Hunt

Sturgen, your comments don't insultivate me at all, but I'm not a mother--I'm a dad. Your additional descriptions make the process sound even more like a communist self-criticism session than before (and, I must confess, feed my suspicion that you may be trolling). I don't believe that a troop that used a process like this to repeatedly turn down advancements for boys who had met all the requirements other than the subjective ones would last very long. I also had to laugh at the idea that if the vote was unfair the SM would make the boys vote again to achieve a fair result.

One could sensibly discuss the concept of a boy-led BOR for lower ranks, if it were a small group of boy leaders conducting it (and it sounds like this is what BSA tried and dropped)--but the idea of the whole troop voting on the fitness of each boy for advancement--and routinely turning boys down--is so obviously wrongheaded I'm not sure it's worth say more, except it's hard to believe anybody really does it.

Senator: Mr. Nominee, can you tell us your position on the death penalty?

Nominee: No, because that would be questioning my religious beliefs.

Senator: Well, can you tell us your position on the legalization of marijuana?

Nominee: No, that's questioning my religious beliefs, too.

Senator: It is? Why?

Nominee: It just is. To tell you why would get into my religious beliefs.

Kind of silly, but the point is that nobody (except Hatch) to my knowledge ever questioned any nominees about religious beliefs, per se. They asked them about Roe v. Wade. Every lawyer, much less every judge, has an opinion on whether that case was wrongly decided or not. There are certainly people who think it's wrong to try to find out how a potential judge will rule in any kind of case--but that's different from claiming that religious discrimination is going on.

Bonus question: Assume there are two nominees for the next Supreme Court vacancy. One is a devout Roman Catholic. The other is a former doctor who performed legal abortions. Which one is more likely to overturn Roe v. Wade?

Bonus bonus question: Assuming both of the nominees in the prior question are equally qualified, do you think the President should flip a coin to decide which one to nominate?

I think he was WEARING his coat. At least he took his boots off.

Sturgen's description makes it sound more like a Maoist self-criticism session. It's not a conference with a few boy leaders to make sure the boy is ready for his real BOR--it's an inquisition in front of all the boys with rank higher than Scout. And if they're just determining if the requirements have been met, why do they need to vote? Sturgen essentially admits that they use judgements on Scout Spirit to hold back advancements--this is not something boys should be voting on, in my opinion.

Sheesh. Can I suggest that if this thread continues, it should focus on WHY boy-run BORs are or are not a good idea? To me, they are clearly a bad idea--the boys don't have the maturity to judge each other fairly. They are much more likely to support those who are popular. The "outcast" scout will never get his advancement, no matter how hard he works, under such a regime. Boys can be cruel, and setting them up in judgement over each other creates an opportunity for cruelty to come out.

All that being said, the boys probably do have useful knowledge and insights about their peers that the adults on the BOR should know. If the lines of communication in the troop are effective, they will know it.

My son got back yesterday from his first cold-weather campout with his new gear, so I thought I'd report if anybody is interested. He reported that a full-length Therm-A-Rest would have been better than the 3/4, because his feet were cold until he stuffed some more clothes into the bottom of his sleeping bag. He had an REI down bag rated to 20 degrees, and although I doubt it got down that cold, he said it wasn't warm enough without the fleece liner he also took along. Thanks again for the suggestions from this group.

I think they gotcha, NJ. Opinions don't have to be based on facts. Of course, you can evaluate the value of an opinion by whether it is supported by facts.

Thus, it is my opinion that both Republicans and Democrats consider the ideology, and not just the qualifications, of potential judicial nominees--both in nominating and opposing them. You can certainly have a contrary opinion, but it won't be encumbered by the facts.

It could be that the problem with Troop A is that it's not following FCFY. But there are many, many other possible reasons for its small numbers. It may be that the SM and his coterie are obnoxious and unlikeable--or that some of the leading boys are. People may have quit because they object to BSA policies (this actually happened to my son's Pack a couple of years ago). It could have something to do with the demographics of the community, with the CO that sponsors the troop, with the mix of activities, with the recruiting methods, you name it. If all the boys come from a particular middle school, it would not be strange for another troop to outrecruit them.

Also, Troop B may have a great program--or maybe it's an LDS troop, and all the boys in the church belong.

But in any case, these would only be anecdotes, not statistics that show what kinds of programs retain Scouts. You'd have to look at many, many troops to distinguish that.

Let's assume that troops that use FCFY experience a higher retention rate than the average troop. I see several possible reasons for this:

1. The most likely reason is that these troops schedule plenty of fun activities like campouts, hikes, orienteering, etc. The FCFY program spurs them on to do this because boys need these opportunities in order to make their advancements. But it's the activities that generate the retention.

