Hunt

A recent movie that might fill the bill, especially for younger scouts, is Sky High.

Fscouter, would you extend that same philosophy to other requirements for rank advancement? For example, wouldn't it be better, by your logic, if we dropped the necessity for the Scoutmaster to approve service projects? And why don't we let the scout choose what merit badges to earn for Eagle? Why are we making a list, and giving up this opportunity to teach? It seems to me that we have a number of requirements that have extremely rigid, prescribed requirements (like required merit badges and time limits), and a number of apparently subjective requirements with little guidance about what they mean ("active" "serve actively" and "Scout Spirit.") No matter what we teach, ultimately it is up to an adult to make a decision whether a scout has met the requirement or not. What's more, what are you going to teach? BSA materials don't give you much guidance on what they consider the ethical choice in this matter--if a scout asked you, "Mr. FScouter, what commitment level do you think equates to being active?"--are you just going to ask him what he thinks? What will you teach?

This whole issue of "active" gives me agita, but we're facing it too, so let me take a run at it. First of all, the requirements for Star, Life and Eagle all require a scout to be "active" in the troop and patrol for a specified period. Thus, obviously, insisting that the scout really be active is not adding to requirements--it IS the requirement. The problem is, what does it mean? It simply can't mean "registered," and I don't think anybody really believes that--although some may think you can't make any further judgement if a Scout is registered. But it seems to me that there are several possible approaches to this. First, a troop or a SM could have a very definite idea of what "active" means--ie, since it's the opposite of "inactive," it should mean attendance at least half the time. Whether that's a written or unwritten rule, it's something that has general applicability and can be known in advance. A second approach would be for the SM to make a subjective judgement after the fact about whether the scout has been active "enough" to warrant advancement. This is obviously undesirable for many reasons. The third approach is to personalize activity expectations with the scout before each new rank period. Thus, you can adjust what you consider "active" by considering the needs and circumstances of a particular scout. Thus, for example, a scout whose attendance is often disrupted because of custody issues might get particular consideration. The downside here is that it may be perceived as unfair by scouts. I see upsides and downsides of each of these approaches (well, I don't really see upsides for the subjective after-the-fact approach). There's a real advantage to understanding up front what must be done to achieve a requirement--there's no ambiguity about the number of merit badges you need. It is also desirable for these requirements to be as standard as possible from troop to troop. Bottom line? I wish BSA would address this issue in a FAQ and give more guidance. It would really help. If I were writing it, the following is what I would write(which may or may not be what BSA or anybody else would do): Q: What is meant by "active" in the rank requirements? A: "Active" means being present and contributing to the unit in its meetings and activities. As a rule of thumb, a scout isn't "active" for rank advancement purposes if he is not present at least half of the time during a given period. The SM and BOR should explain this expectation to each scout as he embarks on a new rank. The SM and BOR may take into account particular circumstances, issues, and needs of a particular scout that may require a different understanding of "active." This should be clearly explained to the Scout before he embarks on the new rank."

