspiracy afoot in some of these places that don't really

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Speaker 3: meet with the modern world. I guess before we close

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Speaker 3: our cold open, we do have to give you a disclaimer.

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Speaker 3: Tonight's episode contains at times graphic descriptions of assault, incest,

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Speaker 3: and violence. As such, it may not be appropriate for

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Speaker 3: all listeners. Here are the facts, all right? What do

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Speaker 3: we mean though when we say Amish? Aside from the documentaries,

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Speaker 3: Aside from one weird out Yankovic song, who are the Amish?

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Speaker 5: Well, in the US, the term amish kind of as

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Speaker 5: you mentioned, Beny who kind of tend to conjure a

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Speaker 5: particular representation of what this might mean.

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Speaker 4: Some of that might be accurate, and some of that

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Speaker 4: might be wildly off the mark.

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Speaker 5: But let's just start with maybe sort of the image

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Speaker 5: that might be popping into one's head.

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Speaker 4: The idea of a.

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Speaker 5: Particular type of garb, you know, dark suits and broad

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Speaker 5: brimmed hats, a bit more of a conservative kind of

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Speaker 5: form of dress. The idea of farming horse drawn wagons.

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Speaker 5: Probably thinking a bit of Middle America, you know, Pennsylvania

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Speaker 5: is a big area for Amish communities today. These communities

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Speaker 5: are often considered to be a bit of a mystery

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Speaker 5: within our kind of more modern American life, and that's

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Speaker 5: by design. Are a people frozen in time, essentially by

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Speaker 5: their own choice. The Amish live by choice without modern

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Speaker 5: modes of transportation like automobiles or even electricity. If I'm

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Speaker 5: not mistaken, Some of these communities may you know, still

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Speaker 5: use outhouses and maybe you have like a well or

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Speaker 5: a pump, but not like indoor plumbing. And this is

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Speaker 5: all in an attempt to live in a way that

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Speaker 5: is more godly, that in a way that is more

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Speaker 5: close to maybe the simpler times where people weren't as

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Speaker 5: distracted by all kinds of you know, modern trappings like

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Speaker 5: money and entertainment and all the kind of things that

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Speaker 5: can lead to let's just be honest, guys, it can

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Speaker 5: lead to the erosion of the soul.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I would I would say one of the primary

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Speaker 2: things about this group is the concept of removing yourself

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Speaker 2: from anything that will make you less close to God, right, yes,

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Speaker 2: less close to being an example of like for the

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Speaker 2: world essentially of what Jesus' teachings were, or what the

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Speaker 2: Bible's teachings were.

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Speaker 3: From the bishop to the child, you live in service

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Speaker 3: of a higher power.

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Speaker 5: And maybe just to get it out of the way

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Speaker 5: up front, because we are going to talk about some

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Speaker 5: horrible things that happen within these communities at times.

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Speaker 4: But on paper, I think we would all love to

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Speaker 4: be able to.

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Speaker 5: Remove ourselves from some of the stuff that we've gotten

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Speaker 5: so deeply invested in and embedded in, you know, from social.

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Speaker 4: Media to politics to whatever.

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Speaker 5: I mean, there are these are things that can just

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Speaker 5: really make you go a little crazy and kind of

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Speaker 5: not be your truest, purest self.

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Speaker 3: And a good side note there, and I love that point, Noel,

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Speaker 3: there are these things called blue zones. There are only

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Speaker 3: a few throughout the entire globe, and a blue zone

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Speaker 3: is a place where an extraordinaryunt of people live past

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Speaker 3: one hundred years old. And one of the formative variables

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Speaker 3: for a blue zone is an intense connection with community.

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Speaker 3: Community is one of the earliest, if not the earliest

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Speaker 3: human technology. It predates language right and it has very

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Speaker 3: real effects for good or for ill. The point about

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Speaker 3: an Amish community, or a Mennonite or an Old Order

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Speaker 3: Amish community, or a plain community as they're called. The

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Speaker 3: point of it is to avoid things that distract one

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Speaker 3: in theory from the pursuit of the service of God

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Speaker 3: a higher power. As such, education is considered only a

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Speaker 3: means to an end. It concludes around what we would

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Speaker 3: call eighth grade in the United States. In your life

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Speaker 3: largely centers on the growth and maintenance of your community,

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Speaker 3: which includes farming and includes participation in religious and social mores.

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Speaker 3: When you hear law enforcement secular law enforcement, you'll often

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Speaker 3: hear them refer to the Amish as a plane community

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Speaker 3: p lai n. But the history is fascinating too, because

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Speaker 3: the story of what we call Amish in the United

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Speaker 3: States begins before the creation of the United States as

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Speaker 3: an idea itself.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and you can go The Anabaptist movement, which

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Speaker 2: is part of basically the Protestant Reformation, goes way back.

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Speaker 2: I think sixteenth century is when some of the concepts

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Speaker 2: begin to arise, and then you get the Mennonites, which

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Speaker 2: then splinter off into a couple different groups, which then

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Speaker 2: become the Amish. The Amish is one of the splits

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Speaker 2: basically that occurs.

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Speaker 5: It's interesting too, because you know where I grew up

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Speaker 5: in Augusta, Georgia, there's quite a large Mennonite community, and

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Speaker 5: I always associated them directly with the Amish. And while

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Speaker 5: they have the commonalities, it's not the same. They were

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Speaker 5: like part of a group that splintered and then became

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Speaker 5: the Amish. They might share some beliefs and some lifestyle choices,

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Speaker 5: but they are not the same am I Is that

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Speaker 5: about the shape of it. The Amish are an offshoot

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Speaker 5: of the Mennonites, and the Mennonites are still around in

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Speaker 5: their own capacity.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. Going back. As as

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Speaker 3: Matt said to Anabaptist, the schism between the Protestants and

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Speaker 3: the Catholics we got a shout out reluctantly. A guy

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Speaker 3: named Jacob Ahmann amm a n He is an elder

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Speaker 3: in the Mennonite Anabaptist movement, born around like the late

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Speaker 3: seventeenth century sixteen nineties. He said that lying about anything

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Speaker 3: is grounds for ex communication, and the Mennonites at the

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Speaker 3: time had a different vibe on what was meant by

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Speaker 3: ex communication. We'll get into it, but essentially they meant shunning.

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Speaker 3: If your community is your most important thing, then the

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Speaker 3: way you punish people who violate your social morase is

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Speaker 3: to remove them from that community, to remove them from communication,

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Speaker 3: to put a fine point on it, to x communicate them. Also,

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Speaker 3: this guy wanted everybody to wear similar clothing, wanted them

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Speaker 3: to have similar facial hair, and wanted them to not

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Speaker 3: ever mess with the state church. Be that in Germany,

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Speaker 3: be that in parts of France, be that in Switzerland.

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Speaker 3: The term amish, I don't think a lot of us

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Speaker 3: know this. The term amish was first used in the

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Speaker 3: early eighteenth century. In seventeen ten as an insult and Noel,

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Speaker 3: we're gonna defer to you as our former What do

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Speaker 3: you say, we German boy?

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Speaker 5: I always what's a small German boy. Yes, it's true,

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Speaker 5: and I'm no experts. My German knowledge remains at a

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Speaker 5: kindergarten level. But I did come by it honestly, the

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Speaker 5: word being shandanama, which is an insult. It's sort of

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Speaker 5: like your ops, you know, but a shanda though. I

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Speaker 5: was just gonna mention this is literally an observation. I

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Speaker 5: don't necessarily have too much data to back this up,

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Speaker 5: but the Amish and the Hasidic Jewish community have some

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Speaker 5: things in common in terms of their use of kind

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Speaker 5: of this Yiddish type slang or this sort of German

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Speaker 5: you know, kind of these German German sort of slang,

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Speaker 5: but also in the dress, I mean, the beard and

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Speaker 5: the hats, and like the clothing and the simplicity. And

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Speaker 5: I know they're they're coming at it from different places,

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Speaker 5: but it does seem like there's a similar approach to

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Speaker 5: being more godly by simplifying one's life and by.

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Speaker 3: Excluding secular community exactly very them versus us. Yeah, and

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Speaker 3: we say that as a show several of us have

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Speaker 3: Jewish heritage. And I love that you're bringing this up, Noll,

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Speaker 3: because you can also see similar insular religious pursuits. Sure,

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Speaker 3: for anybody unfamiliar with Judaism as a whole. There are

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Speaker 3: branches of Judaism, orthodox Judaism that would not interact necessarily

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Speaker 3: or not go out of their way to interact with

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Speaker 3: people you might consider reformed, right, Reform Judaism is very different.

