NJCubScouter

(Warning, more Trek) Oh, and I forgot, Wheeler! Not only is 23rd/24th century Earth a socialist society, it has a real-live one-world government! It's even the capital of the entire United Federation of Planets! And everybody's happy about it! Oh, the horror! And "gurlz" get to be captain! And admiral! Oh, I'm melting, what a world, what a world... (Well, uh, fictionally real-live, anyway.)

Sturgen, I think what Wheeler is saying is that his fantasies are more appropos now than they were at some other time. I am somewhat dubious about that proposition, however. (StarTrek-ophobes may stop reading here.) And Wheeler, I figured you'd like the Borg. Their big enemy, 24th century Earth, is a clearly socialistic society in which not only have poverty and wealth and the banking system been wiped out, but there isn't even any money. (Except when the writers forgot that there wasn't supposed to be any money.) Heck, the starship captains don't even get paid!

ProudEagle says: All I can say is that if the NEA gets its way the teacher will be replaced by the administrator as the great messianic giver of knowledge, students will be trapped in failing schools, relativism will abound, secularism will flourish, progressive ideas will become the only unbigoted ideas, skills useful to leading a productive life will decline, and self esteem will become more important than self control. In short, the NEA is setting up those generations that will fight the future battles in the war on terror, and the wars yet unseen, to fail. As I suggested in my first post in this thread, I come here not to bury the NEA nor to praise it. (Ancient quote alert, though I guess I have paraphrased it almost beyond recognition, and yes I know it isn't actually ancient either.) I could tell you a few stories of my own. I do think your statements quoted above are a bit, um, overdramatic. I also am not sure about that "administrator" part, I think a lot of the unionized teachers I know would be happiest if the principals and other administrators were rarely heard from except to keep the buildings open and running, the flow of textbooks and supplies (and paychecks) flowing, and the disruptive students out of their class. As for your "local example": Based on my own experience, if you are serious that a substantial number of students are (or were) reaching the sixth or seventh grade without being able to read, or even reading a couple of grade levels behind, there is some other factor or combination of factors at work, other than unionized teachers who learned "NEA approved education methods." As I said before, the teachers in my district are NEA-affiliated and presumably went to the same types of teacher education programs as the ones in your district. The students in our district score pretty high on standardized tests, there are programs in the lower grades to "catch up" students who are below grade level, and different "intensities" of program depending on the severity of the problem. This applies to students both with learning disabilities and without. The most serious and difficult to remedy problem seems to relate to students from homes in which English is not spoken, which shouldn't be a surprise. If you come from a district that has an abundance of those kinds of issues, and/or a school board and/or administration that have failed to provide for programs to deal with the students' needs, I would look there first. Of course there are incompetent teachers too, and there are teachers that do not require enough of their students. But (again) in my experience, recent graduates (who would seem MOST likely to have been "indoctrinated" in NEA-approved methods) are the LEAST likely to just want to let students slide along from grade to grade without knowing what they need to know. It's more some of the ones who have been there 25-30 years, especially teachers in some of the middle and upper grades, who are just sort of counting the pages on the calendar and waiting until it's time to collect their pension. (Note to any teachers out there, I said some, not all, or even most.) Now on the other hand, this isn't the first time since September 11th that very serious sorts of words have been used in ways they should not have. I know the ACLU has taken flack. At least one "civil rights" group refered to a certain local police department as being a fascist organization and engaging in terrorism against "their people". How many times have various people been accused of fascism, Nazism, or McCarthyism over the years, even since September 11th? And how many people, especially since 9/11, have been accused of being "unpatriotic" or worse, simply for opposing some policy of the current administration? Especially for worrying that some of the measures supposedly intended to fight terrorism could instead be used to stifle dissent, as they were by other administrations 30+ years ago? I have heard people like Howard Dean and John Kerry called "friends of bin Laden" and "friends of Saddam" by nationally syndicated radio talk show hosts. In fact I have heard a lot more of that than I have heard going in the other direction. But I hope we can agree that it goes both ways. On the other hand, I don't think a comment by a "group" or a talk show host or some other person "out there" is quite the same as a comment by a national public official. And that works both ways too, or at least it should. I seem to recall a couple of Clinton appointees, early in his administration, who were thrown over the side for remarks that were "ill-advised" or maybe just misunderstood and misinterpreted, causing an uproar on the "other side." So, yes, outrage does tend to be "selective," but nobody has a patent on that.