I think there are a number of layers to this particular onion--it's been unpeeled many times in these forums. Let me suggest a few points: 1. When people say they "tweak" the program, you have to look carefully at what they are "tweaking." It's one thing to say that a troop didn't have a New Scout Patrol because there were only two new scouts, and something very different to say that the troop goes paintball shooting because they think the rule in the Guide to Safe Scouting is stupid. 2. In my mind, the program has levels. At the highest levels are the Scout Law, and the broad methods and aim of Scouting. If you try to tweak those, it's a fair criticism that you're not delivering a Scouting program. 3. At a parallel level or even higher are safety and child protection rules. You just can't tweak these. 4. At the next levels are the more fleshed out details of how the program is to be delivered. Things like proper uniforming, doing advancement the right way, working through the PLC, etc. These things are important--but some level of deviance from them doesn't mean you're not doing scouting. It may mean that you're not doing it as well as you could or should be. I suggest that you have to look at the aggregate--if a troop is "tweaking" one element--say, they allow blue jeans as part of their "Class A" uniform, you may criticize them for that while recognizing that they are still delivering the essential program. If on the other hand, they are "tweaking" a lot of these things--i.e., blue jeans, no patrols, scouts on BORs, retesting at BORs, SPL appointed by adults, financial issues, etc., etc.--then you can legitimately ask if they have strayed too far from the program to really claim that they are delivering it. 5. At the next level are things that are prescribed by BSA but that aren't very important. I would include some minor uniforming issues here (i.e., putting the Tot'n Chip on the pocket flap). If you tweak these, some people will "tut, tut" but it's not likely to be a big deal. 6. Finally, there are all kinds of program helps and suggestions that are optional, but that can enhance the delivery of the program. Bottom line, I think when somebody says he is "tweaking" the program, it makes sense to ask whether he is tweaking any of the fundamentals, or if he's tweaking a whole lot of the other elements of the program. If he's not, you can still urge him to do it the BSA way, but it's not fair to say that he's not delivering "the program."

As far as his position of responsibility, he only needs 1.5 months, because the requirement is to serve in one or more of the positions. The same is true for being active in the troop--there is nothing that says the months have to be consecutive. Here's my somewhat devious suggestion: give him a position of responsibility that can only be performed on outings--perhaps Camp Cooking Instructor. If he steps up and does it, sign him off and let him go. I have some sympathy for this kid--he had performed most of his Eagle requirements in his old troop, and then his family moves him to a new state. Maybe if you could get him to go on a few outings, he'd be drawn back in to the fun side of it.

Well, you're right about McKinney. Too bad. I notice you don't mention Ann Coulter or Strom Thurmond--I wouldn't either, if I were you. We could play this game of which party has the most extreme, embarrassing, and obnoxious associations all day, but I still stand by my point, which is that to somebody of more moderate views, there is no significant difference between the far right and the far left in terms of how obnoxious or annoying they are. Of course, the closer you are to one extreme or another, the less annoying they seem to you, because you agree with them on the substance of their arguments.

"Those empowered on the right, denounce and isolate the likes of David Dukes (rare as they may be). Those empowered on the left, celebrate and embrace Al Sharpton, Michael Moore, and scores of others like them (no matter how often they creep out of the woodwork to exploit some sad event)." I don't agree with your comparisons. You have to pair Michael Moore with somebody like Ann Coulter if you want to be fair, and she's certainly been embraced. I don't like Al Sharpton at all, but David Duke is much, much worse. And there's another difference between the two--Sharpton has never been elected to any public office, but Duke was--when he ran as a Republican. I would equate Sharpton with somebody more like Strom Thurmond--somebody who the party has to acknowledge but keep a bit at arm's length--as Trent Lott learned the hard way. A better comparison with Duke would be somebody like former Representative Cynthia McKinney, who was ostracized by her own party and defeated in the Democratic primary when she said Bush may have known about the Sept. 11 attacks in advance. So again, both parties have really really extreme people that they push out, uncomfortably extreme people they keep but try to keep in the background, and regular extreme people who are in on the real action. Oh, and both the left and right have loud-mouthed obnoxious pundits who will say anything to get attention and ratings. (Side note: David Dukes is a fine actor--I saw him on Broadway as Salieri in Amadeus--lots of people, including me, mix him up with David Duke.)(Edited: I should have said "was" a fine actor. I just looked him up and he died of a heart attack in 2000 at age 55, while David Duke lives on.)(This message has been edited by Hunt)

FScouter, what exactly does the Insignia Guide say about neckerchief size? Does it specify a size? Since the neckerchief is optional to the troop, if it is simply silent about size I would not agree that custom sizes are not "authorized." The insignia inspection sheet--which is online--says nothing about size. It should be obvious to anyone with eyes that the standard size neckerchief can look pretty bad on a large man. It looks dinky, like he is wearing a child's garment. Since we different sizes of socks, shirts, hats, pants, and even merit badge sashes, it seems nonsensical not to have different sizes of neckerchiefs.