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Speaker 3: And I'm only laughing because there were this great bit

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Speaker 3: Billy Crystal did. Do you guys remember Billy Crystal? Of course, yeah,

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Speaker 3: from earlier. You could forget Billy Crystal from earlier. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: City Slickers, Stone Cold Classic up there with vibes Curley's goal.

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Speaker 3: Oh yes, thank you for mentioning vibes. Man, I appreciate that.

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Speaker 5: But yes, shanda nama is just a you know, a

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Speaker 5: German word for an insult. So the term Amish initially

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Speaker 5: was a term of abuse referring to folks who were

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Speaker 5: opponents of Aman.

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Speaker 3: Yes of Jacob, and these groups, as you describe them,

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Speaker 3: these kind of spinoffs or these franchises of this original schism,

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Speaker 3: they start migrating to what we call modern day Pennsylvania

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Speaker 3: in the early seventeen hundreds, and they come entirely because

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Speaker 3: of two reasons. Religious tolerance, which was still a freshly

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Speaker 3: baked thing, and affordable offers on land. Between seventeen seventeen

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Speaker 3: and seventeen fifty, about five hundred Homish people migrated to

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Speaker 3: North America, and I believe they first went to Burks County, Pennsylvania,

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Speaker 3: but then they had to relocate due to land disputes

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Speaker 3: and the chaos of something called the French and Indian War,

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Speaker 3: which is a weird name. And by the way, Native

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Speaker 3: Americans and the French do not call it the French

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Speaker 3: in Indian War.

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Speaker 5: No, it's the one that kind of stuck. But I've

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Speaker 5: always found it a little perplexing. There are other related

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Speaker 5: groups that immigrated in the eighteen hundreds to places like Ohio, Illinois,

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Speaker 5: and Iowa, as well as more northern regions including the

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Speaker 5: southern parts of Ontario in Canada.

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Speaker 4: A little later you would.

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Speaker 5: See communities started to spring forth in Kansas, Maine, Zira, Wisconsin, Minnesota,

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Speaker 5: and even as far south as North Carolina.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and still to the earlier point, these communities are

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Speaker 3: incredibly insular. Interaction with the outside world is highly regulated.

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Speaker 3: Matt Nol We were talking about this with Trifors a

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Speaker 3: little bit before we we rolled. We were we were

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Speaker 3: thinking through our own personal experiences with these communities, Matt,

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Speaker 3: what's the what's the outsider word? What do they call it?

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Speaker 3: Not the Dutch, but they call us.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I believe the term often is English. So if

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Speaker 2: somebody who is more in the mainstream of society, there's

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Speaker 2: a generalized term that's used. Like let's say you have

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Speaker 2: a neighbor that has a home and does not live

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Speaker 2: in a Mennonite or Amish lifestyle. Often that person be

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Speaker 2: referred to as my English neighbor.

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Speaker 5: Yes, like guys, A lot of that terminology does come

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Speaker 5: up in that documentary that I was talking about, The

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Speaker 5: Devil's Backbone. So it really is a great view because

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Speaker 5: there's parts of it that are completely set within the

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Speaker 5: communities themselves, and then they follow the individuals they go out,

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Speaker 5: you know, and their kind of adolescent journey into the

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Speaker 5: wicked world.

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Speaker 3: And people are people. So just to be clear, I

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Speaker 3: think we can all agree your Amish neighbors are not

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Speaker 3: hauling you a jerk. They're not mad at you.

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Speaker 4: No, it's like being a gentile.

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Speaker 3: Right, yeah, it's just following a different path, right. No

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Speaker 3: one's going to be rude to you, or.

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Speaker 4: They might not let their daughters date your son though,

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Speaker 4: I mean.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to make just one really quick point

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Speaker 2: here about as we're migrating, we're imagining all of these

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Speaker 2: different groups moving to different parts of the United States.

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Speaker 2: One of the things that separates a lot of these

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Speaker 2: faiths is that there's not some big central church. There's

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Speaker 2: not a Vatican necessarily in most instances. Here some you know,

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Speaker 2: there is a Mennonite church there. There isn't like a

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Speaker 2: form of Amish church if you really start to break

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Speaker 2: down the different you know, offshoots. But often when you've

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Speaker 2: got a group of families, let's say, moving out to Maine,

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Speaker 2: you're going to have twenty forty families that move out together,

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Speaker 2: and then that group of human beings becomes like the

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Speaker 2: Mennonite church that's there, or the Amish church community that's right, right,

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Speaker 2: and so they govern things on their own. Everything is insular,

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Speaker 2: as we're saying.

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Speaker 3: Here, every centralized, right, Yes, So.

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Speaker 2: There's not there's not some other big organization that they're

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Speaker 2: writing to or getting phone calls from, and all that kind.

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Speaker 3: Of stuff is just there's no pope.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we handle our stuff here, yes.

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Speaker 3: And the which means that your end municipal authority, your mayor,

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Speaker 3: your president, your pope will be someone called the bishop,

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Speaker 3: and there is a strict hierarchy involved. Women and children,

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Speaker 3: by the way, are at the bottom of that hierarchy.

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Speaker 3: These communities. I love this point, Matt. These communities see

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Speaker 3: such regulation in interaction with the English or the outside

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Speaker 3: secular world that violating the terms of that outside interaction

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Speaker 3: is seen as sinful. It can be seen as a

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Speaker 3: mortal sin, like if you betray a member of the

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Speaker 3: community to the authorities, even when there is just cause,

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Speaker 3: you are endangering your chance to get into paradise or

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Speaker 3: the good part of the afterlife. I mean today, the

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Speaker 3: historic Amish community is itself diverse an interpretation of doctrine

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Speaker 3: which I think goes to that earlier point about decentralization.

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Speaker 3: It still holds to many of the precepts that mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 3: created or discovered or realized by our pal Jacob back

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Speaker 3: in the day. One of the biggest cultural touchstones is

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Speaker 3: the concept of something we call ordnung, which is a

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Speaker 3: codecs of unwritten laws of behavior. There are in these communities,

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Speaker 3: again decentralized, there are written versions of this behavior, and

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Speaker 3: those written versions are called the ordinal. They guide all

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Speaker 3: behavior for all members of the community and this is

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Speaker 3: up to the interpretation of the elders and the bishop.

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Speaker 3: The bishop is the top dog again, the mayor, the president,

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Speaker 3: the pope, the comptroller, that guy is the guy in charge.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Ordnung's just another German.

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Speaker 5: I mean, I guess there's the Dutch heritage, and there

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Speaker 5: are some commonalities between Dutch and German. But it is

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Speaker 5: interesting how many German like straight up German words they

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Speaker 5: use to describe some of their concepts. Or um just

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Speaker 5: refers to like order and kind of like finding a

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Speaker 5: routine and sort of like an organized way of life.

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Speaker 4: Which the Germans are also quite fond of.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Man Germany is the one place I almost

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Speaker 3: got arrested for jaywalking at three in the morning local

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Speaker 3: time because there are rules.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, bro, there's rules around here.

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Speaker 3: There's rules.

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Speaker 2: Speaking of rules, let's talk about that thing we were.

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Speaker 3: Gonna mention earlier, my dunge shunning, shut.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, shunning, excommunication, all that stuff. So this internal behavioral

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Speaker 2: mechanism that exists, it is. It varies, let's say, from

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Speaker 2: sect to sect, but one of the very one of

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Speaker 2: the very common things that you'll find in these groups

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Speaker 2: is the practice of going up in front of the

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Speaker 2: church and professing your sins or your crimes, like literal,

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Speaker 2: actual terrible crimes, and you go up in front of

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Speaker 2: the by the church, I just mean the other members

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Speaker 2: of your community, and you say the stuff out loud.

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Speaker 2: Then you are not allowed to eat with anybody. And

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Speaker 2: the time here varies, but usually it's like six weeks

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Speaker 2: where you can't go and eat communally with anybody. You

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Speaker 2: have to stay away on your own. And the belief

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Speaker 2: or maybe the order to it is that the rest

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Speaker 2: of the community after those six weeks or however much

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Speaker 2: time has passed, they everybody forgives you and is supposed

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Speaker 2: to forget that you ever committed said crime or sin

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Speaker 2: or whatever it is, and everybody just moves on and

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Speaker 2: you rejoin the community.

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Speaker 3: It's in the past.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a magic trick.

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Speaker 2: You're absolved, which could be an incredible thing if it

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Speaker 2: was something like, you know, I lied about this thing

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Speaker 2: that occurred, and like, oh dang, nobody likes that you

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Speaker 2: did that. Go away for a while, come back where

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Speaker 2: we can all live simpatico again.

