NJCubScouter

BTW, out of all those students, so far only 4 have answered that they think the age of the earth and universe is less than 10,000 years. Interesting....and fun. Pack, I found this the most interesting part of your post. I have a question: Of those four, how many do you think believe that because they were taught somewhat that that is what they should believe (for religious reasons or otherwise), and how many because they are just completely unaware of the history of the Earth and guessed wrong? I mean, somewhere along the line they heard in school that the dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, but there are people who just don't retain certain facts. I think that if you stopped 100 adults randomly on the street, you would find at least several who believe everything has existed for less than 10,000 years, not as a matter of faith, but just because they don't know the right answer.

I agree with Calico, Eagledad, OakTree, etc., however... I still think this situation can be salvaged, perhaps not to everyone's complete satisfaction, but at least so that this Scout does live up to (or somewhere close to) the commitment he made rather than spending his last five months as a Scout preparing for his future career as a lawyer by parsing every syllable and comma in the Guide to Advancement, and then on to the "dispute procedure" and possibly an appeal. (And the current version of that book, at least the chapter on Eagle advancements and BOR's, was pretty clearly written or at least heavily edited by lawyers and reads largely like a legal document.) The way I read the GTA (section 8.0.3.2), he WILL get a BOR if he asks for one (although I think the lawyers need to do a little more work clarifying that section), although of course these issues may be raised. But is that even necessary? He still has five months. As you say, he can attend at least single days of two outings in that time. Maybe he should do more, but it's a reasonable compromise. I'll bet that if everybody is trying, he can find a night to spend camping with the troop, and then make the other outing a day hike. Or let HIM organize a day hike with his patrol, on a day of HIS choosing. Maybe the SM and another adult can go also. Make sort of a fun thing out of it, "Johnny's Eagle Hike". Or has too much "bad blood" built up for that? That would be a shame. As some other posters have pointed out, he has already done a lot with the troop. So he got bored after awhile. He still stuck it out, and here he is at the "finish line" -- not in the way "we" would ideally like, but there he is. Hopefully this can still be turned from a negative into a positive.

Interesting article, RememberSchiff. Now that sounds like democracy! Though on an issue that a Cub Scout pack does not have the authority to decide... yet. It's also interesting that their CO, a Methodist Church, seems to have actually been pushing for this and might have sent the pack elsewhere if the decision had gone the other way.

Well, Peregrinator, I would say that the leaders (or CO or whoever it actually it is) of Pack 79 have announced their intention not to enforce the "policy" if the subject ever comes up. I assume (though it is always dangerous to do so) that they are aware of the potential consequences of making this announcement and are ready and willing to accept those consequences. Unless there is another part of their statement that was not published here, I do not see them "advocating" that anyone else do anything. Perhaps there is an implied hope that other units will follow suit. As I said near the beginning of this thread, I think the practical implications of this action (if any) may well depend on the numbers of units (if any) that do so. Two unit, five, or ten, and nothing is going to happen. Ten percent of units, 20 percent, 30 percent, things will start to happen. Where the "line" is, I don't know. I doubt that we will find out in the near future, but I could be wrong. And as I said before, I am not "overestimating" anything because I am not "estimating" anything. I am just saying that if this becomes a "movement" (and someone earlier quoted the appropriate "literary" analogy, which is the song "Alice's Restaurant"), things might start to change.

At the beginning of every COH our Scoutmaster makes a pre-emptive disclaimer along the lines of "We're only human, so if we missed an award just come up to us afterwards and we'll take care of it." It does help to deflect any "flak attacks" before they ever happen. But I guess that's a reflection of leaders working together as a team and trying to protect each other from things like "flak attacks." Unfortunately that seems to be lacking in your troop. Unless, after the COH, the SM told everybody it was his fault and they should blame him -- but it doesn't sound like that's what happened.

Peregrinator says: Perhaps those who advocate breaking the BSA's rules should take a cue from the Founding Fathers and start their own organization. First of all, who here is advocating "breaking" the BSA's rules? I and others here are advocating changing the "policy" -- if you can even call it a policy. Second of all, your description of what the Founding Fathers did is not really accurate. They did not simply "start their own organization," or their own country as the case may be. Your terminology might be correct if the Founding Fathers had found some piece of land that wasn't governed or claimed by anyone else, and started their own country on it. That's not what they did. They "took" territory that someone else thought belonged to them (at least in a governing sense) and started their own country on that, and when the "original owners" used force to keep it, so did the "new owners." (I realize that is oversimplifying a bit since the war started 15 months before independence was declared, but I didn't want to write a whole long paragraph about it and I think the point is the same.) The point is, the American Revolution was a violent revolution and a war, and from the point of view of Great Britain it essentially involved "stealing" of property. (And in fact a number of "Loyalists" living in the colonies-turned-states actually were deprived of their property, with no compensation, although that really wasn't necessary in order to establish the new country.) Please note, I am not advocating a war within the BSA, nor am I sorry that "we" broke away from Great Britain (I put "we" in quotes because at the time, my ancestors were still busy getting chased around Eastern Europe because they were the wrong religion), even though violence was required in order to do it. I am just pointing out that the manner in which the Founding Fathers started their "new organization" is probably not something you want to see within the BSA.