"Its easy to take the words of someone else and attempt to make them your own. You can cut and paste my words and substitute some of your own, to turn the tables so to speak, but this ability, does not make your words credible." That was kind of my point. The kind of invective you included in that post doesn't have credibility. It's just an attack on the "enemy." It's not a reasoned argument about policy. It's just a claim that the other side is mean and nasty and twists the truth. Well, both extremes are mean and nasty and twist the truth. You think those on the extreme right "listen to others or yield to reason?" C'mon.

Keeping a straight face is an essential Washington skill. I look forward to the conservatives telling us that every nominee deserves an "up or down" vote. Except for Miers, of course--see, she voluntarily withdrew to protect executive privilege. Alas, the Democrats are likely to go bananas over this story that Alito failed to recuse himself soon enough in some case involving funds in which he had investments. It doesn't really amount to anything, but they'll latch on to that (and anything else they can find) to avoid simply admitting that it's all about ideology. I continue to think the whole process would be better--at least more honest--if they would just cut the baloney and talk openly about ideology.

So for all you strict constructionists out there, let's say New York passes a law banning personal ownership of any arms using technology that was not available at the date of the enactment of the Second Amendment. OK by you? Let the State decide?

"I don't know where you got your diploma or your degree in math, but you should ask for your money back." Hey, Brent, you just lost your argument. Just when I thought you were actually trying to make a reasoned argument for your point of view, you resort to the name-calling. Too bad.

The following has been slightly edited: You can put "no difference" in CAPS all day long; it's not going to make me deaf, dumb, and blind to the politics of the day. I can see plainly how the right attempts to take advantage and manipulate every circumstance...every news story, to defame people on the political left. Facts are not important, only icing on the cake. And on the rare occasion that blind pig finds an acorn (i.e. the facts line up with the assertion), they feign as if its common place. No, the right is happy beating the drums of innuendo, and sounding the cymbals of baseless accusation. Its been their bread and butter since the days of Joe McCarthy. Ever since Reagan saw how well it worked against Carter, theyve made it their platform for re-election. No need to provide solutions, just make the other guy look like hes Mr. Hyde. Its a repetitious and dull sound, which more and more folks are growing tired of hearing. See how easy it is?

"Excuse me. Was I scoffing?" I don't know if you were scoffing, but I think you were proving my point about how people at both ends of the political spectrum portray those at the other end as evil, devious people with ulterior motives. It is this attitude that makes people in the middle skeptical of what either extreme has to say. Can't you see that what you say about "the left" is the exact mirror image of what extremists on the left say about "the right?" From where I sit, there is NO DIFFERENCE in the level of shamelessness, nasty invective, and willingness to do and say anything to score political points between the extreme right and the extreme left. Well, I guess there are some differences--I would give the left the advantage in self-righteousness, and the right the advantage in nasty invective.

Even if you're a strict constructionist, you still have to apply the words of the Constitution to real-life cases and controversies in which it is often not at all clear how to do that. A good example of this is the Second Amendment--reasonable people can and do disagree about what the Framers meant by the "right to bear arms" language, and how to apply it to the more devastating weapons that are available today. Imagine that you have two judges who claim to be strict constructionists, and you are deciding which you'd like to have on the Supreme Court. One says, "I think the term 'arms' in the Second Amendment has to be interpreted strictly in terms of what the Framers understood it to mean--in other words, single-action, hand-held firearms." The other says, "Arms are arms, and the Amendment says arms. That means all arms of any kind." Which is the stricter constructionist? Which will you support for the Supreme Court if you are an NRA lobbyist? Which if you are a Brady Campaign lobbyist? If you're unbiased, will you flip a coin?