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Speaker 3: Go in time out.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but if it's something heinous, like we're going to

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Speaker 2: be talking about today, I don't know how to express

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Speaker 2: how underwhelming that punishment is.

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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, the idea of my dongue or I'm sorry,

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Speaker 3: my manner is coming out me I d u n g.

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Speaker 3: The idea of shunning, we can call it we the

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Speaker 3: English is, in theory, a way for the community to

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Speaker 3: self regulate, to solve internal problems of largely obedience and compliance,

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Speaker 3: and keep everybody not just in physical uniform, but an

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Speaker 3: ideological uniform, which is even more disturbing. We should also

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Speaker 3: know to the aspect of shunning, it is collective punishment

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Speaker 3: because women and children are largely considered property. If a

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Speaker 3: dude gets in trouble in many of these communities, then

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Speaker 3: the spouse and the children encounter shunning as well. It's

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Speaker 3: not just people icing you out. These communities rely on

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Speaker 3: each other for sustenance, right for continued survival. So these

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Speaker 3: folks who are shunning you are also not helping you

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Speaker 3: build stuff, They're not helping you harvest crops. You're not

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Speaker 3: allowed to help them. I would imagine that's why there

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Speaker 3: is a window of time. Right, you simply cannot exist

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Speaker 3: in this community. If you are shunned for life, there's

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Speaker 3: no way to live without the village at that point.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really great point, man. The difference between

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Speaker 2: going through a period of shunning and and being excommunicated

435
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 2: from your church, which is effectively like you're saying, from

436
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 2: your community, from your family, from everybody you've known for

437
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 2: the past x years, perhaps your entire life. Right, that's

438
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:18,000
Speaker 2: a huge, huge potential punishment that can be enacted on

439
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 2: somebody in the community.

440
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:24,919
Speaker 3: Yeah, and look again, it's like any other thing in

441
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 3: the United States. Cool in theory, right, sounds good on paper. However,

442
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:37,320
Speaker 3: increasing evidence shows that this internal regulatory system, in particular,

443
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 3: has been used to maintain order at the cost of

444
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 3: people's lives, at the cost of their well being and

445
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:51,960
Speaker 3: their safety. The idea of or nung, the idea of

446
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 3: the ordinal, has been used repeatedly to cover up some serious,

447
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 3: deeply disturbing conspiracy. We're talking intergenerational sexual crimes again, fellow

448
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 3: conspiracy realists. This is a warning. The rest of this

449
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 3: show contains graphic depictions of unclean things. We said it

450
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 3: at the top. We want to give you one more chance.

451
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:20,520
Speaker 3: The conspiracy is real. It may not be appropriate for

452
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:24,280
Speaker 3: all listeners. We will pause for a word from our sponsors.

453
00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 3: You can turn back now or learn the stuff the

454
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 3: Amish don't want you to know years where it gets crazy.

455
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:45,760
Speaker 3: Not all Amish communities hashtag not all, but many Amish

456
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:52,840
Speaker 3: communities have long records of intense intergenerational sexual abuse. And

457
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 3: I will pause it that the larger what we call

458
00:29:57,160 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 3: them at the English, the larger surround and communities knew

459
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:04,960
Speaker 3: about this. It had to be an open secret for

460
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:09,440
Speaker 3: more than two centuries now. However, as we all know,

461
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 3: outside of these communities, more of the abuse came to

462
00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:20,640
Speaker 3: light to the larger public, primarily due to the age

463
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 3: of information. Would we agree with that?

464
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 4: Absolutely?

465
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. And in particular, there

466
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 2: was I would say, a helpful movement towards exposing this

467
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 2: kind of stuff when we you know, what is referred

468
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:41,440
Speaker 2: to as the me too movement was in full swing

469
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 2: and occurring where people began to be not as fearful

470
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 2: to speak the truth out in a public setting as

471
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 2: you're saying. It's social media primarily, but also people writing

472
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:54,720
Speaker 2: about it in major publications. These kinds of incidents that

473
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:58,480
Speaker 2: would for a long time just be kept quiet out

474
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 2: of you know, fear and.

475
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 5: For other whether it be fear of retaliation, or fear

476
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:07,320
Speaker 5: of not being believed, or just outright shame, you know,

477
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 5: and to see others describing things that we ourselves perhaps

478
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 5: have also experienced is incredibly powerful. So you know this,

479
00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:17,959
Speaker 5: this applies to the Catholic Church and all of that

480
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:20,240
Speaker 5: stuff coming to light in a much larger way than

481
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 5: it had in the past.

482
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:23,680
Speaker 4: All of the crazy stuff with Hollywood, this is no different.

483
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, multiple documentaries, multiple interviews, some of which were in

484
00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 3: print and sat in the back shelf of an editor's

485
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 3: to do lists for many years, an unholy amount of years.

486
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 3: We're also talking court cases depicting just how profoundly these people,

487
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:55,360
Speaker 3: often women, often children, were sexualized, objectified, assaulted, raped, and

488
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 3: then forced to you know, forgive their accuser because they

489
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:02,200
Speaker 3: did a little had talk at the church, and then

490
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 3: further forced to aid and a bet further crimes within

491
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:13,959
Speaker 3: the community's larger ongoing system, a very real conspiracy. And

492
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 3: with this in mind, there's a thing that we talk

493
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 3: about in the world of academia and poetry, which is

494
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:26,920
Speaker 3: you find the universal via the specific. So let's dive

495
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 3: into a couple of stories. We're going to meet Mary

496
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 3: and Sarah. This is not pleasant. These are just very

497
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 3: brave people. They knew that they were ending their lives

498
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:45,959
Speaker 3: in their community by coming forward. The first one we

499
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 3: want to introduce you to is Mary Buyler.

500
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:50,880
Speaker 4: Yeah.

501
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:54,320
Speaker 5: Mary, from the age of four or five until she

502
00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:59,720
Speaker 5: left the community at seventeen, was repeatedly sexually assaulted by

503
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:04,240
Speaker 5: many members of her very close knit Amish community in Wisconsin.

504
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 5: This included blood relations, cousins and her biological brothers, even

505
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 5: Johnny David and Eli Biler. Her biological father was also

506
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 5: guilty of this behavior.

507
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 4: It's hard to even talk about.

508
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 5: When local law enforcement sent Mary back to her community

509
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 5: wearing a wire. Johnny was caught on tape confessing to

510
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 5: assaulting her at least two hundred separate times.

511
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 3: As a child. This was an elder brother again, as

512
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 3: you said, the biological brother, including cousins, including a biological father.

513
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 3: You can learn more about this in a documentary called

514
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 3: Sins of the Amish. I believe the court cases went

515
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 3: through in two thousand and four. They were undertaken when

516
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:00,600
Speaker 3: she was nineteen years old.

517
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:03,959
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and this is a really rare case where

518
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 2: a trial actually went forward. The fact that Mary was

519
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 2: given the chance to wear a wire and go in

520
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:18,160
Speaker 2: and get a confession is not the norm that occurs here, honestly,

521
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:19,799
Speaker 2: that she would even get the chance to do that.

522
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 2: And I guess we can talk about it more, but

523
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 2: just this thing that occurs in often in these cases

524
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:34,280
Speaker 2: where the community itself often rallies around the family member

525
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:37,760
Speaker 2: that could be sent away to prison for a long time,

526
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 2: rather than the person, the person who was abused, the

527
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:44,279
Speaker 2: person who's saying, hey, I need help, somebody is hurting me.

528
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 2: The community sees that, but I don't. I can't speak

529
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 2: for the community, but my sense is that the community

530
00:34:53,239 --> 00:34:56,480
Speaker 2: somehow believes we can take care of that person who

531
00:34:56,640 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 2: was abused somehow, or we can show we alter that

532
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 2: person still in our ways. We just can't lose to

533
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:08,840
Speaker 2: this other community member who is the actual abuser. And

534
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:09,520
Speaker 2: that makes sense.

535
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:13,440
Speaker 3: Which are more important than women. That's part of it.

536
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:18,960
Speaker 3: That's a huge part of it, because women are Look

537
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 3: and I don't want to ruffle any feathers here saying this,

538
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 3: but it is clear in the structural social functions here

539
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:33,280
Speaker 3: that the hierarchy goes bishop and then elders, all dudes,

540
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:39,279
Speaker 3: and then dudes and then women. Oh yeah, and juvenile

541
00:35:39,560 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 3: males are above women because they have one day the

542
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:48,360
Speaker 3: chance to evolve into something past property. Women are taught

543
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 3: in these communities and these abusive communities that if someone

544
00:35:54,120 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 3: sexually assaults you, it is your fault because you should

545
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 3: have done better, which is unclean. It's unclean. There's not there,

546
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:12,719
Speaker 3: There is no there is no moral parcore that can

547
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 3: make that rational.