2. A second possibility is that the program generates an advancement mind-set--that once boys have put in the work to get First Class, they are more likely to want to go all the way and get higher ranks. I find this less likely, and somewhat less palatable.

3. Finally, it may be that troops who pay attention to their program and really try to make it work get more retention than troops who just let things flow along as they've always done. They're just better troops, and thus get more retention. It's not the particular program that works, but the fact they have ANY coherent program.

Bob, you are technically correct, but I think most boys probably don't achieve all their Tenderfoot, Second Class, and First Class requirements in only three campouts. My point, though, is that if a troop is having enough campouts for boys to realistically hope to achieve First Class in one year, what they are really doing is having a fun-filled, active program. You don't think it's the rank, per se, that leads to retention, do you?

She did forfeit her chance to win at the very end by choosing the more worthy person to go with her at the end. I wish she had made it more explicit that she was doing it out of principle.

Despite its inflated rhetoric, the article from OpinionJournal confirms that the basis of what is going on is a disagreement over abortion, not a desire to discriminate against religious people per se. Indeed, the obvious desire of conservatives to have judges who disagree with Roe v. Wade is just as much a religious test as the reverse.

It seems to me that the likely effectiveness of First Class First Year is based on a fairly obvious factor: boys are more likely to stay in troops that are active and go on a number of campouts, and if they can get the boys to participate in them. To make First Class you have to have ten non-meeting activities, including several campouts, hikes, cooking, orienteering, etc. All that stuff is fun. Isn't it that simple? If troops are doing all those activities, boys will probably stay in, even if they don't get their ranks. Troops that don't do the activities probably won't retain boys.

I watched only the last episode, and found it to be fascinating. Lill admitted that she had decided to play the game on its own terms, which meant that she lied--like everybody else did. And yet, when it came time to vote, the other contestants held her to a higher standard than themselves because she was a Scouter. The host seemed amazed by this, and pressed them about it. They really seemed to see her as representing the Boy Scouts, and criticized her for not representing its ideals all that well.

As for Lill, I admired a couple of things. First, she admitted that she didn't represent the ideals of Scouting well. Second, when it came time to choose who would go with her to the final vote, she clearly did not choose the strategy most likely to bring her personal victory. Instead, she chose the person she thought was more deserving--something I doubt any of the other competitors would have done. On the whole, I think she probably helped the image of Scouting more than she hurt it--it could have been so much worse.

This issue of the judicial nominees sent me on a Google hunt, and it's pretty interesting. As I interpret the facts, some Republicans took the position that Democratic questions about positions on Roe v. Wade were actually based on anti-Catholic bias--this is what led Hatch to ask Pryor about his faith--Hatch was trying to spotlight Pryor's staunch Catholicism to lend support to the idea that the Democrats were imposing a religious test on nominees.

Whatever you may think about abortion, this is certainly not the same as broad anti-Christian bias--instead, it's related to a specific, controversial issue--indeed, Pryor had publicly stated that he thought Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. There is no hint that any other aspect of Pryor's Catholicism was involved.

I can accept the concept that when a Scout is traveling from home to a meeting (or to the pickup point for a trip, perhaps), he isn't doing Scouting yet, and so the rules don't apply. However, I do wonder whether there is liability on the troop when he leaves the meeting. Maybe it's not against the rules technically, but I think it would be a bad idea for an adult to drive a boy (not his son) home alone unless there is no alternative, or for the adult leaders to let a younger boy ride home with an older boy driving unless they knew it was OK with the younger boy's parents at least.

These ideas get started when written rules (in this case, the Guide to Safe Scouting) are not crystal clear--and of course, rules are almost never crystal clear. In this specific case, the Guide does not make a clear distinction between meetings, activities, trips and outings, both in connection with transportation and youth-protection. To me, it seems that the intention is to restrict the age of drivers only in group travel on trips or outings, but the use of the vague term "activity" could confuse some people. But it still takes some interpretation to figure out questions like: "Can an adult leader drive home two boys from a meeting?" The answer seems to be yes, if (a) one of them is his own son, and he drops the other boy off first or (b) he drops both boys off at the same time. Otherwise he would violate the one-on-one requirement--which I think still applies even though the meeting is over, right? Or what about: "Can a 17-year-old youth member drive home another boy from the meeting?" No youth protection issue there (although I'm not sure why)--but it seems to me this should only be allowed with the approval of the boys' parents--a requirement which is in the Guide, but which only seems to apply to trips and outings. This scenario seems to me to be realistic, and more problematic than whether the 17-year-old can drive himself.

