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ghjim

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Posts posted by ghjim

  1. On 5/26/2020 at 6:00 AM, Eagle1993 said:

    I should have added … single gender Troops.

    I think someone mentioned that BSA would focus less on "character" and with the loss of LDS, I expect the declaration of religious principles to fall.  

    I certainly hope so

  2. On 9/19/2018 at 7:45 AM, cocomax said:

    We would be a lot better off is we based hiring people and college admissions on merit and merit alone. 

    I agree and disagree.  There are plenty of exclusive private and public universities that admit only the best high school students. They have an important place in our society.   I teach science at community college, whose mission, in part, is to provide second (or more) chances to students that did not do well in high school.  Every quarter I have one or more single mothers who are often my best students.   Most of my students are in the so-called lower middle class, supposedly the main Trump demographic.  Some of them work hard and some continue the habits that put them and their families in the socioeconomic position they are in.  We must continue to make sure that affordable post K12 education opportunities are available to our public and open on a first come basis.

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  3. On 6/2/2018 at 4:14 PM, walk in the woods said:

    If the BSA dropped the DRP, would those  of you that oppose to the DRP be open to individual COs adding one for their units?

    Sorry I am late getting into this thread.   I am opposed to the DRP (I don't believe in it the way it is written).   I am totally OK with making this requirement part of the "local option".  It doesn't bother me if a troop wants to restrict its membership so long as those members lose the authority to force everyone to.  That has been the problem with the membership restrictions all along.

    Jim

  4. On 2/4/2018 at 7:10 PM, HelpfulTracks said:

    I routinely hear that the drop in membership in 70's was caused by the program change. I can't say for sure, because I was not involved at that time, certainly not as an adult leader. So I went in search of some numbers. I found some here http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/443_boy_scouts_and_girl_scouts_membership.html

    I decided to chart the numbers for BSA and GSUSA. The dates are a bit strange in the spacing 10 years, 5, 5 then one year increments after that. The gaps in the data can hide a few things like actuall peaks and valleys, but the general trend line remains fairly accurate. The data ends in 1999, so there are no status for this century.

    A few things I noticed.
    1. BSA and GSUSA both take a similar dive in numbers from 1970 to 1980. BSA's drop is marginally worse.
    2. BSA's numbers recover more robustly - great gains than GSUSA each year following 1980
    3. BSA's numbers eventually exceed the 1970 peak, GSUSA's do regain their 1970 level

    That begs the question, if BSA's membership drop was primarily about the program change, then why did GSUSA's numbers follow an almost identical decrease trend?

    5a77ca829fd71_ScreenShot2018-02-04at9_48_41PM.thumb.png.1b303abc7cccfad11c6861083a6ce7f7.png

     

    If the current youth membership stands at 2.7 million what has accounted for the decline since 1999?

  5.  

     

    I'm also personally of the opinion that he may not even want to finish out a term in office or seek a 2nd term. Not a popular opinion, I know, but still a theory I believe in. 

     

     

     

    I  don't think Trump wanted to win in the first place.  He is as surprised as everyone else that he did win.

  6. We had female staff members at summer camps in 1978. We had female staff members at Maine National High Adventure Base when I worked there in the mid-1980's. The BSA figured it out way back then - it can certainly figure it out now.

     

     

    I am not sure of the date but I am pretty sure we had female staff members at Philmont (including rangers) before 1974....

  7. If the 'local option' was pulled than my United Methodist Church CO (which leans slightly right of center) would likely 'decline' sponsoring us. I get tired of arguing the BSA "God" requirement as it is such a weak, wishy washy demand very close to a 12 step "belief in a higher power". Really I have known at least half a dozen scouts who were atheist and did not hide it (all in church CO units) where it was not even a speed bump on the way to Eagle.

     

    So Tampa, you are saying that the DRP is only minimally enforced?    Although I have not been a BSA member for a long time, it seems to me that this varies from CO to CO.  It looks to me that some are enforcing it very rigidly.

  8.  We harken to the days before the zealots told our COs that we weren't allowed to have certain scouts and scouters in our troops. Now the pendulum is swinging back, the religious COs can still prohibit whomever they want, but at least they can't tell my CO who to bar from membership. /rant

     

    As far as I can see nobody on the left telling the religious COs they have to leave the BSA or that they even have to include anyone they don't want.  The Mormons are making their own decisions which seem to me to be based on losing this authority over everyone else.

    Opening the BSA to the irreligious and girls will be the best thing that can happen.  

