Eagledad

Well, I find all your self-righteous grandstanding sickening. Most of us hear have similar experiences as yours and most of us respond with similar reactions. You have no proof that any scouter here has acted or will act otherwise. But you use our posts out of context to express judgemental accusations on most of the forum list. In your hypocrisy, you are see all scouts as amazingly wonderful, but not all scouters. This is a place where scouters have an open forum to express their thoughts on these subjects. But since many of the opinions aren't your opinions, you find the differences offensive. I hinted earlier that sometimes silence is the most powerful response to a post. But you can't help yourselves. Your emotions drive you to change us. I lost respect you guys because you have no respect or trust for anyone who thinks differently than you. You can't guilt me to change, I have too much of real life experiences with real life people balanced with religion and pragmatic sense to fall into your shallow utopian vision. Folks who know me know that the "My way of the highway" doesn't work for me. I'm open minded about new ideas and approaches. But at the same time, I know what works and what doesn't. If you want to change the goals, fine. But don't get angry with those of us who don't accept your idealist progressive vision. Just accept that we go our way, you go yours. Remember, scouting is local. You want heart tugging stories, I can pretty much match anyone here. But if you think you are selling the better BSA, well you will have to contend with my real life experiences and the wisdom that was painfully forged from those experiences. We all want a civil discussion of looking at life from our different perspectives. But when we start ranking each others moral character by our words, well something has to be said. Barry

Actually it is, or was. This all started when Obama used a loop hole in the law to leverage adults to claim asylum as a relatives of children. That is how uncles and aunts, great uncles and great great aunts are using the system to get into the US. Obama was just better at hiding it. Your use of moral high ground is as malleable as your uses of sex and gender. Barry

For me, it appears more as self righteousness than optimism. You would be amazed of the opinions for how to handle disrespectful scouts that go out of their way to rile adults. They are good humans too. What about serverly retarded scouts? And what about helicopter parents. They are all good humans, but each us have our limits to the giving of our time. Maybe you are better off thinking all adults are good humans as well who find the best place for their volunteering. Barry

I don't understand the grandstanding, I can't find any posts in this discussion that suggest otherwise. Barry

There is no biological explanation of sexual behavior different from their born gender, what if the adult feels they had no choice during their youth? Barry

You are now contradicting yourself. If the BSA doesn't think supporting transgenders is abuse, then is it abuse? I'ts kind of funny about scouts' behaviors. How often have you worked with a scout and then thinking to yourself after meeting the parents for the first time, "oh, well that makes sense". Barry

No. We had several gay parents. Most of my scouts are adults now and I know of one Eagle who has come out gay. None of us are surprised, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he switch to heterosexual later. He had a lot of personal issues and a challenging behavior. He often used our troop activities as a place to vent. Barry

And you don't see this as a risk of abuse! Who decides gender identity, the parents or the youth? Do you not see yourself making my point of the BSA excusing abuse? Barry

OK, let's try this: A person can still respect of another person without supporting their identity. I show gay and transgender scouts the same respect that I show my gay and transgender friends and relatives, as well as my non-gay and non-transgender friends and relatives. Isn't that what living the Scout Oath and Law is all about? Thank you. Barry

Support! No, I think you mean respect. A person can still be respected without supporting their behavior. Respect and support are quite different. Some believe supporting some behaviors is no less than child abuse. Encouraging volunteers of a national youth organization to support youth behavior they disagree with is encouraging an organization of child abuse. I understand and respect that many disagree, but they should respect it. Barry

Wow! So I guess Scouting is not local. You know, I think this culture has lost the art of knowing when to be silent. Barry

Another thought is Ask another Troop if you can camp next to them. Separate programs, but additional adults in the area. Barry

Wood Badge is intended for participants to understand where they fit in the program and planning to develop skills for that fit. Wood Badge is not a skills development course. It’s very good at helping leaders build a plan for their scouting future, provided the staff is good at guiding in seeing that future. Many staffs don’t understand the intention of Wood Badge and instead just play their staffing part for the fun of being on staff. Personally I think Wood Badge is better fitted torward adults in cub scouts looking at a long future in scouting. If you have a plan like ASM, then I think your time is better training for ASM. if you aren’t sure, probably a year of just hanging out at meetings and camp outs will help you out. I do believe Wood Badge is a good course for committee member, especially committee chairs. Not because it teaches committee skills, but because it teaches how to see the vision of the program and build teams toward that vision. It is the Committee Chairman, not the Scoutmaster or Cub Master, who should have the program vision and recruit and train the unit leaders toward the vision. But as I said, Wood Badge is only as good as the staffs that run them. And that is hard to measure. That is why I think so many participants have a low opinion of the course. Barry