Inquiries into the religious faith of judicial nominees are, in fact, rare. I'm not aware of any other examples. Inquiries about the nominee's position on abortion are more common, but despite the effort to make such questions the basis for claims of anti-Catholicism, they aren't. They are no different from other questions designed to determine how potential judges will rule on controversial topics. Now, some people claim that it's improper to try to figure out how judges will rule, and that their qualifications are all that should matter--but the obvious truth is that conservative Presidents try their best to nominate conservative judges, and liberal Presidents try their best to nominate liberal judges. Why do they do this? Because judicial decisions, especially those by the Supreme Court, have an impact on long-term policies.

It was Sen. Orrin Hatch--a Republican--who asked Pryor his religious affiliation. Sen. Leahy--a Democrat--objected. It was all a circus because everybody knew his religion and his position on abortion already. Clearly, nobody cared about his religious beliefs--except as they might relate to decisions on abortion. And whatever else it might be, abortion is a controversial political issue.

"today in the U.S. the minority religions would like to relegate the majority to "second-class citizenship"."

I see no evidence of this--this would be the situation if those religions were claiming that their faith should be taught in the schools to the exclusion of the majority religion, for example. What they're really saying, of course, is that the government must treat all religions the same, whether they are majority or minority religions--and the best way to do that is "hands off."

Thanks, Rooster, I respect your response. Deciding what to believe is difficult--it's hard even if you do believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. For example, I was reading recently about a debate over whether God ever changes His mind, and whether He has complete foreknowledge of all future events. Both sides were able to cite persuasive Bible passages to support their views--and this is a core issue for some people. As for the dig about the Founding Fathers--well, that was kind of a dig, but I think it's true that you can only label some of the Founders as "Christian" (Jefferson especially) if you use a very liberal definition of Christianity. What I think is that people who don't believe in the divinity of Christ or the atonement aren't truly part of the Christian religion, although they may follow a Christian moral philosophy.

I'm not too offended by a suggestion that I might not be a "true" Christian if I don't believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. Most Christians have an idea of what core beliefs separate Christianity from pseudo-Christian religions. For mainstream Christians, it tends to be the divinity of Christ and the Atonement, while for more conservative Christians things like the inerrancy of the Bible are added. More liberal Christians might include anybody who follows the moral teachings of Christ. (Please note that I never said one way or the other what I think about the inerrancy of the Bible--I just said you'll never convince people of your point by just quoting the Bible unless you can first convince them of its inerrancy--a point that I think is bourne out in this thread.)

(Side note: by Rooster's definition, we do not live in a Christian nation, nor were many, if any, of the Founding Fathers Christians. Does that help with some of the other arguments here?)

How about these very modest (ahem) proposals:

1. Drop the word "Boy." It makes the program sound like kid stuff.

2. Redesign the uniform. Hire the people who design skateboard team outfits to do the job. Redo it every three years.

3. Advertise Scouting more in general media, focusing on high adventure. Sponsor a skateboarding team.

4. Split Boys Life between Cubs and older scouts, and make the older version much cooler. Use it as a recruiting tool.

I think some of my fellow Christians could use a little gentle admonition on how to talk about gospel truth in a manner that is loving and persuasive.

1. First, it's not persuasive to say that you know the answers because you've been praying and thinking about it for years. There are plenty of people older than you who don't agree. It's also condescending.

2. It's offensive to suggest that somebody is worshipping a different God because they don't interpret Scripture the same as you. (Note: President Bush recently caught unfair flak for saying Muslims worship the same God as Christians.)

3. "The Bible says so" is not a persuasive argument to anyone who doesn't already believe the Bible is inerrant. Even among devout Christians, reasonable minds disagree about the inerrancy of Scripture--so some humility is called for when expounding on such matters.

4. It's perfectly reasonable to disagree on religious matters, and to explain why you think you're right and the other person is wrong. But when you simply announce that you possess revealed, absolute truth, your opportunity to persuade has ended.

What I remember is that Israel restricts efforts by Christian groups to proselytize in Israel, and that it also restricts religious displays. It's been some time since I read about this, but I do remember reading about clashes between the government and the Orthodox leaders in particular.

Here's something I remember from a few years ago, which I just looked up--hotels were banned from displaying Christmas trees or crosses in public areas. See http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/13.Dec.1999/Opinion/Article-2.html. It appears that the ban was made by the chief rabbi. This is another difference between the US and countries with an established religion--even if the US is a Christian nation, there is no "chief Christian" to make edicts like that.(This message has been edited by Hunt)