Hunt

"Asking the boys (most notably those 15 and older) if theyd like to see girls introduced into the BSA (i.e. would you like a teenaged girl or two sleeping in the tent next to yours), is akin to asking a fox if hed consider inviting a few hens into his skulk. The resulting answer is predictable, but it doesnt guarantee a nice outcome especially for the hens." I don't know, Rooster--maybe my son has a higher moral character than boys you know. His explanation for his view was that the Girl Scouts don't provide the same quality of activities, and that girls would benefit from being in BSA. I will also point out that boys and girls over 14 can already be together in Venturing Crews, so I guess BSA is not as convinced of the "predictable" results as you are. I would also suggest that I haven't "screamed" local option. If you think a measured discussion is "screaming," then you ought to check your own rhetoric.

What if Anne Frank is hiding in the attic of your house? If you don't lie, the soldiers will likely search it and find her. Plus, it seems odd to me that one might think that it was morally justifiable to break the law by hiding her, but not justifiable to deceive the authorities about it. It seems to me that the Nazi's need for the information is so clearly evil that there can be nothing morally wrong about denying it to them, even by lying to them. After all, it would be OK to kill them, right?

"Uniformity in blue jeans? Last time I looked, there were about 1000 styles and a multitude of shades." I agree that this might be less uniform than the ideal, but I still think it might be more uniform than the current reality, in which so many troops wear all sorts of different pants.

I asked my son which of the three changes he thought would have the most radical effects, and he responded that it was obvious that letting girls in would be the most radical. He then went on to say that this was the change he supported. Interestingly, ronvo, I think a lot of people would feel the opposite of you: let the girls in, but keep gays and atheists out. My personal view (if anyone cares) is that BSA should keep the religion requirement, but leave the question of girls and gays up to COs. The point of my prior post is that we shouldn't confuse arguments based on principle with those based on predictions of pragmatic effect--the arguments based on effect tend to be overstated, in my view, and thus not very persuasive.

"Using the Nazi reference, denying knowledge of Anne Franks whereabouts is an un truth and therefore wrong by definition yet it is also morally correct and you could do it without guilt or sin and therefore it would be a righteous act." Here's what I don't understand: what do you mean by "wrong" in the sentence above? If it doesn't mean morally incorrect or sinful, what does it mean?

Of course, even if it's possible to obtain full, expensive uniforms for poor scouts, it begs the question of whether that is the best way to use available energy and money. I have to wonder whether we might not see more uniformity, rather than less, if blue jeans were the required pants.

A few thoughts on this: 1. I think a major source of difficulty in this perennial discussion is whether there are major and minor tweaks, and whether the minor tweaks lead a unit down a slippery slope to more significant tweaks. (Here, by "tweaks" I mean deviations from BSA's prescribed procedures.) Your philosphy on the "slippery slope" will shape your reaction to this issue. 2. Another way of asking the question is whether BSA's rules are more like the rules of Monopoly or more like the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations. I'd say they are somewhere in between. 3. As several people have noted, BSA has made numerous changes in its program over the years. As ornery Americans, many of us are skeptical that the bigwigs in any organization actually know any better than we do. After all, many people think they know how to play Monopoly better than Milton Bradley does. I'm often reminded of the scene at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" when government agents tell Indiana Jones that "top men" will be studying the Ark, and then you see it being warehoused.

Recall that this particular case isn't about a troop trying to solicit donations. Rather, it's about a company that makes donations to organizations for which its employees volunteer. I would say the existence of a program like that teaches something good about corporate responsibility and volunteerism. While I agree that a scout pays his own way, I think he should also accept unsolicited gifts with gratitude.

"But to say yes this is a clear infraction but we are going to ignore the rule in this case because the result of not ignoring the rule would be tragic sets precedent and should then be reason to amend the rule so that it is applied this way in the future." The problem comes when the people who must enforce the rule are not the ones with the power to change the rule. If the rule is unjust, what should they do? They can enforce it, and respond to any criticism by pointing out that they were "just following orders." They can openly defy the rule--perhaps the most honorable way to respond, but there may be unacceptable impacts on other people. This may justify a third course, secretly violating the rule--this is what people did when they hid Jews from the Nazis, or when the Underground Railroad helped slaves escape from the south. I maintain that people who lie and break laws in such situations are not committing "wrongs" at all--these are righteous acts.

" He is registered, a committee member and previously submitted the adult application form when he got active in our troop. The district told me he would have to submit another application form (but no fee) in order for them to process the merit badge counselor form." I encountered this some time back, and never found a really clear answer on why this was being required. Recently at a recharter meeting, a guy from the council said that all position changes require a new application form, and that criminal background checks are being performed--apparently in the past, they weren't performed on everybody, and rather than going back and doing them on all registered leaders, they are doing them as positions change. I suspect that this is also being done when a registered leader becomes a MBC. It may also be that MBCs, as district positions rather than troop positions, are recorded differently in BSA's system, and that having a separate application makes it easier. While it's kind of a pain, it really hasn't discouraged anybody that I know of.