To save time, I'd like to take a shot at filling in what the rest of this thread would probably say: 1. Someone will clarify that you don't need to wear the uniform when you are camping. 2. Someone else will explain that at summer camp and perhaps some other camping events uniforms are expected for certain parts of the event. 3. Somebody will explain that if you wear non-BSA pants with the uniform, that you aren't in uniform (and maybe, that you aren't even doing "Scouting"). 4. Somebody else will point out how expensive the pants are and how impractical they are for camping. 5. Somebody will suggest that you go to a thrift shop or on eBay to try to find another pair of pants. 6. Somebody will point out that there is no such thing as "Class A" and "Class B," somebody else will claim we all know what that means, and then it will be shown that nobody can agree on what they mean. 7. Somebody will say that if you wear a partial uniform, that tells the boys that partial uniforms are OK. 8. Somebody will say that nobody is required to own a uniform to be a scout. 9. Etc, etc, ad infinitum. Did I leave any out? Here's my advice: forget about trying to match the color. When you really need to wear the uniform, wear the whole thing, including the regulation pants. When you're camping, wear what's comfortable--If you want to identify yourself as a Scouter, wear a scout-related t-shirt, sweatshirt, or jacket--it's not the "uniform," but so what?

I think it's good for the SPL to meet with the committee occasionally, but probably not every meeting. I think it's especially useful to have him there when plans for the year are being discussed, because it reins in the tendency of the adults to think that they know what the boys would like to do.

As I mentioned earlier, our District Eagle Advisor emphasized at a conference recently that the Eagle Project is not a troop activity. What he was trying to put across was that it is up to the candidate to organize assistance for the Project, and that the SM and other adult leaders shouldn't do it for him by just telling the troop to show up. It seems to me that there is a fine line here: on the one hand, I think it's perfectly consistent with this view to remind scouts of their duty to obey the Scout Law, to remind them that they'll need help too, and to remind them that the troop sticks together. On the other hand, I think it would be a mistake to say, "The troop is working on Joe's Eagle Project from 8:00 until noon on Saturday. Everybody is expected to be there unless you have a valid excuse." If there is a problem getting scouts to step up, maybe a Scoutmaster Minute recounting the story of the Little Red Hen would be in order.

The truth is that hardly anybody REALLY wants an unbiased justice on the Supreme Court. What everybody wants is a justice who will decide key cases the way they think they should be decided. Heck, I'm not even sure what an "unbiased" justice is when it comes to something like whether Roe v. Wade should be overturned or not. Somebody from Mars who never heard of it before? The Miers situation really lifted the mask, in my opinion. It should be obvious to anybody who was paying attention that the controversy over her nomination wasn't really over qualifications, but over whether she could be reliably expected to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Conservatives felt that they couldn't rely on the President's coded assurances, so they opposed her. Liberals felt that an unknown quantity was better than a known anti-Roe vote, so they didn't say much. The Bush Administration tried to save the nomination by pointing to her religious beliefs to suggest that she'd be an anti-Roe vote. The result is that it's going to be very hard for conservatives to credibly attack Democrats for opposing Alito on ideological grounds. It's also going to be tough for them to argue that the impact of personal religious beliefs is off-limits. Sure, Alito is more qualified than Miers, but he wasn't chosen primarily on the basis of his qualifications--he was chosen because it can be reliably predicted that he will vote like Scalia. If I were the leader of the Democrats, I would say this: "We're not going to waste time debating Judge Alito's legal qualifications. He's obviously qualified. What we're concerned about is whether it's in the best interests of our constituents for him to be elevated to the Supreme Court. If we determine that it isn't, we'll exert the power they have entrusted to us to stop it, if we can." Unfortunately, I predict that both sides will waste endless time with wrangling about qualifications, ethics, and a dozen other sideshows, when everybody really knows what it is all about.