548
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:15,840
Speaker 2: Yeah.

549
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 5: No, And you know, we talked a little bit about

550
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:20,719
Speaker 5: this off air, but I just wanted to bring it

551
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:23,720
Speaker 5: up here. You know, when you hear about these types

552
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:29,400
Speaker 5: of situations and among communities or organizations where there is

553
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:32,880
Speaker 5: this like wholesale it's really like, you know, big picture

554
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:36,320
Speaker 5: attempt to separate oneself from the evils of the world,

555
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 5: you know, or whatever, even the evils of humans, whether

556
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:43,840
Speaker 5: it be the Catholic Church or the Amish community or

557
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 5: similar allegations of abuse happened in like the Mormon community.

558
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 5: You see this kind of stuff pop up, and you

559
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:54,759
Speaker 5: have to wonder, like, is it that attempt to kind

560
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 5: of separate oneself that maybe it's almost like poking the

561
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:01,240
Speaker 5: bear or something, or like give it doesn't have an outlet.

562
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:05,360
Speaker 5: And then there's also just of course the inherent potential

563
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:07,840
Speaker 5: for evil in humans that can just kind.

564
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:10,040
Speaker 4: Of fester in these situations. I don't know.

565
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:12,880
Speaker 5: I don't want to draw any false equivalencies, but you

566
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:15,959
Speaker 5: see it a lot, and it seems like these situations

567
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:19,239
Speaker 5: arise in cases where there's this kind of almost prohibition

568
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:22,799
Speaker 5: type attitude. And I don't know, I don't want to

569
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:24,480
Speaker 5: overstate the case here, but I was wondering what you

570
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 5: guys thought about that.

571
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:27,880
Speaker 3: I dig it. Yeah, the call is coming from inside

572
00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 3: the house. It's something philosophy wrestles with and continues to.

573
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 3: It reminds me a bit now that we're framing this

574
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:40,920
Speaker 3: and contextualizing it. It reminds me a bit of the horrors

575
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:45,239
Speaker 3: in Pitcairn Island. You guys know about Pitcairn Island. I

576
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 3: have to refresh. Oh, it's a it's a world away.

577
00:37:51,760 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 3: I imagine. Very few members of the Amish community have visited,

578
00:37:56,160 --> 00:38:04,120
Speaker 3: but Pitcairn Island is notorious then and now for systematic

579
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:09,839
Speaker 3: abuse of children. It's an archipelago out in I want

580
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:15,359
Speaker 3: to say, French Polynesia. It's in the middle of the

581
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 3: ocean like picture Australia, right. If you're looking at US

582
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 3: printed world map, picture Australia, and they go way to

583
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 3: the right, like off the map, middle of nowhere.

584
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:32,719
Speaker 5: So isolated by its geography already, and then I imagine

585
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 5: that there's sort of like that, you know, by design

586
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 5: kind of thing to maintain that isolation and to have

587
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:41,480
Speaker 5: sort of like a owned and operated culture and community.

588
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 5: And yet these things spring up disconnected from all of

589
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 5: the evils of like pop culture and whatever, television, entertainment, music,

590
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:55,560
Speaker 5: all of the trappings of kind of modern life that

591
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 5: folks like the Amish are doing everything they can to

592
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 5: separate themselves from. And yes, this stuff kind of thrives

593
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:02,920
Speaker 5: without any of that influence.

594
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:07,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, the argument that we're getting close to here would

595
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 3: be very familiar to Jacoboman. We're positing the idea of

596
00:39:13,560 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 3: call it opportunism, call it original sin, call it normalization.

597
00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:25,720
Speaker 3: Thereof it's deep, it's deep stuff, and it's not good.

598
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:30,799
Speaker 3: I know that's an understate the of the decade. But look,

599
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:35,719
Speaker 3: if we go to Mary Byler's case, as we said earlier,

600
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:39,200
Speaker 3: that you point out this is a very rare thing, right,

601
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,560
Speaker 3: and there's incredibly rare for this to go to the

602
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 3: English court, and we see that her brothers were brought

603
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 3: to account, all three of them pled guilty again, that's

604
00:39:55,000 --> 00:40:00,239
Speaker 3: Johnny Biler, Eli Biler, David Biler. David Biler got a

605
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 3: four year sentence in federal prison, not because of what

606
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:10,400
Speaker 3: he did to his sister, Mary, but because of his

607
00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 3: conviction for second degree sexual assault against Mary's even younger sister.

608
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:23,840
Speaker 3: Eli Biler had a prior misdemeanor conviction, and as a

609
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:26,840
Speaker 3: result of that prior he got eight years in prison.

610
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 3: Johnny Biler was examined pretty in depth in some of

611
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 3: these documentaries. He was given what we could only call

612
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:41,319
Speaker 3: a sweetheart deal. It's not the kind of thing that

613
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 3: in any other context, it is not the kind of

614
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 3: thing that you would expect a court to give a

615
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:52,719
Speaker 3: serial rapist. Can we talk about what his quote unquote

616
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 3: sentence was.

617
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:57,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, somebody who admitted to essentially two hundred separate counts

618
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 2: of child sexual abuse. It reminds me of that deal

619
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:11,560
Speaker 2: that was given to Epstein when he was able to

620
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 2: come over to the jail, the prison, whatever it was,

621
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:17,919
Speaker 2: spend the night there, and then in the morning wake

622
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:20,600
Speaker 2: up and go to work. Because you know, his work's

623
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 2: really important, so he has to be able to go

624
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:24,919
Speaker 2: to work. But then he'll come back and he'll stay

625
00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 2: the night in the jail and we'll watch him.

626
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:31,640
Speaker 3: He got the sleepover sentence. Let's not call this sweetheart

627
00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:36,400
Speaker 3: deal a sleepover deal. Yeah, this is even weirder because

628
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:42,279
Speaker 3: Johnny Biler is spending nights at the county jail for

629
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:43,359
Speaker 3: what one year?

630
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 5: Man, And you know, I mean, you hear that, and

631
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:52,839
Speaker 5: you just have to wonder why, Like I just don't

632
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 5: understand the slap on the wrist quality of this kind

633
00:41:57,120 --> 00:41:57,800
Speaker 5: of sentence.

634
00:41:57,840 --> 00:41:59,640
Speaker 4: And we're going to find out why.

635
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:04,799
Speaker 5: There was some support and within that patriarchal community that

636
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:08,239
Speaker 5: maybe led to a little bit of lenience in the

637
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:10,920
Speaker 5: court's decision. So let's take a quick break here from

638
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:13,520
Speaker 5: our sponsor and then come back with more on this

639
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:15,200
Speaker 5: disturbing case.

640
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 2: And we're back, and we're still in the aftermath the

641
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:29,239
Speaker 2: sentencing and trial of the abusers of Mary Buyler that

642
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:32,440
Speaker 2: we've been talking about. So as we spoke about before,

643
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:35,400
Speaker 2: a lot of the community members will show up in

644
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:39,719
Speaker 2: support of the person accused of something again to show

645
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:41,759
Speaker 2: support that they need that person in their community. They

646
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 2: don't want that person to get a long jail sentence.

647
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 2: They want that person back with them. So in the

648
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:51,200
Speaker 2: case of Johnny Buyler, when he is being sentenced one

649
00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:54,959
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty members of his community, and I guess

650
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:57,839
Speaker 2: that the Amish community at large traveled to the courtroom

651
00:42:58,000 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 2: on that day he was going to get sentenced to

652
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:03,960
Speaker 2: do you support him, the guy that's accused of this stuff,

653
00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 2: the guy that just went through a trial about all

654
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:10,399
Speaker 2: this stuff. And it just shows you this thing. It

655
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:11,319
Speaker 2: shows you that thing.

656
00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 4: Man.

657
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:15,080
Speaker 2: I've learned a lot about this, and I think we

658
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:17,920
Speaker 2: all did from Sarah McClure, who wrote a piece in

659
00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:22,240
Speaker 2: Cosmopolitan back in twenty twenty, and in that she talks

660
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 2: She talks about a whole bunch of different cases and

661
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 2: gives a lot of specifics about them that you cannot unread.