Good post, Acco. I'm not sure everybody else will like "their" quotes though.

Words carry meaning. That is why the word "democracy" is very important. When one uses this word, the mind conjures up the concept of "free to do as one pleases". No. Your mind does. The minds of some others may also. But the minds of most people conjure up something different and more positive, because for most people people, "democracy" implies "representative democracy", with laws, like a republic, but with free, fair and open elections (sometimes indirect as with the President of the US or Prime Minister of the UK), which is true in some "republics" but not in others. "Republic" on the other hand conjures up the image of "I have to obey laws". OK, but be careful what you wish for. Iran, for example, calls itself an "Islamic Republic." They have quite a few interesting laws there. You'd better be the right religion and practice it the "right" way in that "republic," or you've got big problems with the law. No democracy run amok there either; if the "wrong" kind of candidates get too popular with the "rabble" of voters, the real leaders (not the elected ones) just knock them off the ballot. Great system, huh? For NJ Cub Scouter, Does Art imitate life or does Art manipulate life? Uh... um... which Art? Art Carney? Art Linkletter? Art Garfunkle? Art Shamsky? (That last one, for those who were too young or in a monastery or something, was a backup outfielder and pinch-hitter for the 1969 Miracle Mets, and a favorite of 1960's Jewish baseball fans everywhere.) Other than that, I'm not sure what you're talking about. There is a big difference between "Man" and "Adult". Well, one difference is that I didn't use one of those terms. I said "person," not "adult," so all your stuff about horses, dogs and Martians is just your own fantasy world again. You ought to be more careful with words, Mr. Words Have Meanings.

KS, I do not disagree, and your examples have given me a new appreciation of the difficulty in precisely defining "terrorism." However, that does not mean that there is no line that can be drawn anywhere. All of your examples, whether they involve killing or not, still involve violence and the physical destruction of either persons or property. Yes, blowing something up to make a political point, even if you know nobody's inside -- whether that thing is a home, vehicle, office building -- or a clinic -- does sound like terrorism to me. But that isn't what this thread is about. By any definition, classifying the NEA as a "terrorist organization" means extending "terrorism" to mean any "threat," stated or implied, legal or illegal, violent or nonviolent, that might affect someone's financial health or political career. By that definition, I think almost all poltical and even much economic activity would fall into the definition of terrorism, or supporting terrorism. I don't buy that, and KS, I don't think you buy it either.

I think this argument is really about nothing. As has been pointed out, you can find various references in Scouting literature over the years to "turning boys into men" or "turning boys into good men." So what? I don't think the phrase as it was used really was really intended to have any different "content" than the aims of character, fitness and citizenship, nor is any of that really different from the terms used in the 1916 charter, "the ability of boys to do things for themselves and others, to train them in Scoutcraft, and to teach them patriotism, courage, self-reliance and kindred virtues." It's all the same thing in different terms. We would probably shy away from the term "turning boys into (good) men" today, in favor of "good people." Obviously the idea of "gender roles" has evolved since the 40's and 50's so that the "men" term might lead to the wrong impression today. It has, in fact, led some in this forum to state that there should be no female leaders because women cannot be good role models for boys to become good men. However, if it is accepted that we are trying to turn boys into good people (which I suppose includes being a "good man") then this issue goes away. People of either gender can be role models for being a good person -- meaning, a person who has good character, is a good citizen, is physically and emotionally fit (within whatever limitations have been imposed on them), and who can "do things" for himself and others (which I think encompasses work and education), and other "kindred virtues." I guess what I am saying is that we should beware of putting so much emphasis on particular words and their literal meaning, that we lose their real meaning; and at the same time, that when you take a word and "run with it," you can get far beyond what was ever intended. This is what Wheeler does. He starts with the concept of turning boys into men, which in an of itself is a benign concept that (as I said) really has the same "content" as the "official" BSA words, and dashes off into the world of Spartan survival rituals, Zulu face paint, the Battle of Thermopylae, no joking allowed, no fun allowed, no gurlz allowed, and off into the next galaxy. There is a recent trend in this forum, which did not start with Wheeler but which he has taken to a High Art, of taking dictionary definitions of things (sometimes the third, fourth or fifth meaning listed, and sometimes the dictionary is from 20, 50 or 100 years ago) and elevating them above what was really meant. I think it was Wheeler who repeated a phrase often used by Rush Limbaugh, "Words mean things." Yes, they do. But the "things" are still more important than the words, if the two are in conflict. Unfortunately the "things" can get lost in endless debate over what the words mean.