To follow up on Kahuna's point, I'd like to mention that laws vary widely in how specific they are, and thus, in how much interpretation they need. Just looking at the Constitution, there is little or no ambiguity about how old a person has to be in order to be President. On the other hand, a phrase like "freedom of speech" is not very specific. The courts have to figure out what that term means in the context of a particular case. Even if everyone agrees that the proper way to interpret such words is by figuring out the "original intent" of the drafters, it's not so easy to figure out how those 18th-century people would have thought about current issues. Which of their principles would they consider most important? For a look at a "conservative" court applying an "original intent" analysis, check out the Dred Scott decision: http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/21.htm. Then read this article, in which George W. Bush and other conservatives criticize the Dred Scott case as an example of judicial activism: http://www.slate.com/id/2108083/. In other words, a "judicial activist" is a judge who interprets laws in ways you don't like.

In thinking about the three changes that were just discussed, we should be honest with ourselves about which of these would make the most radical changes in Boy Scouting as it is actually practices today in the United States. To me, the one that would have by far the most far-reaching effect would be letting girls in. To be perfectly honest, dropping the requirement for a belief in God would have very little effect on Scouting as it is experienced by the vast majority of boys. The same is true for allowing gay members, assuming that the same standards of behavior are maintained. Note I'm not talking about values at all, but about the actual on-the-ground changes in program that you would see. It's interesting to me that the change that would likely be the most radical in practical terms--allowing girls in--is probably the one of the three that is least upsetting to people. Perhaps it's because it is not based on religious principle in the same way.

Merlyn, your last post proves my point--it's always been part of BSA that you had to believe in God, and until pretty recently it would have been unecessary to state that gays weren't welcome. Your argument really makes no sense--if a voluntary organization to which you belong changes its rules so you're no longer welcome, you think it's OK to lie so you can stay it?--and so, you turn back to government sponsorship again, because that's the only part of your argument that does make sense. Sure, we understand that you don't like BSA's exclusionary policies. You're perfectly free to join or start a club that you do agree with. LongHaul, I'm sorry that I don't really understand what you are saying. Just to take the specific example that's been mentioned several times, are you saying that it was "wrong" for Christians to lie to the Nazis about the whereabouts of Jewish families they were hiding? If it was wrong, in what way was it wrong? What should they should have done instead?

Well, I personally don't think it was wrong for people to lie to the Nazis about the whereabouts of hidden Jews. But that simply has no comparison to lying so you can belong to a voluntary club whose membership requirements you don't meet. The fact is that once you take away the government sponsorship element, critics of BSA have no really good argument as to why a group of religious people shouldn't form a club that is restricted to religious people. That's why Merlyn's arguments are somewhat incoherent in this thread.

"Persecute" means "To oppress or harass with ill-treatment, especially because of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or beliefs. To annoy persistently; bother." The Dale case was an example of an unjustified attack on BSA--I know it was unjustified, because BSA won the case--but it certainly cost them a lot of money. Unlike challenges to school sponsorship, that case was a direct attack on BSA's membership policies as a private organization. It was an example of persecution. I also think it was persecution when Boy Scouts were booed at the Democratic National Convention a few years ago. I would also suggest that you can distinguish a would-be persecutor from someone who just strongly disagrees with you by the rhetoric they use. If their rhetoric is full of insults, generalizations, exaggerations, attribution of bad motives to well-meaning people, etc., then they are likely to be persecutors. Thus, for example, if the Democratic delegates had simply declined to attend a session with Boy Scouts there, it would have been a statement of strong disagreement--booing made them persecutors.

Well, it appears that Merlyn thinks lying is OK, but discrimination is not OK. But you can't have your cake and eat it too--if you want to get on your high horse about the "dishonesty" of BSA, you can hardly praise other people for lying. Plus, Merlyn's beating a dead horse when he talks about the public schools--BSA already made the decision to move its charters out of the schools.

I think what the district guy may have been saying about "Scout" is that it is not exactly a rank--there is no Board of Review for Scout, for example. Its requirements are described as "joining" requirements. I'm not sure one even turns in an advancement report for achievement of Scout--what you turn in is the registration form. Perhaps BSA's records simply show a boy as "Scout" as of the date of registration--of course, that doesn't mean that you have to give him the Scout Badge before he's completed the other requirements.

"The language of the 2nd Amendment has only been in question recently." The Supreme Court ruled in 1876 that the Second Amendment doesn't affect the ability of states to regulate guns, and the Supreme Court case holding that the federal government could ban sawed-off shotguns was decided in 1939. I guess that's kind of recent, compared to when the Bill of Rights was written. There aren't really any more recent cases--perhaps because lawyers in the gun lobby realize that if they were to try to challenge federal gun control laws on Second Amendment grounds they'd probably lose, which would hurt their fund-raising and lobbying efforts.