662
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:30,680
Speaker 2: But it is very good to read them. I just

663
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:33,719
Speaker 2: mean that it's harring to read them, and it will

664
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:35,799
Speaker 2: not leave your mind for a while. But they She

665
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:40,080
Speaker 2: talks often about this very thing where even sometimes the

666
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 2: initial accuser, the person who says he raises their hand

667
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:46,080
Speaker 2: and says, hey, you've been abusing me, ends up in

668
00:43:46,120 --> 00:43:48,920
Speaker 2: the courtroom as a part of the trial or at

669
00:43:48,920 --> 00:43:51,399
Speaker 2: some point in the trial and says writes a letter

670
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:55,280
Speaker 2: or something that says, hey, please don't send my brother

671
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:58,879
Speaker 2: or my dad to jail.

672
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:02,560
Speaker 3: Right, and in this case, uh yeah, in this case

673
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:07,200
Speaker 3: a similar thing occurred. I do also because you guys know,

674
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 3: I'm I do also want to point out that those

675
00:44:09,640 --> 00:44:15,279
Speaker 3: Amish supporters went to that courtroom via greyhound, which is

676
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:19,680
Speaker 3: a internal combustion autopia.

677
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:22,000
Speaker 2: Well, it depends on which sect they're in, because some

678
00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:26,000
Speaker 2: of some of the more modern Amish scrims just but

679
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 2: but the whole point in that, guys, is that the

680
00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:34,359
Speaker 2: community will then convince or coerce and someone who is

681
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:37,680
Speaker 2: being abused to sit there and support the person who's

682
00:44:37,719 --> 00:44:40,000
Speaker 2: abusing them out of a sense of community.

683
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:43,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, they'll they'll show up and they'll say, actually, none

684
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,239
Speaker 3: of that happened. You're making it sound worse than it is.

685
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 3: And it's pronounced jazz lighting.

686
00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:52,440
Speaker 5: Well, it reminds me of some of the correspondents that

687
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:56,680
Speaker 5: we've gotten from listeners, you know, around sexual abuse and

688
00:44:56,719 --> 00:45:00,399
Speaker 5: these kinds of horrific experiences and so often. I believe

689
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:02,160
Speaker 5: it was one listener in particularly the Road, and it

690
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:05,240
Speaker 5: made the point that you know, kids or younger people

691
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 5: or if they're isolated especially, they don't know that what's happening.

692
00:45:09,280 --> 00:45:11,800
Speaker 3: Is bad, Like they don't know it's not normal.

693
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:16,759
Speaker 5: They don't, Yes, certainly, but it is possible to with

694
00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:21,200
Speaker 5: that kind of iron fisted control over information, over a community,

695
00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:25,719
Speaker 5: the lack of outside influence, to maintain these types of

696
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 5: situations for a really, really long time before anybody will

697
00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:33,080
Speaker 5: dare do what this young woman did in wearing a

698
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 5: wire that is, to your point, been very out of

699
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:36,360
Speaker 5: the ordinary.

700
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:43,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's something that feels with the benefit of

701
00:45:43,080 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 3: being outside of an isolated community. It feels like a

702
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 3: no brainer. Obviously, if you saw any child being abused,

703
00:45:55,960 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 3: if you saw any person being abused, you would feel

704
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 3: that is part of your social contract to assist that

705
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:11,600
Speaker 3: person right, to save them from adversity. And the issue

706
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 3: here is that culturally it's a very different social contract.

707
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:20,919
Speaker 3: If you have ever had the dubious privilege of being

708
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 3: on the wrong side of the courtroom, then you will

709
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:31,759
Speaker 3: know that letters of support character carried great weight with judges.

710
00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:37,960
Speaker 3: In the various legal proceedings pertaining to the decade plus

711
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 3: assault of Mary Byler. There were letters that Matt is

712
00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:46,360
Speaker 3: referring to. One of these letters was written by Mary

713
00:46:46,440 --> 00:46:54,880
Speaker 3: Byler's biological mother, statistically herself likely a victim of abuse

714
00:46:55,440 --> 00:47:01,080
Speaker 3: at some point, and her mother wrote a letter disowning

715
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 3: her daughter, but come on more so, saying that her

716
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:09,200
Speaker 3: daughter had always made things quote sound worse than they

717
00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:15,319
Speaker 3: actually were, and that everybody involved regretted things had been

718
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 3: confessed and forgiven by the community of matching your own

719
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:20,800
Speaker 3: parent doing that.

720
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:22,200
Speaker 4: It would be heartbreaking.

721
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:25,280
Speaker 5: I mean, I can't imagine just the level of betrayal

722
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:29,279
Speaker 5: that that would cause one to feel. Rightfully, so I

723
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:31,799
Speaker 5: have to mention though, been like these letters that you're

724
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:33,840
Speaker 5: talking about, you know, it's obviously up to the judges

725
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:37,640
Speaker 5: discretion to like determine like is this valid, Like what

726
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:39,800
Speaker 5: is the nature of this sentiment?

727
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 4: You know, And it.

728
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:43,080
Speaker 5: Really makes me think of like some people that have

729
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:46,320
Speaker 5: gotten in real hot water for writing letters of support

730
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 5: to pretty clearly guilty individuals, Like remember that case with

731
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:51,800
Speaker 5: I believe his name is Danny Masterson.

732
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:54,640
Speaker 4: He was on that seventies show.

733
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 5: And Scientologist Scientology, but like he was a rapist, and

734
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:02,319
Speaker 5: I think Melak Kunas and Ashton Kutcher wrote letters of

735
00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:05,520
Speaker 5: support to him for on his behalf that were read

736
00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:10,080
Speaker 5: in the court room and they got majorly uh, you know, lampooned,

737
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:12,840
Speaker 5: and and you know, borderline canceled for that. So I

738
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:15,560
Speaker 5: just you have to wonder, like where is the court

739
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:18,200
Speaker 5: of public opinion in this, Like where is the judge's

740
00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 5: discretion and saying I am here to protect this person,

741
00:48:22,560 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 5: and yet I'm giving credence to these letters that seem

742
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:27,480
Speaker 5: coerced and of themselves.

743
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:30,840
Speaker 3: I just don't get a sticky point to Matt to

744
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 3: mass point earlier, you know, or these So intent is

745
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:41,799
Speaker 3: always one of the most difficult things to prove, right now.

746
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:46,239
Speaker 3: That's that's the reason why there are separate forms of

747
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:51,919
Speaker 3: punishment for crimes of passion versus premeditated murder or homicide.

748
00:48:52,239 --> 00:48:55,920
Speaker 3: So in this, you know, it's it's very difficult to

749
00:48:56,080 --> 00:49:02,240
Speaker 3: navigate the degree of consent or coercion toward the writing

750
00:49:02,600 --> 00:49:06,160
Speaker 3: of these kind of letters, right of these sorts of

751
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:10,279
Speaker 3: statements against your own child. And this is something that

752
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:14,520
Speaker 3: the judge in the case, in the Johnny Byler case

753
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:18,120
Speaker 3: brought up. And you can see multiple recordings of this

754
00:49:18,719 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 3: courtroom recordings. The judge, Michael Rosebrow says, I see a

755
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:27,719
Speaker 3: lot of you. I'm paraphrasing here, but he says, I

756
00:49:27,800 --> 00:49:32,000
Speaker 3: see so many of you here in support of the accused,

757
00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 3: and I see people weeping. You know, from the community,

758
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:42,040
Speaker 3: how many of you have ever cried for the victim?

759
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:45,440
Speaker 3: How many of you have cried for Mary Biolet? And

760
00:49:45,520 --> 00:49:50,520
Speaker 3: this guy clearly not amish, but he is asking a

761
00:49:50,680 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 3: very valid question.

762
00:49:54,280 --> 00:50:01,680
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, but also seemed to give a lot of

763
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:05,720
Speaker 5: credence to those letters. That's why I'm confused because says

764
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:08,400
Speaker 5: what he just said, which seems to side with the victim,

765
00:50:08,560 --> 00:50:09,920
Speaker 5: you know, and the duteons. I'm not supposed to take

766
00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:13,839
Speaker 5: sides per se, but that sentence is insulting.

767
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:15,280
Speaker 4: Yeah.

768
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:18,239
Speaker 2: One of the things that Sarah McClure talks about is

769
00:50:18,280 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 2: that often the accuser will be coerced to lessen the charge,

770
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:29,960
Speaker 2: essentially like seeking justice for something that would be considered

771
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:34,000
Speaker 2: a misdemeanor versus a felony. And that's often the case

772
00:50:34,840 --> 00:50:39,960
Speaker 2: where again the abused is coerced by the community then

773
00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 2: to say, oh, well, he just he groped me, he

774
00:50:42,719 --> 00:50:46,439
Speaker 2: didn't it. We're going to consider it, you know this

775
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:49,320
Speaker 2: rather than full you know, we'll call it sexual assault

776
00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:52,560
Speaker 2: rather than rape, right.