Ed: Huh? Hey look, I am back up to 2.5 stars again. It's been awhile since I was happy with a score of 50 percent...

Eisely, what I read this morning is that one of the phrases used by Paige was "obstructionist scare tacticts." I don't have any problem with that. Regardless of whether I agree with it or disagree with it (or partially agree with it) in the case of the NEA, it is "fair game" politically. "Terrorist organization" is not. That was my whole point in starting the thread. "Hardball" is part of American politics. "Flamethrower" is not, although I guess it is increasingly becoming that way. What I wonder is, how "warlike" does politics have to become before both sides stop accepting the results of elections and settle things with guns in the street? Look around the world, it happens. This goes back to my "post-9/11" theory. We have heard a lot about terrorism and the "War on Terror" from the government and from political commentators since then. What do you do with terrorists? You kill 'em. If that was sort of a vague idea before 9/11, I think it is now generally accepted in its literal sense. Terrorist=war=death. So I have to ask again, is "terrorist organization" really a proper phrase to apply to domestic political issues? Korea, I sense a certain amount of tongue-in-cheekedness in your post, but since you don't "joke around" very much in this forum, it is difficult to tell for sure. As packsaddle suggests, your suggested definition of "terrorist" goes far beyond the NEA. Any large organization that seeks to influence legislation or policy, on the threat of withdrawal of votes or contributions or support, would qualify as "terrorist." That would basically make virtually the entire political system one big terrorist network, and that means both parties and their supporters. I realize there are some people in this forum who can see only good on "their side" and only bad on the "other side," but for those whose vision is not so limited, if the NEA is a "terrorist organization" then so are a lot of groups that support the same things that you do -- and perhaps that you are a member of. So can't we reserve "terrorist" for groups that actually want to kill people?

no pictures of historical pictures of men Pictures of pictures? Oops I forgot, I don't make fun of typos. As for pictures in the handbooks, if you want to get really upset, Wheeler, take a look at the Wolf and Bear Cub Scout books and see all the cartoon characters. Not exactly Spartan survival rituals or Zulu face-painting. (Actually I have not seen the new round of handbooks that came out last year so I don't know if they still have as many cute pictures of Akela, Baloo and Wally Webelos (or whatever his name is, though maybe I am thinking of Boys' Life there and not the handbook.)) The point is, as I have said before, the BSA handbooks and the program itself tries to be a mixture of fun and seriousness, in an attempt to get boys to join and stay. If it turns into "school after school," all you do is send more boys off to the soccer field, the baseball diamond or the ice hockey rink five or six days a week so that they "don't have time" for Scouts.

