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Showing content with the highest reputation on 06/11/21 in all areas

  1. Let me preface my comments by saying that as a youth, I was a Brotherhood member of the OA, and in my senior year was simultaneously SPL of my troop and editor of the Lodge newsletter, so I know from experience that it is possible to do both. And yet.... I confess that as a Scoutmaster I have never held an OA election. The primary reason, frankly, is utter and complete lack of youth interest. I tried promoting the OA in my early years, and often mentioned OA representative as a possibility to older youth seeking a POR. Even had the OA reps come and do a video presentation. Cricket
    3 points
  2. Kosnoff just came out with some numbers. He is estimating that there were actually millions of youth abused in the BSA. BSA admitted they had 8,000 leaders listed in their perversion files BSA previously admitted they destroyed many files in the 1970s and didn't keep records of what they destroyed In 1935, BSA stated they had 2,500 leaders listed in perversion files. Based on extrapolations (assuming rate remained the same), Kosnoff estimates 45 - 50K leaders were removed from the list in the 1970s. AIS indicates 95% of their clients have identified unique abusers,
    2 points
  3. The only numbers we have that are not anecdotal are the claims that were filed. Until they are further analyzed to either accept or deny them, they represent a factual data point. Everything else is conjecture. You say you are being careful about how you select your data, but several times it has been pointed out that comparing the number of claims filed in the current day to the past universe of scouting alumni of 110 million, most of whom are likely now dead or incapacitated, is not valid. I think it is also important to acknowledge that asking survivors to file claims is not the same as con
    2 points
  4. Yes 85,000 is a big number but in my opinion that number is way higher. 30% of men die between the ages of 50 to 80 years old. There was 53,619 claims in the years between 1954 and 1984 (if average age of abuse was 13 these victims would be between the ages of 50 to 80 now). If the 30% were still alive and were to claim that would be an additional 16,086 claims. That does not take take into account those who may still be alive suffering from dementia and or mental illness who cannot because of their conditions make a claim. Look at it a different way...what was the number of abuse i
    2 points
  5. @ThenNow, again, no forgiveness necessary. Just as you, and others have touted 85,000 as a big number ... I have, with some reasonable objectively, identified it is a small percentage, relative to estimates from reliable studies. The review article that @CynicalScouter shared pointed out that only one of the studies estimated lifetime prevalence of victimization. Those tragically high percentages are pretty tight estimates of what's been happening in the average modern American male lifetime so long as he's avoided juvenile detention or jail. But NISVS data are not relevant to Chi
    2 points
  6. It doesn't. In order to demonstrate liability for duty to care, you have to demonstrate that the federal government took responsibility for the care of that child. Again, BSA is not a government entity. The federal government took no implicit or explicit responsibility for the care of the children within BSA. In any event, this is veering of the bankruptcy topic.
    2 points
  7. In my case, the Catholic Parish that sponsored our troop benefited by providing the complete package-Church, School, and social life consisting of youth organizations and Scouts. I can see the potential liability because even without directly running the Scout troop, the troop WAS operating under the Parish brand. And had I not been invested in the balance of the package, I may not have been a Scout. And therefore may not have been abused.
    2 points
  8. This thread started in the bankruptcy thread with a post about the LDS relationship with BSA and a statement that the LDS is more at fault than BSA and should contribute a large amount to the settlement. It quickly veered in a deeper discussion about LDS reporting practices and after a few pages of posts, I thought it would be best to pull the discussion out of the bankruptcy thread (as it had little to do with bankruptcy) and make it its own topic. Part of that goal was to allow those who were not following the bankruptcy thread to realize what discussion was taking place and take part (if
    2 points
  9. Hello out there...our 'Church' recently decided to put the Annual Budget of the Troop on the ballot for voting on at the Annual Meeting after 50+ years. This 'group' recently learned that to give a donor to the Troop a tax-deductible receipt, the Church (the CO) had to include their Tax ID number and a few of them went 'ballistic'...thinking that any 'irregularities' in the Troop Funds would flag the IRS leaving the Church open for an audit....!! This is S.O.P. for all non-profits, of course. It is my understanding that this has also been S.O.P. forever for Troops
    1 point
  10. Now those troop longevity bars are a sign of potential liability. :-{
    1 point
  11. Over the years I have seen the mention of the "perversion files" a number of times. Were these files specific as to "why" the scouter was on the list? The reason I ask is eagle1993s post references the entire list as though they were all abusers. I am not suggesting otherwise, I am asking whether the files were solely of abusers and suspected abusers or did they include names of people who were labeled as "pervert". (as an example homoexuals have been labeled this way, perhaps adulterers as well).
    1 point
  12. My point was that CO's are more liable than one might think at first glance. Even a ceremonial role can actually be the entire root cause of the abuse. I am likely time-barred so there may be nothing I can do about that. But to the extent it relates to the bankruptcy, I'd love to see them included.
