I would say the Amish have survived hundreds of years, doing what they do, now total up space heater fires co poisonings and sure we have no readily available statistics, but I doubt the Amish are at a greater risk than the general population. The reason they oppose smoke detectors is a religious opposition to electrical things, now the inspectors said just put it up to pass inspection, then take it down. That would be dishonest they said. Then Texas let us have the religious right not to serve gays, whacked world.
I agree with @Barkydogâ
Letâs not tear into the Amish
Theyâre hard working people, and could teach many of us a thing or two
They are far from clueless
Not only that, but they originally came from the region of Germany that I"m from, and still speak a version of my dialect
I suppose that makes them very distant cousins
rod, if my insurance were that reasonable I would not complain. I d better call geico
GEICO works for me and has for 40 years. But @wesw, you seem to have found what you want in VA and still on the eastern shore. Sounds like a winner and you hardly have to move more than an hour south.
@wesw - if you think some government-organized insurance will be better, youâre simply wrong. A âboon to special interestsâ is just nonsense. Insurance companies are like any other business. Just because itâs necessary to prevent huge losses to innocent drivers doesnât make it wrong.
How are people on welfare,unemployment or social security disability going to pay for an accident they cause without mandatory insurance.
Also if you get bent out of shape by the states enforcing mandatory liability insurance to protect you if someone hits you, why are you not screaming about the feds forcing you to buy medical insurance to protect only you. Actually , I believe it is designed to enrich the insurance and drug companies that give your senators and representatives to money to get re- elected. Once they take money from lobyists, they represent the lobyist, not the people of their district.
Arenât the Amish mostly farmers? If their house burns down, will it really endanger their neighbors?, who likely live at least a quarter mile away and the only house that will burn down is their own house? Maybe our government needs to get out of the over-reaching busybody business and start leaving people alone, or at least exempt anyone who doesnât have a next door neighbor, Amish or not, from the mandatory smoke detector law.
We donât force liability insurance on bicycle riders for a similar reason. They usually only kill themselves.
Insurance is the burden of law abiding citizens. I live with it and could lose everything without it. Between auto, home, and health insurance I have probably been reimbursed 5% of my premiums. I have been very fortunate so far but you never know.
âI have probably been reimbursed 5% of my premiums.â
Yeah, I laugh when people say, âI buy all this insurance and never use it,â like thatâs a bad thing.
Insurance is like gambling, the odds are stacked in favor of the ins company, that is ther profit margin, sure most of us never capitalize on the mandatory bet, but for a certain percentage it is a lifesaver. We all pitch in for the greater good.
@weswâ
Next time you see that lizard, tell him we said hello
Barky, the Amish are not alone in surviving as a group up until now. Hundreds of thousands of people could perish needlessly in fires and we would still survive. Smoke detectors are not required to ensure your private interest group survives as a whole. They are there to protect you as well as the people whoâs job it is to go storming into a burning building to save someoneâs ignorant @$$ because of some âreligiousâ belief prevented them from installing a safety device proven to save lives.
Personally, I could care less if YOU want to take the risk. But I do care that the person who might also die as a result of trying to save you has left behind a family without a parent.
lol, I m not âscreamingâ about anything. that seems to come, mostly, from the people who disagree with me. and I d be happy to debate the health care issue, but I don t think it would be allowed here. @jtsanders, you may be rightâŠ
when did car insurance become mandatory across the country? and how did you old timers survive with out it?
I don t have a problem with insurance co s making a profit. I resent being forced to stuff their coffers. its easy to say a state gov t run co op would not work, as it seems to in va, alongside private ins., without supporting your statement. social security would be gazillions to the black right now, and able to last thru the boomer generation, if the surplus had not been robbed already.
TwinTurboBarky, the Amish are not alone in surviving as a group up until now. Hundreds of thousands of people could perish needlessly in fires and we would still survive. Smoke detectors are not required to ensure your private interest group survives as a whole. They are there to protect you as well as the people whoâs job it is to go storming into a burning building to save someoneâs ignorant @$$ because of some âreligiousâ belief prevented them from installing a safety device proven to save lives. Personally, I could care less if YOU want to take the risk. But I do care that the person who might also die as a result of trying to save you has left behind a family without a parent
Smoke detectors do not prevent or put out fires and the people whoâs job it is to go storming into burning buildings to look for survivors will storm into those burning buildings anyway, smoke detectors or not.
Your argument may be valid for building codes that donât allow people to build firetraps in the first place. My brother, a professional fireman, claims that sheetrock (drywall) has probably saved more lives than any other building innovation.
I always had too much to lose to go without insurance of any sort.
If a bone-fide religious conviction is enough to allow indians legal peyote, it ought to be enough to allow the Amish to opt out of smoke detectors.
Regarding the Amish, they have relented to a certain extent on several things of a technological nature. For instance, many of them will allow electrical devices in their barns, and some of them rely on battery-powered devices in their homes.
Even when it comes to transportation, some Amish do drive cars nowadays, even if they shun chrome trim on those cars. This Amish sect became known as The Black Bumper Amish, back in the days of chrome-laden cars. The Amish folks who run the local market near me mostly seem to be of this sect, and they drive all-black cars and SUVs.
AnywayâŠsince no building codes (to my knowledge) require retrofitting a home for hard-wired smoke detectors, battery-powered ones are almost always considered to be acceptable in older homes. So, even w/o running electrical lines to their homes, smoke detectors could be easily added to the homes of the Amish who are less strict regarding modern technology.
I agree that mandating car insurance is a good thing because cars are an expensive asset and the average person doesnât have enough discretionary money laying around to pay for repairs from an accident. Homeowners insurance is important for the same reason.
However, the methodology that goes into determining insurance rates can be very unfair. A lot of the common factors (what car you drive, how much you drive, driving record) make a lot of sense, but some companies will drastically alter your insurance rates based on where you live.
When I purchased my home, it was in a much more affluent town than I had been living in previously, despite only being 15 miles away One month later when I went to renew my car insurance I found that my rates had doubled! A representative from Progressive let me know that the increase was due to the fact that I moved. I no longer use progressive.