Merlyn says: Half of life is just showing up. -- Hunter S. Thompson Hmmm. Do you have a "reliable source" that attributes that to Hunter Thompson? I have read most of his books and don't remember that as being one of his, and have been hearing different versions of it for years without his name being connected with it. (The version that is popular among attorneys I know is: "Half the battle is just showing up.") A Google search indicates several different attributions (including Thompson) but mostly just uses of the saying with no attribution at all.

I do not think this is mainly a time or distraction issue. I do think that for the boys' sake, it makes sense for the adults and Scouts to have distinct roles, and adults earning youth ranks blurs the line a little too much for me. But mainly I think it is just a little silly (or maybe more than just a little) for a 30 or 40 year old man to be passing requirements that are age-appropriate for an 11-17-year-old. Let the boys do their thing, and we do our thing. I think an adult can have more than enough "fun" in the program (while still serving the youth, which is the main reason we are here) without doing youth advancement.

OGE, Todd Akin is not a spokesman for the national Republican Party but he is not some obscure mayor or county judge somewhere, either. He is not only a Congressman but won the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate in Missouri. The national party leadership tried to get him to step aside, but he won't go. But you can't blame the Democrats for suggesting that he speaks for more than just himself within the Republican Party, can you? Or maybe you do. I don't, any more than I blame the Republicans for doing basically the same thing on other issues. It's just politics, which isn't always fair or pretty. My theory is that "the people" get the type of politics they (we) will put up with. If people really don't like "negative campaigning" they will vote out those who engage in it. But "negative campaigning" works sometimes, so candidates and parties do it. If your point about Anthony Wiener is that politicians on both sides of the aisle do or say stupid things, that is certainly true. But on that specific example, it is worth noting that he did resign.

Of course, there are other ways of passing laws in this country besides having a public referendum, which isn't even the usual way. Every state has a legislature, and the legislature passes a bill and the governor either signs it or vetoes it. That is how same-gender marriage was adopted in New York, the governor signed a bill that had been passed by the legislature. I do not believe New York has a mechanism for putting laws adopted by the legislature up for public vote, as Washington and Maryland evidently do, because same-gender marriage was legislatively adopted in those states but is being challenged by referendum. Here in New Jersey the legislature also passed a same-gender marriage bill, but the governor (who is about to have his Moment in the Spotlight at the Republican convention tonight) vetoed it. In fairness, he did say during his campaign that he would veto such a bill, and he did. In New Jersey we also do not have a mechanism for having a referendum to challenge a bill passed by the legislature or to pass legislation directly without legislative action. (Constitutional amendments and issuance of state bonds do require voter approval, but even then the legislature must pass them first.) I do wonder about some of these states that seem to have referendums on everything, like California. Why even bother having a legislature?

I just found another list of cricket positions. Here are some highlights: "Silly mid off" "Cow corner" "Short fine leg" Can anyone explain these? Eamonn? Packsaddle?

Skeptic, I don't know about inviting every single candidate to the debates. Remember that ballot placement is done state-by-state so there are a number of candidates that are on the ballot in only one or a few states. Even if they won EVERY state on which they are on the ballot, mathematically they still could not win a majority of the electors. I just looked this up on Wikipedia and I count 21 candidates in that category, and I suspect there are more that Wikipedia doesn't even know about. That would make the total number of candidates 25 (I'll get to the other two "third party" candidates in a minute.) Do you really want to have a debate where 25 candidates get 4 or 5 minutes of speaking time each? It sounds worthless to me. I would rather see the candidates with a realistic chance of getting elected be given the opportunity to make their cases to the American people, without a lot of crackpots such as Roseanne Barr, truthers, birthers and everything else crowding the spotlight as well. (Although the can't-get-a-majority group also includes some real, but very small, parties such as the Socialist Workers, Constitution Party and Reform Party. It appears that the Natural Law Party (see other thread, although the party's view of "natural law" is probably a lot different than those of the people discussing it in this forum) has dropped off the face of the Earth this year.) There are two "third parties" that, in theory, could actually win the election, although in reality they obviously won't. These are the Libertarians and the Greens, which has a certain sense of symmetry about it. I think it would be reasonable to add one debate to the usual three or four, and for that one debate invite the Libertarian and Green candidates as well as Democrat and Republican, and have a four-way debate. I think the Republicans would probably like that, because Green candidate Jill Stein has really ripped into President Obama for being too... wait for it... conservative. Or maybe they wouldn't, now that I think about it a little more. Seeing a real hard-leftist (which the President is not) might convince some independents that the President is a lot more moderate than they have been led to believe.(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

