fgalkin wrote:2) A community like the Amish are not, in fact “autonomous”. They are subject to existing laws including those prohibiting segregation in public accommodations such, as, for example, a bus line.
There are several laws from which the Amish are exempt. They pay no Social Security taxes, they are not required to send their children to state schools, or to educate them past the 8th grade.
Railroad workers are ALSO exempt from social security taxes. Although social security taxes in the US are
nearly universal they are not entirely so.
Also, while the Amish are exempt from social security neither can they collect it. They do not pay into social security or medicare but neither do they ever utilize either. There have always been some who have bitched about that, but at least if they do not pay into the system neither do they ever burden it, either.
(Amish communities are essentially self-insuring - they cover the retirement and medical care of all their members. Likewise, railroad workers have a separate retirement system from the those who rely on social security. In both cases, those not paying into SS are covered by an alternative system).
Also, in the US, NO ONE is required to send a child to a "state school". We have always had, and still continue to have, private schools both religious and secular. That is not an "exemption". The requirement is to
educate a child, it does not require how that education is to be obtained. Hence the legality of home-schooling, private tutors, public schools, private schools, or a combination of all of the above. The law says a child must be educated, not how that is to occur, and that applies to
everyone in the US.
Also, education in the US is only compulsory until a certain age, NOT to a certain grade level or awarding of a degree. The exact age of compulsion varies from state to state (as so many things do here) and is NOT set by the Federal government, and in
many states that age is still 14... coincidentally the same age the Amish typically leave school. That age requirement applies to
everyone, not just the Amish. By keeping their children in school through the 8th grade the Amish are, in fact, adhering to the letter of the law that applies to everyone else. An exception is not being made for them.
So really, the only "exception" here is the opt-out of social security.
Some ultra-orthodox nutter attempting that sort of bullshit on a public bus in the US is most likely going to get shouted down by the others on the bus. I can't imagine Chicago cops (especially black ones) playing along with such a bigot, although, since all things are possible, I suppose it could happen.
Israeli cops weren't playing along with them, either. He asked if the woman would move on her own to shut the asshole up, then made sure he stopped holding up the bus. Then, the Jerusalem chief of police started his crackdown.
I would be
shocked if a US cop even went so far as to ask the woman if she'd move to the back of the bus. I'd expect a more typical response to be "Sit down and shut up, motherfucker, where other people sit is none of your goddamned business". Telling
anyone to sit in the back of the bus in the US is pretty hot-button since the 1960's. I wouldn't expect it to be "fighting words" other places, but here it would be perceived as enormously rude and insulting, and direct reference to Jim Crow laws and segregation. It's pretty much declaring yourself publicly to be bigot and an intolerant asshole.
It's not that people don't sit in the back of the bus - a lot of folk do. The difference is between choosing to be back there, and someone else making the decision for you.