    1 point
  13. @MGinLA, I agree with most of what you said but I did things slightly differently. I still ran the elections. First, I had a couple if scouts that did find their place in the OA and they never would have known about it if I hadn't run the elections. I agree with you that the scouts know more about the scouts than the adults and our elections were much more about character than popularity as the popular scouts took longer to get elected than the quiet, helpful scouts. That said, I can also see certain personalities, if there were enough scouts like that, that would turn it into a popularity con
    1 point
  14. And at is what many COs, and probably a few councils too, believed when they paid the charter fee. That is what I was told as a DE, and what I told prospective COs. In fact it was a "selling" point. Heck I was told that as early as 1993.
    1 point
  15. I generally agree you are right, but as the CO charter agreement has been taken more serious recently to infer more responsibility on the CO, similar arguments could be made at the national level. Almost every year there is a picture of the president in the oval office with scouts to receive a report on how scouting is doing. For decades, military hosted and supported scouting jamborees and other events. Our own state has hosted an annual huge scouting event at the local military base. For a long time, military has acknowledged Eagle scouts with rank and effectively extr
    1 point
  16. Why don't you leave for a bit, do some googling, and see what you can find. Your need may not be the need of others.
    1 point
  17. The government is already in debt over its head and asking them for more would only further devalue our money. I’m not personally looking for a handout, I’m looking for compensation.
    1 point
  18. I learned while serving in the military you can only sue the government if the give you permission. There will be no permission granted.
    1 point
  19. I know. I just like my Scarface reference better with the word “sovereign” in it. It was not a substantive note. I can’t hear Al Pacino using that terrible accent being able to properly mangle the word “legislative.” Can you? Send me the audio clip, if you do it! 😉
    1 point
  20. There are so many things wrong with this sentence. 1) It is NOT that the LCs are "passing liability to COs". The legal argument was and is that BOTH the CO and the LC had a responsibility to operate the scouting program in a way to prevent the abuse in the first place and they were BOTH negligent in how they did it. The CO and the LC had a "duty to care" to see children were not harmed, and they were negligent. Agree, disagree, don't care. That's the legal argument and, more often than not especially after the Oregon courts ordered the IV files released, it's been a winning argument.
    1 point
  21. Say hello to their little friend, Sovereign Immunity. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/governmental_immunity
    1 point
  22. I think the US Bankruptcy Trustee is raising the same questions. I'm still not 100% convinced a global settlement would pass an appeals process. All it takes is 1 claimant to say, I want to sue my local council for $20M. They are not bankrupt and are legally responsible for my injury. The could sue and then go through appeals. If the appeals see the Bankruptcy Trustee objected, I wonder if that could get the settlement thrown out. I would have been more convinced if local councils never had to pay out directly from prior lawsuits. So if local councils were found liable in the past
    1 point
  23. Your opinion is certainly just an opinion. As an engineer who has to think logically every day in big pictures to work problems, your opinion doesn't makes sense because you don't have any information, proof, or data to show that your theory is killing scouting. None. There are a lot of dynamics going on in the world, culture, and BSA, at the moment, so how could anyone determine what is killing scouting? Or if scouting is even dying.; Sure, the BSA is taking hits right now, but can we really say that is the result of actions within the BSA. The world is in a mess and a lot of organizati
    1 point
  24. FWIW, my scoutmaster as a boy (in an LDS troop) was a practicing attorney; I had a Branch President once who was a law student; several members of my current ward over the years have been law students; and one former member of my Stake Presidency was an employee of the state Bar Association before he retired. And my current Stake President is a practicing radiologist, so I'm sure he is a mandatory reporter in his day-job. His last calling before that was Stake Young Men's President, hence he dealt with Scouting; and before that, he had been Bishop. ... And my oldest son's 11-year-old
    1 point
  25. Hmm. That gets trickier in the case of Mormonism, since we have a lay clergy at the congregational level whose institutional training is almost nil and who are holding down day jobs while putting an additional 20-30+ hours per week into their ecclesiastical responsibilities. And again, as I pointed out above—there are practicing lawyers who get this stuff wrong unless or until they have a chance to do additions research and/or get advice from a colleague. I’m not sure it’s realistic or fair to hold some poor schcmuck who had the misfortune to be assigned the job of a Mormon bishop, to a hig
    1 point
  26. I’m not sure obeying a cop who is demanding you pull over right now, and a layman’s knowing the ins and outs of mandatory reporter statutes, are quite in the same category. I routinely interact professionally with people (including lawyers) who don’t know the reporting requirements in my own jurisdiction. Im not really “advocating” anything, just offering explanations for why the LDS church does things the way that they do. As I noted earlier—making a report of information received during a clerical confession when one is legally bound to keep it silent (as is the case in some jurisd
    1 point
  27. For work projects, we have to rate a project with different areas of risk: Safety risk, financial risk, technical risk, cost risk, and production reliability risk. All are different. So, Scouts is probably low personal safety risk, but high when it comes to legal / financial risk. That is due to the unknowns.
    1 point
  28. Back June 11, 2008 - we lost scouts Josh, Sam, Ben, and Aaron. 48 others were injured as an EF-3 tornado hit the Little Sioux Boy Scout Camp Remembrance story with photos. https://www.kpvi.com/news/national_news/back-in-the-day-june-11-2008-4-killed-48-injured-as-tornado-hits-little/article_5c26943e-f9f5-56f6-ae54-4aa1610d1099.html#4
    0 points
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