I'm sorry to say that I think in our area it would be very difficult to persuade parents, particularly of younger scouts, to to allow the boys to go on an overnight without adult supervision. I think there may be more sensitivity to this depending on where you live.

"The reason you have more restrictions on auto driving is that there are no constitutional guarantees to the right to drive a car." I just wanted to point out--again--that there is no constitutional guarantee to own a gun if your state wants to ban it. It's not clear that there is an individual right to own a gun, even against a federal law--it may be that only the states themselves would be able to successfully challenge a federal law abridging gun ownership. But again, insofar as what the state can legally do, there is no difference constitutionally between requiring you to have a driver's license and requiring you to have a gun license. The state couldn't, on the other hand, require you to have a "free speech" license, because the right to free speech in the Bill of Rights does apply to the states, as well as to the federal government. Really, for a supporter of unrestricted gun ownership to win this argument, you'd have to explain why it's better as a practical matter for the state to allow gun ownership without licensing and safety training. I can't see any sensible practical argument at all, except for the one that suggests that all such restrictions are just excuses to move to a total ban.

What Merlyn should really have said is that ACLU may decide to challenge PTA/PTO charters of BSA units, and one of the grounds they may argue is that the PTA/PTO is a public accomodation. Some PTA's may decide that they don't want to take the risk of litigation, even if they think they'd win. This is what is suggested by the article Merlyn quotes. Personally, I think it is highly unlikely that the federal courts would agree with Merlyn's interpretation. That argument failed when directed against BSA itself, and would probably fail as against PTAs as well. I also question whether the ACLU will really have the stomach for such a lawsuit either. So far, they haven't, as far as I know. But Merlyn is right that there is a difference between actually owning the charter of a unit and simply allowing a group to meet at the school. As far as the "backpack mail" situation I described, the school board indeed banned mail from (virtually) all non-school organizations in order to ban the evangelistic messages from one group. There were other makeweight arguments, such as the hassle of having to manage all the mail, but it was clear to everybody that this was makeweight. I think they probably decided that rather than get involved in more litigation over content-based censorship, they would just throw it all out.

I'd like to agree and disagree with anarchist's post. Agree: in the scenario you describe, I totally agree that the boy in question was not "ready" for his BOR. In that case it had less to do with whether the requirements had been signed off or not, but with his attitude. Disagree: I think skills are only retained if they are used. I see no value in penalizing a boy if he forgets how to do something that he's had no occasion to use (in my mind, that would be more like school lessons). Knots are a prime example--if the troop is doing activities that call for knot-tying, great--but I don't like the idea of boys sitting around practicing knots so they can pass their BORs.

Lisabob, there are several answers to your question. The short one is that BSA has announced that units should no longer be chartered by public schools themselves. This is because of threats of lawsuits alleging that for a public school to charter a BSA unit is impermissible because of BSA's religious requirement. There are strong feelings on both sides of that issue, but BSA decided not to fight that battle. Units chartered by public schools have been instructed to find new COs. Many units are still sponsored by PTAs and PTOs. Some people think that this, too, constitutes too much entanglement with the public school, and that it is also impermissible. I don't think that view would prevail in the courts. (I also don't think a PTA is typically the ideal CO, but that's just my personal opinion.) Again, you have to distinguish between a unit that is chartered by a school and one that simply meets in a school.

Were these requirements signed off in your son's book? Who signed them off? As Semper notes, a BOR is not supposed to retest completed requirements. There should be no need for a boy to "study" for BOR at all, if he's already fulfilled all the requirements. I would say that chances are about 9 out of 10 that the BOR in your troop is improperly retesting, and needs to be educated. The other 1 chance is that your son confessed to them that he really doesn't know how to tie a bowline and doesn't know the CPR in the 1st class requirement. While what this BOR did is bad, the one factor that makes it less bad than it could be is the invitation to try back in a few weeks--some troops that pull this retesting and failure nonsense make boys wait months until the next regularly scheduled BOR.

I assume this was posted to note that these groups are "in" at the schools while BSA units are "out." I will just point out that BSA units can still meet in schools--they just can't be chartered to the school. I think that is different from being an official school club--although I have to wonder about these organizations with adults who come in from the outside to proselytize--can they honestly be called student-run clubs? I think it was a Good News Bible Club that caused the end of so-called "backpack mail" in my locality. The School Board wanted to exclude the Bible Club's mailings--because they were too evangelistic, I guess, and they learned that the only way to do that was to ban "backpack mail" from essentially all outside organizations, including Scouting. This really hurt scout recruiting.