777
00:50:51,920 --> 00:50:55,439
Speaker 3: Just aggravated molestation something like that.

778
00:50:55,520 --> 00:50:58,839
Speaker 2: It's horrifying. And Sarah, by the way, found fifty two

779
00:50:58,840 --> 00:50:59,760
Speaker 2: official cases.

780
00:51:00,280 --> 00:51:04,080
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, we're gonna. Sarah McClure, an investigative journalists, spent

781
00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 3: a year reporting on sexual abuse among the Amish. She

782
00:51:07,800 --> 00:51:12,800
Speaker 3: did uncover fifty two cases of abuse, which include sexual

783
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:16,440
Speaker 3: assault and incest. And she found this across seven states

784
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:18,480
Speaker 3: over the past twenty years.

785
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 4: Yeah.

786
00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:22,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, And just to add to that there, like, here's

787
00:51:22,719 --> 00:51:26,000
Speaker 2: a quote from somebody named Esther. This person isn't actually

788
00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:29,400
Speaker 2: named Esther, their name was changed for this reporting. But

789
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:31,160
Speaker 2: this is a quote from somebody in one of the

790
00:51:31,160 --> 00:51:34,440
Speaker 2: communities that says, we're told that it's not christ like

791
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:39,120
Speaker 2: to report, right. Uh's this is someone who was abused

792
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:41,800
Speaker 2: by her brother and a neighbor boy when she was

793
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:42,560
Speaker 2: nine years old.

794
00:51:42,880 --> 00:51:46,200
Speaker 4: But Christ's pook truth to power. Christ called people out.

795
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:48,560
Speaker 4: That was his whole time. I'm sorry. This is her.

796
00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:51,120
Speaker 2: This is her quote, and she also says, quote, it's

797
00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:53,719
Speaker 2: so ingrained. There are so many people who go to

798
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 2: church and just endure basically endure ongoing abuse.

799
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:01,080
Speaker 5: I don't buy that depiction of Christ at all. Remember

800
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:04,200
Speaker 5: when he flipped over the money Changers table.

801
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:08,360
Speaker 3: Over when he did a distrack essentially and cursed the

802
00:52:08,400 --> 00:52:11,480
Speaker 3: tree because it didn't have figs. I can't remember which

803
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:13,399
Speaker 3: version of you guys book that makes it.

804
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:16,759
Speaker 5: And yeah, he endured being you know the crucifixion where

805
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:19,560
Speaker 5: you know, there's all these biblical scholars or whatever who

806
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:22,080
Speaker 5: argue that he could have changed the course of his

807
00:52:22,239 --> 00:52:25,160
Speaker 5: destiny if he chose, but instead he let.

808
00:52:25,040 --> 00:52:27,080
Speaker 4: It happen basically because it needed to happen.

809
00:52:27,120 --> 00:52:30,479
Speaker 5: Whatever, like, whatever your take is on the spiritual side,

810
00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:32,400
Speaker 5: of the prophecy side of it or whatever. But you

811
00:52:32,440 --> 00:52:35,399
Speaker 5: cannot say that Jesus was a good little boy.

812
00:52:35,400 --> 00:52:37,800
Speaker 4: You kept his mouth shut. That is not true.

813
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:43,319
Speaker 3: Well, the money changers have entered the chat, I imagine.

814
00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:48,960
Speaker 3: Here's what we know. The Amish community, time and time again,

815
00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:53,080
Speaker 3: not just in the Biler case, has argued that they

816
00:52:53,239 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 3: already meeted out appropriate punishment to these people who have

817
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:06,319
Speaker 3: provably done these monstrous acts. Their argument, really internally is

818
00:53:06,360 --> 00:53:11,360
Speaker 3: that there is a true sin. People make mistakes, they say,

819
00:53:11,480 --> 00:53:16,320
Speaker 3: but the real sin is reporting it to the outside world,

820
00:53:16,960 --> 00:53:23,960
Speaker 3: because that would endanger the community, the exclusivity, the insular nature,

821
00:53:24,560 --> 00:53:29,480
Speaker 3: and the long term sustainability of the grand project. And

822
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:31,480
Speaker 3: this is far from the end of the story. There

823
00:53:31,480 --> 00:53:38,360
Speaker 3: are many, many more cases of sexual abuse, community based

824
00:53:38,440 --> 00:53:44,000
Speaker 3: and family based. There are children born as a result

825
00:53:44,640 --> 00:53:47,239
Speaker 3: of these violent things.

826
00:53:47,440 --> 00:53:47,840
Speaker 1: And.

827
00:53:49,440 --> 00:53:53,080
Speaker 3: Some of those children are alive today. We could argue

828
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:56,400
Speaker 3: with validity that there is a high likely or a

829
00:53:56,480 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 3: higher than average likelihood of this occurring in the insular community.

830
00:54:01,880 --> 00:54:08,360
Speaker 3: Predators find opportunity, right, A predator is I don't know.

831
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:10,839
Speaker 3: It goes back to a conversation we're having earlier about

832
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:14,440
Speaker 3: the the nature of original sin and evil. We know,

833
00:54:14,680 --> 00:54:21,160
Speaker 3: when outside accountability it self becomes the crime, right, then

834
00:54:21,239 --> 00:54:23,320
Speaker 3: things get very skewed very quickly.

835
00:54:23,440 --> 00:54:26,480
Speaker 5: Well, and it's also just highly inconvenient for the status

836
00:54:26,560 --> 00:54:30,960
Speaker 5: quo of a community like that, whether there be accurate

837
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:34,360
Speaker 5: allegations of this kind of abuse or it's just literally

838
00:54:34,400 --> 00:54:37,960
Speaker 5: maintaining their way of life. To have a criminal case

839
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:42,240
Speaker 5: before the eyes of the public out in the secular world,

840
00:54:42,760 --> 00:54:45,279
Speaker 5: that's about the worst possible thing they could imagine in

841
00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:47,440
Speaker 5: terms of, like, you know, the hierarchy and then the

842
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:50,320
Speaker 5: control over that society.

843
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:54,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, we want to point everybody over to another article

844
00:54:54,920 --> 00:54:57,719
Speaker 2: that you can check out right now, and it spotlights

845
00:54:57,760 --> 00:55:01,360
Speaker 2: this exact thing. Just how many examples of this exist?

846
00:55:02,239 --> 00:55:06,919
Speaker 2: Look up what they wore Amish Country exhibit spotlight's sex

847
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:09,799
Speaker 2: abuse and this is somebody's written in ap News by

848
00:55:09,880 --> 00:55:14,279
Speaker 2: Peter Smith back in twenty twenty two, and it describes

849
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:19,120
Speaker 2: essentially an exhibit that was put on where there are

850
00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:23,319
Speaker 2: the clothes of the girls like as young as four,

851
00:55:24,080 --> 00:55:27,680
Speaker 2: the exact clothes or recreations of the clothes that these

852
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:30,200
Speaker 2: girls wore when they were sexually abused.

853
00:55:30,680 --> 00:55:33,839
Speaker 3: And very conservative, you know, we're talking like all the way.

854
00:55:36,239 --> 00:55:40,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, imagine imagine the traditional garb of a Mennonite or

855
00:55:40,520 --> 00:55:41,560
Speaker 2: an Amish community.

856
00:55:41,719 --> 00:55:44,440
Speaker 3: Imagine like a house on the prairie. What's the name

857
00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:44,759
Speaker 3: of that shop.

858
00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:47,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good way to think about it, for sure, for.

859
00:55:47,760 --> 00:55:48,960
Speaker 3: Not Amish in the audience.

860
00:55:49,040 --> 00:55:53,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, including bonnets, right, And they are strung up on

861
00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:56,799
Speaker 2: a clothesline with a small piece of paper that just

862
00:55:56,880 --> 00:56:02,000
Speaker 2: states how old the child was and what they were wearing. Basically,

863
00:56:02,040 --> 00:56:05,239
Speaker 2: it describes the clothing when they were abused. And it

864
00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:10,799
Speaker 2: is just a striking way to view how prevalent this is,

865
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:14,320
Speaker 2: and it is heartbreaking to see some of the tiny

866
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:16,640
Speaker 2: clothes that are strung up on that clothesline.