Actually Skeptic, the debates for president and vice president would be more interesting if they were "shouting matches." Hardly anybody ever even raises their voice. They are not really debating with each other, they are just giving speeches, sometimes in answer to the questions they are asked, and sometimes just what they want to say without worrying about what they were actually asked.

Eamonn, I have watched the British House of Commons on CSPAN and have noticed that they really do tear into each other sometimes, mostly on matters of policy but sometimes it does get right up to the line (and sometimes over) of being personal. And that is right to the Prime Minister's face, in the case of opposition MP's, or the opposition leader, in the case of government MP's, because they are all there in the same room. (I believe that what they show on CSPAN is only "Prime Minister's Question Time", and not debates on actual legislation, but even the question time is really more of a general policy debate, where they are making little speeches at each other disguised as asking and answering questions. I also saw, once or twice, the same thing in the Irish Parliament, and they get even nastier to each other.) In the U.S., on the other hand, you do not have the President and the opposition members of Congress (who may control one or both of the houses) directly debating with each other on television. Obviously there will be debates for the presidential election in a month or two, but those debates tend to be somewhat "civilized" because the candidates don't want to be seen as being angry, unlikable people. So they try to tear each other down with a smile on their face. I have never seen a debate between candidates for Prime Minister in the UK (do they have them?) so I don't know how nasty they get. The general tenor of politics in the U.S. has gotten much less polite and more war-like, mainly in the past 30 years, but it's getting worse all the time. Members of Congress who served before the 80s have spoken about how members of different parties would debate on the floor and then chat with each other or go out for an adult beverage, and how now the parties are more liked armed camps and if you are seen being friendly to a member of the opposing party you are likely to have it thrown in your face at the next primary (especially in the Republican Party.) I don't know how that compares with the UK. I love baseball, although I realize many people think it is boring. I like what you call "American football" too, just not quite as much. I have tried to understand cricket, but I find it totally incomprehensible. I mean, there are positions called things like "backwards short leg", right?

I thought it was common knowledge around here that Merlyn is not a Scouter.

Hmmm, Peregrinator. I am not sure how pertinent it is to the discussion here, but I would say that you're both late and early, and that there's no real "bright line" for when democracy "in the modern sense" came into being. It's been developing for centuries, getting closer and closer to the "ideal" that we have now -- which is still not perfectly ideal. As for your specific examples, "one person one vote" was routinely ignored in this country until the 1960's, and one could question whether we have it now. We have it in the sense it is required in the Constitution (meaning, in the House of Representatives (though even there, voting strength is only equalized within each state; between states it is as close as it can practically be without a larger-sized House, but it's somewhat uneven from state to state), and in the states through the 14th Amendment), but we don't have it for the Senate and we don't have it for the election of our presidents. I found it funny that one year New Jersey's congressional apportionment was thrown out because there was something like a 5-percent variance from one district to district, and yet someone in a sparsely populated state can have multiple-times the voting strength for president that I do. I understand it's that way because the Constitution says so, but it's not one-person one-vote. As for "universal suffrage", yes it was in the 19th century that property requirements for voting were done away with. But I would like to see you go back in time and tell women in the 1900's and 1910's that we had "universal suffrage" then. Oh, I remember what this was about now. Someone said the BSA is undemocratic. Well, it depends on what you consider a "member" of the BSA. I have a card that says I am a "member" but I don't get to vote on anything. (Well, every few years our troop committee takes a vote on something, but that's it.) To be a "voting member" I have to have to be an organization that has a charter to operate one or more Scouting units. But who gives me the charter? The organization that I would then become a voting member of. So the BSA decides who gets to vote on who runs the BSA. I don't think that would be considered a democracy when Parliament was just starting up in Merrie Old England, or in the Gilded Age of American Politics, or in the current climate of Corporations as Citizens, or any time in between. It's the way the organization believes is the best way to operate, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking it is a democracy in any sense. And frankly, I don't really care, but I do wish they would just change a policy or two and then nobody would really worry about whether the BSA is a democracy or not.

Oh, for crying out loud... Hey OGE, can we get a "Godwin's Law" violation call on Seattle Pioneer here? And just to be even-handed, can you also slap Merlyn around a little? Rhetorically speaking, of course...