Good reply. I think it expresses the thoughts of much of our society. But, if I may humbly give a personal anecdote; the Scouts surprised me with the Scoutmater Award Of Merit during a COH. In the presentation speech by the SPL, he stated that he didn’t know my religion, but he knew I was a deeply religious man. The BSA program has one set of directives that most other organizations don’t have in building respect for the differences of each member of the patrol, the Scout Oath and Law. The Oath and Law not only don’t conflict with the teachings of most religions, they enhance them. Even bring clarity. Sadly, we underestimate the power of consistently measuring our actions with the Oath and Law, so we don’t grow in the habits of using them. What other program does that as well as the BSA. Barry

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay-the-male-crisis-thats-ruining-our-boys-and-no-one-cares-about I’m posting this article because it hints to what many of us were saying during adding girls debate. The article is mostly centered around fatherless boys, but there is some mention of what boys need to develop their instinctive nature that I’ve talked about in other threads. For example: “As Farrell and Gray explain: “The traditional boy’s journey to self-sacrifice incorporated service to others, and required responsibility, loyalty, honour, and accountability. It created his mission. And his mission created his character.”” I get that the BSA has moved on and there is no going back, but just maybe a few here will be swayed to consider the needs of the boy, sperate from the girl, and bend their family scouting program, at least a little, toward that need. I know that as much as girls needed a program like the Boy Scout program, boys need it a lot worse. Barry

No Way, you sat in a Thunderchief? That is such a cool airplane. The only one I’ve seen was at the Air Force Museum. It’s huge for a fighter. EAA Camp, How Cool Is That! You have struck onto my other passion, all things aviation. I have worked in some part of aviation almost my whole adult life. My airplane passion started when I was young talking about fighter airplanes at our patrol campfires. I learned more about cars, girls, airplanes and movies at those campfires than other time in my life. Campfires were a great time for patrols brothers bonding together. And I pushed our patrols to have the same experience. Thank you. I’m humbled. I can’t think of what I could teach someone with your experience. Barry

I'm not watching this subject all that close since I'm out of the program now, but you guys are painting a scary picture that would not have worked well in our troop. The program is starting to look more like a cross between Webelos III and YMCA.

Well! This discussion has turned into a downer. BUT HEY, there's another discussion on breakfast tacos. Barry

I still don't think the attitude thing I was talking about is coming across in the discussion. I witnessed the adults setting the camp on fire by doing something very stupid. The scouts were participating in a different activity on the other side of camp, so they didn't see it. When the scouts learned how the fire was started, "stupid" was mumbled through the group. If the adults are around for the health and safety issues of the scouts, who is there for the adults? The health and safety justification is overused to the point of diluting the real reason adult method is even part of the program. What do you need to personally feel comfortable letting a patrol hike without the presences of adult leaders? If training adults the values of patrol method are to be effective, "safety" has to be at the bottom of list. If that is a challenge, then you aren't ready for a patrol method program. Barry

You don't see it? The DRP is directed at role models. Interesting to me is that I think you and I had this same discussion a few years ago on gay adult leaders. I have no problem with youth struggling to find themselves during a very complex time of their life. Scouting might even help them find themselves. But the adult role models theoretically know who they. Barry

Yes, it's about space, but not just physical distance. Patrol method "requires" an attitude of space that represents taking interference away from scouts making decisions based on their personal free thought. The intention of traditional scouting program is to give the scouts the room to make a decision without fear or thought of outside authority (outside the patrol) interfering with judgement. That is the challenge for adult leaders. And it is very challenging. Most adult leaders can't do it. Even fewer parents can do it. It's impossible with families. Barry

100 yards.

I don't think you realized your poor choice of words. Barry

Two differences between Northern Tier and Philmont are mosquitoes and water. When the sun goes down by the lakes, the mosquitoes can turn the experience into a horror movie. So do some research for protecting yourself, treated long pants and shirts and head gear are a few usggestions. Your foot gear takes a much harder beating in the wet environment of the Northern Tier. As a result, boots and water shoes wear out much faster. Ask your camp leader for advice on boots. And, socks are very very important because your feet will be constrained in a damp environment. We used Smartwool socks with liners. At least two pair so one pair would be drying. But I'm old, I think three pair are better, so you have a dry pair for just around camp. Those are the big differences between the two camps just off the top of my head. Oh, you can take a bath every day in the Northern Tier. Ahhhhhh! Barry

And it begins, little by little the principled foundation of the program gets diluted until the values of character are meaningless. Barry