867
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:21,040
Speaker 3: I'd like to also add the note from the documentary

868
00:56:21,400 --> 00:56:26,080
Speaker 3: which is fairly recent, called Sins of the Amish quotation

869
00:56:26,360 --> 00:56:29,239
Speaker 3: at the very beginning The odds of an Amish woman

870
00:56:29,400 --> 00:56:31,719
Speaker 3: getting raped to buy a guy on the street are

871
00:56:31,840 --> 00:56:36,000
Speaker 3: almost zero, but from a guy within their own communities

872
00:56:36,520 --> 00:56:43,600
Speaker 3: it is one out of every six on a good day. Harrowing.

873
00:56:44,160 --> 00:56:49,680
Speaker 3: We also know there are more non sexual crimes that

874
00:56:49,760 --> 00:56:57,480
Speaker 3: occur between these communities and the outside world. We're talking

875
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:03,520
Speaker 3: drug trafficking, weirdly enough, shaving, oh jeez, yeah, murder, Well,

876
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:05,160
Speaker 3: it's a big deal. It's a big deal.

877
00:57:04,960 --> 00:57:05,400
Speaker 4: There, I know.

878
00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:07,759
Speaker 5: But as a bearded a man who's been bearded for

879
00:57:07,800 --> 00:57:10,680
Speaker 5: a very long time, I could personally attest that would

880
00:57:10,680 --> 00:57:13,239
Speaker 5: be a crime against humanity if someone ever did that

881
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:15,800
Speaker 5: to me without without my consent.

882
00:57:15,960 --> 00:57:17,919
Speaker 4: No, I'm making light because.

883
00:57:18,160 --> 00:57:19,720
Speaker 5: That's the only thing I know how to do when

884
00:57:19,720 --> 00:57:22,200
Speaker 5: it comes to heavy stuff like this. The drug trafficking

885
00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:24,760
Speaker 5: stuff is also addressed in that doc that I mentioned

886
00:57:25,960 --> 00:57:27,920
Speaker 5: the Devil's Backbone, because some of the kids that do

887
00:57:28,840 --> 00:57:30,920
Speaker 5: take that sabbatical.

888
00:57:30,280 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 4: And go out into the real world.

889
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 5: There's a handful of stories that involve methamphetamines and bring

890
00:57:35,960 --> 00:57:38,200
Speaker 5: that back into the community and that kind of stuff.

891
00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:46,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm thinking in particular of Abner King Stoolfitz and

892
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:50,920
Speaker 3: Abner Stolfitz, not related. I'm thinking of a New York

893
00:57:51,000 --> 00:57:54,560
Speaker 3: Times article back in nineteen ninety eight when they became

894
00:57:54,640 --> 00:57:59,400
Speaker 3: the first two members of Pennsylvania Amish to be arrested

895
00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:03,600
Speaker 3: for afficking cocaine and meth. This was in step with

896
00:58:03,840 --> 00:58:07,560
Speaker 3: the Pagan motorcycle gang. We should probably do an episode

897
00:58:07,560 --> 00:58:12,080
Speaker 3: on outlaw bikers as well, the original one percenters, right,

898
00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:17,360
Speaker 3: And maybe the biggest takeaway is this conspiracy thrives in

899
00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:21,520
Speaker 3: a lack of transparency. In the Amish community, we witness

900
00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:27,480
Speaker 3: clear misogyny, and we see with any community practicing this,

901
00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:32,280
Speaker 3: the same horrifying stories over and over. Women is not

902
00:58:32,400 --> 00:58:36,360
Speaker 3: quite people, not quite property, not given the same rights.

903
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:40,960
Speaker 3: And unfortunately, many of our fellow listeners, folks, some of

904
00:58:41,040 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 3: us in the audience tonight, have experienced similar situations in

905
00:58:46,200 --> 00:58:51,840
Speaker 3: likewise insular communities. We already shouted out Sarah McClure, investigative

906
00:58:51,920 --> 00:58:56,880
Speaker 3: journalist who has done so much tremendous work for people here.

907
00:58:57,040 --> 00:59:01,600
Speaker 3: We also want to recommend the Plain People podcast, launched

908
00:59:01,600 --> 00:59:08,000
Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen, which explores in depth more stories of

909
00:59:08,200 --> 00:59:11,800
Speaker 3: sexual abuse and Amish and Mennonite communities.

910
00:59:12,360 --> 00:59:15,240
Speaker 2: For sure, we were talking for a while about you know,

911
00:59:15,280 --> 00:59:18,520
Speaker 2: how could this happen? Why is this happening? And Sarah

912
00:59:18,560 --> 00:59:21,680
Speaker 2: McClure in her piece again look it up right now.

913
00:59:21,720 --> 00:59:24,800
Speaker 2: The Amish keep to themselves and they're hiding a horrifying secret.

914
00:59:25,240 --> 00:59:27,840
Speaker 2: She explains it in a way that I think I understand,

915
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:30,720
Speaker 2: and I think we all understand at least a little better.

916
00:59:31,880 --> 00:59:34,160
Speaker 2: She says, it's not one thing, right. You can't point

917
00:59:34,160 --> 00:59:36,400
Speaker 2: to one thing. You can't point to a couple things

918
00:59:36,440 --> 00:59:41,120
Speaker 2: that make these communities ripe for this type of abuse.

919
00:59:41,400 --> 00:59:44,960
Speaker 2: But she calls it a perfect storm of factors. I'm

920
00:59:44,960 --> 00:59:47,320
Speaker 2: just gonna list these off really quickly because I think this.

921
00:59:47,800 --> 00:59:51,960
Speaker 2: You can find these factors, sometimes separately in groups, and

922
00:59:52,000 --> 00:59:54,880
Speaker 2: then when you see them begin to combine, that's where

923
00:59:54,920 --> 00:59:59,800
Speaker 2: the real trouble begins, she says. One a patriarchal and

924
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:03,440
Speaker 2: isolated lifestyle in which victims have little exposure to police, coaches,

925
01:00:03,560 --> 01:00:06,680
Speaker 2: or anyone else who might help them. An education system

926
01:00:06,680 --> 01:00:08,880
Speaker 2: that ends at eighth grade and fails to teach children

927
01:00:08,920 --> 01:00:12,120
Speaker 2: about their bodies and about sex. A culture of victim

928
01:00:12,160 --> 01:00:16,200
Speaker 2: blaming and shaming. Little access to the technology that enables

929
01:00:16,240 --> 01:00:20,160
Speaker 2: communication for broader social awareness of what's going on about

930
01:00:20,160 --> 01:00:23,760
Speaker 2: your body, about what others are experiencing and a religion

931
01:00:23,760 --> 01:00:28,800
Speaker 2: that prioritizes repentance and forgiveness over actual punishment and rehabilitation.

932
01:00:29,240 --> 01:00:31,840
Speaker 2: So really, in this episode, guys, what we've done is

933
01:00:32,480 --> 01:00:35,800
Speaker 2: outlined all of that stuff. I think Sarah just puts

934
01:00:35,840 --> 01:00:39,000
Speaker 2: that into one concise thing where you can just kind

935
01:00:39,040 --> 01:00:42,080
Speaker 2: of see it and go, oh wow, okay, if you've

936
01:00:42,120 --> 01:00:44,640
Speaker 2: got all of those factors going at the same time,

937
01:00:46,120 --> 01:00:50,240
Speaker 2: this leads to a place where it's a I think

938
01:00:50,240 --> 01:00:53,920
Speaker 2: it's in that documentary that you mentioned, Ben. In the

939
01:00:54,000 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 2: trailer for it, they call it a paradise for abusers.

940
01:00:57,480 --> 01:01:01,840
Speaker 3: Yes, they call it pedophiles paradise. And there's another I mean,

941
01:01:01,880 --> 01:01:05,120
Speaker 3: there is a town called Paradise as well. And this

942
01:01:05,360 --> 01:01:12,120
Speaker 3: is an interesting point here, Matt, because astute fellow conspiracy realist,

943
01:01:12,240 --> 01:01:18,000
Speaker 3: we can already note the factors listed by McClure. The

944
01:01:18,000 --> 01:01:25,400
Speaker 3: factors we explore here are not unique to any single ideology,

945
01:01:25,520 --> 01:01:28,880
Speaker 3: to any single creed, to any single region of the

946
01:01:28,960 --> 01:01:33,560
Speaker 3: human experience. And maybe we begin our ending with this. Obviously,

947
01:01:33,880 --> 01:01:38,840
Speaker 3: not every person in any Amish or Mennonite community is

948
01:01:38,920 --> 01:01:47,800
Speaker 3: abusing children, like imagine any longstanding theocratic civilization. The majority

949
01:01:47,840 --> 01:01:52,040
Speaker 3: of people in those civilizations. Then as of now and

950
01:01:52,160 --> 01:01:56,080
Speaker 3: in the future, are people just like you. They do

951
01:01:56,120 --> 01:02:01,520
Speaker 3: not wake up each day excited to hurt themselves or others.