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  9. I would guess if the BSA were to abandon the wording of their protected Congressional Charter, it would open the door for others to step in and take.  Congress made it clear that there would be a Boy Scout for boys and Girl Scout program for girls.  If those organizations no longer want that designation, then another organization can step in and accept that mission under a Congressional Charter with a program just for boys. 

     

    So therefore, is Trail Life USA in violation of the charter?   Hasn't the BSA successfully shut down other organizations using the charter as their authority?

  10. Slight correction here.  Agnostic - A = not or without gnostic = knowledge.  Without knowledge.  You were correct when you indicated "Some agnosticism says that God is unknowable"  This is a process of knowing or knowledge, not belief.  Belief is the acceptance of an idea that IS unknowable.  Apples and oranges operating here.  Unless one knows they aren't going to accept anything, meaning if it can be sensed with any of the 5 senses it is not real.

     

    An A-theists = A = not or without theism = God/god.  Without G/god.  They actually do believe, but their belief is there is no G/god.  They have a belief system the opposite of the Theist.

     

    Now there may be a few that will argue those definitions, but those are the etymology of the two words.

     

    I'm sure the Agnostic has put a bit of thought into the process, but has concluded there is no way of knowing.  They just leave it at that.

     

    I consider myself agnostic, and to me it means irreligious.  This is why I asked the question.  I do enjoy scientific inquiry into the supernatural.

  11. As for your question about sports teams, chess club, etc.:  If it is a PUBLIC school, the football team cannot exclude atheists, nor can the chess team, marching band, robotics club, etc.  The difference between those teams and clubs, and a Cub Scout pack or Boy Scout troop, is that the BSA says its units MUST exclude atheists.

     

    So this brings me to a question for anyone who can answer;  something I have been wondering about.

     

    I believe that the Unitarian church recently has reaffirmed their relationship with the BSA after a period of self-imposed exile.  Since the Unitarians accept atheists in their ranks, does being a Unitarian satisfy the religious affirmation requirement?  Even if that Unitarian is an atheist?

     

    Jim

  12. Not in writing, but there was and is no lack of demonizing, name calling, and belittling at the conservatives to bully for liberal change. Not very scout like, but they what they want. Of course The liberals lost their souls in the process because they sold off morality for cultural high ground. As the Girl Scouts, Campfire Kids and the Canadians have learned, a values teaching program can't grow in an environment of compromising morals and ethic principles.

     

    Barry

    I agree with you and also agree that this bullying is not productive.  As others have noted there is bad behavior on both sides of the aisle.  But I think it is very important to note that as liberal thinking has won recent victories within the BSA there has been no attempt to remove any of the conservative groups that had so much to do with altering the direction of the BSA back in the 1980s.

     

    Jim

  13. "Entire classes of citizens"? You mean girls? Did we decide to accept them now or are they still bared? I guess we can't "go forward" until we stop discriminating against all "classes of citizens" right?

     I do hope you meant "barred"  and not "bared".   Heaven forbid no one thinks we are trying to bare any female members....

  14. By entire classes of citizens I meant gays and the irreligious.  During my years in scouting we had no rules barring these "classes" of people.  I don't recall any discussions about admitting girls at that time, although as I have posted before, the admission of girls into the Explorer program was seen then and now as a huge success.

  15.  

     

    Being part of the Scouting movement in America for 50+ years isn't necessarily the blessing everyone wishes it to be.  Maybe the only consolation the old guard can retain is the idea that for a brief moment, they where one of the few that got a chance to be part of the Golden Age of Scouting in America. 

     

    This, of course, is at the very heart of the conflicts that have grown around the BSA ever since "Dale vs the BSA".  If you refer to the last 30 years of scouting as the "golden age" then we are in sharp disagreement.  To me these were the dark ages of scouting, when we diverted from a cultural icon to a restrictive movement.  Hopefully we are now heading into a more open membership environment (notice that this more "liberal" scouting movement is making no attempt to remove any conservative groups from the membership).

     

    Will the new scouting movement be the one I love and remember from the 1960s?  The one that didn't separate entire classes of citizens as being unfit for membership?  Probably not.  As you say we can only go forward.  

     

    Jim

  16. Devil's Advocate here, but we had rules of membership before. They were tossed away because we've "progressed" as a society as to not discriminate on any basis....supposedly. So how can the organization justify discriminating against girls when: 1) They let in women, 2) they have girls in crews now, and 3) we are supposed to be eliminating barriers.

     

    Slippery slope the BSA has created.

    Had the ultra-conservatives on the executive board not steered the BSA off into a new direction in the 1980s we wouldn't be in this position.  I agree the BSA is in a tight spot. I am in favor of forming girls troops but I can see the other side of the argument.

     

    Jim

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