Here is a link to an AP News story from Yahoo. How long the link will be good I do not know. The first two paragraphs of the story are: WASHINGTON - Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation's largest teachers union a "terrorist organization" Monday, taking on the 2.7-million-member National Education Association early in the presidential election year. Paige's comments, made to the nation's governors at a private White House meeting, were denounced by union president Reg Weaver as well as prominent Democrats. ______________________________________________ I guess I should say that as the story makes clear, there really is no such thing as a "private meeting" with 50 governors or 50 of any other kind of politician. I also should say that Secretary Paige apologized later for his choice of words, and that some of the Democratic frothing at the mouth later in the story is probably unnecessary. I also should say that I don't mean to start a debate about the National Education Association or public schools. As a local school board member, I could give you a few choice comments about teachers' unions (of which the NEA is the largest, and whose local affiliate represents most of the employees in my school district) and some of their bargaining and lobbying practices. None of that is the point. If Secretary Paige had called the NEA a "bad organization" or a "selfish organization" I would not necessarily agree with the generalization, but I wouldn't say a thing about it, because it is just a matter of opinion. But, a "terrorist organization"? About an organization that is, at worst, a political opponent and an opponent of some of the administration's domestic policy? I would have thought that it would be so clear that that was inappropriate, that a member of the President's Cabinet would not find himself having to apologize for it, because he wouldn't have made it in the first place. It seems like more than a "choice of words" issue, more likely those are the terms in which the man thinks. So I don't think he can just "sorry" this away. I had thought that after the events of 9/11/01, I was seeing sort of a "national understanding" develop that words like "terrorist" and "terrorist organization" were going to be reserved for people who among other things, kill or try to kill large numbers of people in order to make a political or religious statement. Before that, words like "terrorist" might have been thrown around a bit loosely. But now we have seen, as a nation, up close and personal, right here in our country, in our own state or a state away or a few states away, or in a state where our relatives lived or that we might have traveled to, the destruction of thousands of people and the crippling of an entire city, by real-live terrorists. I had actually noticed that the casual use of word "terrorist" seemed to have faded away. From now on, a terrorist was a mass murderer, and if we wanted to criticize someone for their views on domestic policy, we might still use strong words, but not that strong. So unless Secretary Paige equates opposition to some of the administration's education initiatives to the killing of thousands of people, I have to wonder what possessed him to say that. He may have apologized for it, but it doesn't change what was in his mind. I also have to wonder whether there are others in the administration who, way deep down, may feel the same way.

Well, Rooster, I will say this about Mark Twain. I cannot vouch for, or agree with, every single thing he said. (One that Sturgen did not quote, I find hits particularly close to home: "God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.") But I will admit that I find his general outlook on life, including his view of religion in general, to be more realistic than yours. He bases his opinions not just what it says in a book, but in how people have used the book, and how some people have misused the belief of others in the book for their own ends. Where are all these witches, by the way? Somehow I have managed to live 46 years without noticing any actual witches. Or are you talking about "Wiccans" or "neo-Pagans"? There certainly are a lot of those on the Internet; some of them call themselves "witches" and some don't. Is that who you're talking about?

NW, YES! Thank you! I have heard that story but had forgotten it.

My favorite quotation is: "No good deed goes unpunished." This is most often attributed to Clare Booth Luce, but also to Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde and others in both the 19th and 20th centuries. There does not seem to be a definitive answer. To me it sounds like Dorothy Parker, who also is my favorite "sayer" of things. Originally I had links here to 2 web sites with a lot of her quotes, including the ones I have repeated below, with a sort of "parental guidance" label due to the racy nature of some of her sayings. After I finished reading them I decided I'd better not link to them at all due to some of the colorful language. But a Yahoo search on "dorothy parker quotes" should turn them up. Below are some of my favorite clean ones, which I think are the funnier ones anyway. "She ran the gamut of emotions from 'A' to 'B.'" (Said to be spoken about Katherine Hepburn's performance in a movie.) "If you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. " "This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great force." (This one gets five stars from me.) "I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more." "I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true. " On learning that Calvin Coolidge was dead she remarked, "How could they tell?" Under interrogation by the FBI: "Listen, I can't even get my dog to stay down. Do I look like someone who could overthrow the government?" "If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit by me..." (Four and a half stars.) "I was the toast of two continents: Greenland and Australia. " "Money cannot buy health, but I'd settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair."