I've been giving more thought to this question of extreme vs. moderate views, and it seems to me that a common characteristic of people with extreme views is a belief that nobody could honestly or thoughtfully hold opposing views. In other words, extremists tend to think that their opposite numbers have some ulterior (usually evil) motive for their views. You can see this most glaringly in the rhetoric over abortion. Extreme pro-choicers think that pro-lifers are religious fanatics who want to control women's lives, and that they don't really care about the babies that much. Extreme pro-lifers think that pro-choicers really know that abortion is murder, but don't care because they are selfish. You can see similar divides on guns and other issues. Those of us with more moderate views--or with "liberal" views on some issues and "conservative" views on other issues--may be able to better see that there are arguments with real moral force on both sides of most issues. We don't like to see arguments dismissed with labels and personal attacks. And why is it that politicians have to play to the middle to be elected? It's because the middle has to be persuaded that what the politician is saying makes sense.

Well, a t-shirt like that could be part of the activity uniform, but it wouldn't make it any more "official" under the field uniform shirt.

I can see only two real problems with a parent being a MBC for his or her son: 1. This takes away the element of the scout approaching the counselor. I agree with this to some extent, but I wouldn't be concerned about it unless the parent counsels a large number of badges. If my son has 19 merit badges, I don't think it's a big deal if I counseled a couple of them. 2. The parent might go easy on the requirements. In my experience, the opposite is likely to be true--parents often are tougher on their own kids. But if the leader is trustworthy enough to be approved as a counselor, he or she should be trusted to avoid bias, in my opinion.

I looked at the Brady Campaign's website, and I didn't see anything about ridding the U.S. of guns, although I did see plenty of arguments in favoring of restricting them. And even if they did want to ban all guns, when you say "liberals hate guns" you suggest that all liberals agree with this. As far as conservatives and their attitudes towards poor people, that's been obvious ever since the Reagan administration tried to classify ketchup as a vegetable as part of an effort to cut funds for nutrition for poor kids. Do all conservatives have a callous, greedy attitude toward the poor, or is it only the extreme conservatives, or just some of them? If we're just labelling people in order to slam them, there's no need to make any such distinctions.

The Advancement Committee Policies and Procedures clearly state that there is no limitation on a parent serving as a merit badge counselor for his own son. Thus, if the dad was an approved counselor, and the completed blue card was turned in, the badge is earned. There are some troops that do have rules that prohibit parents from counseling their own sons, but these rules are contrary to BSA policy. As far as the buddy system, there is clearly no violation of the Guide to Safe Scouting if the boy works with his own father. As for what to do, my suggestion is to simply ask the dad when he'd like to get together with the other boys who are interested in golf.

The answer to your first question is a bit more complicated. The way the system is supposed to work is that when you want to work on a merit badge, you approach your scoutmaster and ask for a blue card. The scoutmaster helps you identify a counselor, and then you go to the counselor and begin work. But let's imagine that you talk to a counselor before you talk the scoutmaster, and you begin work on the badge. Then you go to the scoutmaster to ask for a blue card. He can still give you the blue card, and the counselor can accept the work. If the counselor is approved for that merit badge, I can't see any good reason for the SM to refuse you the blue card--although he may point out to you the way it's supposed to work. A related issue involves whether the merit badge counselor can count work done before you obtained the blue card, or before you contacted him. The answer is that it's entirely up the counselor. In some cases, the requirement calls specifically for the scout to do something after obtaining the counselor's approval, and most counselors would probably insist on that. For other requirements, some counselors think the requirement should have been done while the boy was a scout, others may take different approaches. In some cases, it's pretty obvious that it's OK for some of the work to have been done before getting the blue card--for example, the requirements in Music to serve for six months as part of a school band or other musical group--I don't think many counselors would require you to wait six months after getting the blue card. Another example would be the requirement in Citizenship in the World to study a foreign language for a year. You may find some difference in approach among counselors, on the other hand, when it comes to something like the nights of camping for the Camping merit badge.