I looked at some of the spoof merit badges there and while most of them are pretty silly, I could almost be tempted to lay down $1.80 for the "Canadian Heritage Merit Badge." Not to wear it, of course, just to have it, mainly because it looks cool. Somewhere along the line my father picked up a Canadian Scouting green beret, which I now have (but don't wear.) Someone actually gave me the Klingon Dictionary once. (I think it was my wife.) I think it had a cassette with it (that's how long this ago this was, it was probably sometime after the third Star Trek movie (which had Christopher Lloyd and John Laroquette doing a lot of talking in Klingon) came out, so more than 20 years ago.) I think I listened to it and/or read it for about 10 minutes and never got back to it. (Thanks Dear, you couldn't get me a tie instead? Not that I would ever actually say anything like that to my wife, not unless I was looking for trouble.) So I doubt I would qualify for the Klingon interpreter strip. I also think the Lenni Lenape interpreter strip is cool, but I wouldn't get that one unless I knew the language. Wouldn't seem very respectful otherwise. But to go back to the top of my post, how about a "Canadian" interpreter strip? After all, I know the language spoken by the majority of Canadians, as long as I steer clear of Quebec. (My wife and I were in Quebec briefly once, until we noticed that all the signs that had been in both English and French were suddenly just in French, and we decided to make it a short visit before turning the car around and going back to Ottawa.) I have even sung along with their national anthem once or twice... off key, as my family likes to point out.

Since humans defined what murder means in the first place, then yes, humans can re-define it as they see fit. Well, they can, but can they enforce the changed definition? Assuming that "they" are a state legislature (or Congress) in the United States, they have to act in accordance with the U.S. Constitution and (if a state legislature) their own state Constitution as well. A statute that looked at the sexual orientation of the perpetrator (or the victim) before determining whether a murder had occurred would have to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Or at least I think it would. Not to get too legalese-y here, but it probably would be looked at under the "rational basis" test, meaning the legislature would need to have a rational basis for making the distinction. That test gives the legislature a wide latitude, but even so, I don't see what rational basis there could possibly be for making this kind of distinction. If the distinction was not on the basis of sexual orientation, but say, race or religion, then the actions of the legislature would have to pass a much more difficult test ("strict scrutiny.") But this would be one of those rare instances in which the "test" probably would not make a difference, because there isn't even a rational basis for the distinction.

Basementdweller, I guess we can all wonder a lot of things about what goes on in other units. And there seems to be a great deal of variation in what information people are looking for and what they assume when they read about a situation in another troop. Maybe more people would post in these forums if more people took their posts at face value rather than putting their own spin on it. I also think that balance is good, in advancement and a lot of other things. I would say that most of the boys in my troop do care about advancement, to varying degrees, but they care about other things as well. In our troop, a "real go-getter" would probably make Eagle at 15, I think that is our "record" in the past 10 years, and I believe he was almost 16. We do have one Life Scout now who seems to have himself on track to make Eagle before he turns 15. He just got back from Philmont and NYLT and really knows his stuff, and takes pride in knowing it and teaching and helping younger kids. Then on the other hand we have a few Life Scouts who would not surprise me if they manage to "experience the advancement method" (as Beavah might put it) for the maximum amount of time available, until a day or three or ten before their 18th birthday. It's part of the kids moving at their own pace -- but so is Skeptic's almost-13-year-old Eagle.

Oh, well, then if you say so. LOL I do. Speaking of marriage...

Eagledad, Allowing same-gender couples to get married does not affect the marriages of your children (or mine), or their children, or ours. And if you want to talk about immoral behaviors affecting marriage, just look at infidelity among heterosexual couples, not to mention how children are used as pawns in divorce -- by heterosexuals. And then there's the divorce rate itself. Gay people didn't cause that. Straight people did it all by themselves. Allowing gay marriage, of course, will lead to some of those marriages being torn apart by infidelity and all the other things that tear straight marriages apart. But that's not because they're gay, it's because they're people.

Peregrinator asks: So do you think it would be possible for humans to change the definition of, say, murder, to make gay murder legal? Um, for the moment I am going to assume that this question makes any sense at all... Do you mean murder of gay people or murder by gay people? Either way, I think there would be an "equal protection" problem -- a problem that does not exist by changing the definition of marriage to allow same-gender marriage. (Though a few state Supreme Courts have ruled that keeping a definition of marriage that excludes same-gender couples does violate "equal protection" under their State Constitutions.)

Exactly how recent, would you say, Pergrinator? And what is your definition of democracy "in the modern sense"?(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

Ah, I see the local folks (other than the original poster or the Scout, of course) are back to getting the benefit of the doubt around here. Anyone have a scorecard I can borrow?