952
01:02:01,800 --> 01:02:05,440
Speaker 3: But the problem is the lack of transparency, that is

953
01:02:05,480 --> 01:02:09,320
Speaker 3: the original sin, the insular nature of the them versus

954
01:02:09,440 --> 01:02:16,600
Speaker 3: us mentality, This intense continual indoctrination right, the brainwashing of

955
01:02:16,800 --> 01:02:21,200
Speaker 3: rules and also loopholes to that rules, that makes the

956
01:02:21,960 --> 01:02:25,840
Speaker 3: ordinal the Ordnung twist. And as we record to date,

957
01:02:26,400 --> 01:02:29,400
Speaker 3: the most heartbreaking part is there is very little indication

958
01:02:29,960 --> 01:02:34,640
Speaker 3: that the Amish community overall, being decentralized as it is,

959
01:02:34,960 --> 01:02:39,840
Speaker 3: will take any serious action to address past abuse or

960
01:02:39,920 --> 01:02:41,920
Speaker 3: to prevent future abuse.

961
01:02:42,600 --> 01:02:45,560
Speaker 2: Guys, the one thing we haven't talked about yet in

962
01:02:45,600 --> 01:02:50,720
Speaker 2: this episode is something particularly horrifying which is a practice

963
01:02:50,760 --> 01:02:54,080
Speaker 2: in several communities that was outlined in a couple of

964
01:02:54,080 --> 01:02:59,440
Speaker 2: places we found online where women, young girls even sometimes

965
01:02:59,680 --> 01:03:04,120
Speaker 2: are sent to a type of institution where they are

966
01:03:04,160 --> 01:03:08,560
Speaker 2: to receive treatment to get right with God. And the

967
01:03:08,600 --> 01:03:12,280
Speaker 2: people who run those institutions often are a part of

968
01:03:12,480 --> 01:03:15,440
Speaker 2: the church in one way or another, and they will

969
01:03:15,840 --> 01:03:21,680
Speaker 2: medicate young girls and women with stuff like olanzapine, which

970
01:03:21,760 --> 01:03:24,280
Speaker 2: is an antipsychotic medication.

971
01:03:24,360 --> 01:03:27,360
Speaker 3: It's a very heavy duty antipsychotic medication.

972
01:03:28,080 --> 01:03:31,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's generally a treatment for schizophrenia and is only

973
01:03:31,960 --> 01:03:35,800
Speaker 2: recommended for patients above the age of thirteen for manic

974
01:03:35,880 --> 01:03:38,880
Speaker 2: episodes and bipolar disorder and all kinds of stuff.

975
01:03:39,040 --> 01:03:41,480
Speaker 3: Very yellow wallpaper. To be honest with you.

976
01:03:41,960 --> 01:03:44,400
Speaker 2: That's a great way to describe it. It is people

977
01:03:45,560 --> 01:03:50,840
Speaker 2: who have gone through the experience, young women especially report

978
01:03:50,920 --> 01:03:53,960
Speaker 2: coming back as zombies or their friends coming back as

979
01:03:54,200 --> 01:03:58,960
Speaker 2: zombies and just existing basically being told by the church

980
01:03:59,120 --> 01:04:02,920
Speaker 2: via this or organization, you just need to be obedient.

981
01:04:03,600 --> 01:04:07,960
Speaker 2: You just need to you know, comply exactly. To me,

982
01:04:08,000 --> 01:04:11,760
Speaker 2: it's just another horrifying aspect of a way to control

983
01:04:11,960 --> 01:04:14,320
Speaker 2: someone or an entire group of women.

984
01:04:14,840 --> 01:04:17,840
Speaker 3: I think it's a horrifying aspect to all of us.

985
01:04:17,920 --> 01:04:22,720
Speaker 3: You know this, this this idea dates back to earlier.

986
01:04:23,040 --> 01:04:29,800
Speaker 3: As you said, Matt control attempts right lobottomize, medicate zombie

987
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:34,800
Speaker 3: fie victims right of a system, rather than changing the

988
01:04:34,880 --> 01:04:39,920
Speaker 3: system that produces these victims through active conspiracy. This is

989
01:04:41,280 --> 01:04:46,200
Speaker 3: this is it, you know, the there are more things ahead.

990
01:04:46,240 --> 01:04:50,400
Speaker 3: We were absolutely not spinning you a tail. These conspiracies

991
01:04:50,400 --> 01:04:55,280
Speaker 3: are real. They continue this evening, and for any fellow

992
01:04:55,360 --> 01:05:01,120
Speaker 3: listeners with experience in these communities, having survived these things,

993
01:05:01,720 --> 01:05:04,520
Speaker 3: we want to end by saying this, we very much

994
01:05:04,520 --> 01:05:09,320
Speaker 3: hope you are safe. We are here to learn your stories.

995
01:05:09,440 --> 01:05:12,200
Speaker 3: Please listen all the way to the end of this

996
01:05:12,360 --> 01:05:15,880
Speaker 3: episode and thank you for being here with us. Folks.

997
01:05:16,440 --> 01:05:19,560
Speaker 3: We are going to tell you how to contact us

998
01:05:19,800 --> 01:05:25,600
Speaker 3: via social media, via telephone, via our direct email address,

999
01:05:25,800 --> 01:05:29,000
Speaker 3: which we can all see and respond to. We do

1000
01:05:29,120 --> 01:05:31,520
Speaker 3: try to be easy to find online.

1001
01:05:32,160 --> 01:05:34,600
Speaker 5: You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff on

1002
01:05:35,120 --> 01:05:38,280
Speaker 5: x FKA Twitter. You can get to us that way.

1003
01:05:38,520 --> 01:05:41,440
Speaker 5: You can also find our Facebook group under that handle.

1004
01:05:41,520 --> 01:05:43,480
Speaker 5: It's called Here's where it Gets Crazy, and it's a

1005
01:05:43,480 --> 01:05:46,000
Speaker 5: great way to share stories with us and have conversations

1006
01:05:46,040 --> 01:05:51,040
Speaker 5: with your fellow conspiracy realists. We're also Conspiracy Stuff on YouTube.

1007
01:05:51,120 --> 01:05:53,920
Speaker 5: We have tons of video content for you to enjoy.

1008
01:05:54,240 --> 01:05:57,240
Speaker 5: On Instagram and TikTok also great ways to get in touch.

1009
01:05:57,320 --> 01:05:59,439
Speaker 5: You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff Show.

1010
01:06:00,320 --> 01:06:02,400
Speaker 2: Do you want to call us and tell us your

1011
01:06:02,440 --> 01:06:04,640
Speaker 2: story or do you want to call us in give

1012
01:06:04,720 --> 01:06:07,240
Speaker 2: us an offshoot topic that has something to do with

1013
01:06:07,280 --> 01:06:09,880
Speaker 2: this or something completely off the wall. Why not call

1014
01:06:10,000 --> 01:06:14,520
Speaker 2: one eight three three std WYTK. When you call in,

1015
01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:16,600
Speaker 2: give yourself a nickname and let us know if we

1016
01:06:16,640 --> 01:06:18,920
Speaker 2: can use your name and message on the air. If

1017
01:06:18,920 --> 01:06:20,560
Speaker 2: you've got more to say than can fit in a

1018
01:06:20,560 --> 01:06:23,320
Speaker 2: three minute voicemail, why not instead send us a good

1019
01:06:23,320 --> 01:06:24,720
Speaker 2: old fashioned email.

1020
01:06:25,000 --> 01:06:26,400
Speaker 4: We are the.

1021
01:06:26,440 --> 01:06:30,320
Speaker 3: Entities that read every piece of correspondence we receive. Be

1022
01:06:30,440 --> 01:06:35,320
Speaker 3: well aware, yet I'm afraid Sometimes the void writes back, Actually,

1023
01:06:36,440 --> 01:06:39,800
Speaker 3: some of you tonight check your email. There's a message

1024
01:06:39,960 --> 01:06:43,479
Speaker 3: on the way. We hope this finds you in good

1025
01:06:43,520 --> 01:06:47,440
Speaker 3: health and amid grand adventures. Will be back tomorrow evening.

1026
01:06:47,720 --> 01:06:50,640
Speaker 3: Now join us out here in the dark conspiracy at

1027
01:06:50,720 --> 01:07:11,440
Speaker 3: iHeartRadio dot com.

1028
01:07:11,600 --> 01:07:13,680
Speaker 2: Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production

1029
01:07:13,760 --> 01:07:18,320
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1030
01:07:18,400 --> 01:07:21,440
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.