So Wheeler, in other words, you think you and those who agree with you (if any) have "knowledge" and anybody who disagrees with you just have "opinions." Oh well, in this feeling you are not alone in this forum, just the most verbose about it at the moment. As for Ayn Rand, it is interesting that you would choose her to quote. She took the idea of "I have knowledge, everybody else has opinions" to a level of success that has seldom been matched. She built a whole "philosophy", sold millions of books, left behind a cult following, and is probably quoted hundreds of times every day, all based on the idea that what she (or her successors) believe is the absolute, objective, truth, while anything that contradicts her beliefs must be the product of mental illness. For another view of Ayn Rand, see http://www.2think.org/02_2_she.shtml I also found a bunch of reviews of a book called "The Cult of Ayn Rand," though for the actual book you apparently have to resort to that quaint, un-cool practice of actually going to a library or bookstore and getting it.

I didn't notice the part about "no joking" before. When it comes to George Washington, I think Wheeler is once again buying into historical myth rather than reality. It is true that G.W. (Washington that is, not Bush) tried to cultivate a serious image and pretty much succeeded. However, do you really think that when he was staying at Ye Olde Inne while traveling from place to place, and hoisting a few brews in the back room with his officers, fellow Congressional delegates, etc., that the occasional joke did not get told, or laughed at by our Founding Father? (I looked on the Internet and found several references to biographies that discuss his sense of humor and suggest that he had one, though not displayed in public; but there is no detail on the Web sites.) Washington was not a marble statue. He was not always posed as he is in the famous Gilbert Stuart painting. I'm not saying he was Robin Williams or anything, but he was a man (meaning a real person, not just a male.) Hopefully he had some sense of humor. For that matter, I'll bet that Socrates liked to tell the occasional joke or two, though probably not over a cup of hemlock.

Wheeler says: Notice that the old Cub Scout oath had the word "square" in it but the new does not. I think this is an example of a concept that I and others have pointed out to you a number of times, but that you refuse to accept. That is, over time, words acquire new common meanings, sometimes in addition to the old meanings and sometimes instead of them. When a new meaning becomes more popular than the old, and you "interpret" someone's words according to the old meaning, it is a better than 50-50 shot that you will misinterpret what the person is saying. I think that is why many of the discussions that you start become so convoluted, because you insist on using particular definitions that are either no longer the sole accepted meanings of the word (like "democracy" or "republic"), or never were the sole accepted meaning (like "socialist," which you interpret to include almost everyone on Earth besides yourself.) In the case of "to be square," which I recited (along with millions of other Cub Scouts from 1930 until 1971), you are correct, "square" basically meant honest, forthright, dependable -- all aspects of "gravitas." This meaning probably lives on in phrases such as "squared away," which is somewhat out-of-date but I got it from my father and most people still understand what I mean or can figure it out. (Maybe it is used in the military?) But, somewhere in the 50's and/or 60's, "square" as applied to a person started to take on an exclusively negative meaning, that is one who refuses to change or to accept anything new, one who is uncool, un-hip, not "with it," etc. Now, one might see this (as Wheeler apparently does) as just being a ridiculing of "gravitas", but I don't think so. "Gravitas" does not necessarily reject all change. In any event, by the time I became aware of things, "square" (in its negative sense) had itself become outmoded, and using meant you were probably, well, "square." It happens all the time. Somewhere between the time I was, say 10 (1968) and the time I was in high school, words like "cool" and "groovy" went from being cool and groovy, to being, well, square, though by that time nobody would have called it that. In all of this, the original meaning of "square" (honest, forthright etc.) was lost. By the end of the 60s nobody would have understood it to mean that, and so the BSA took it out of the Cub Scout promise. It wasn't that the BSA was making fun of "gravitas," after all the rest of the Cub Scout promise, the Scout Oath and Law still contain the same meanings as "square" once did. It was just a recognition that 8 year old boys of the day, and an ever-increasing proportion of their parents, would not really know what the word was supposed to mean. Other than that, Wheeler, I actually was surprised to find little in your post to disagree with. I would just say that your use of George Washington as an example of "gravitas" almost "proves too much," because you have chosen someone who has been inflated to mythic proportions both by his contemporaries and especially by popular history. (I was going to say "almost mythic" but in Washington's case, it goes all the way to mythic.) When you read some more detailed political histories of Washington and his times, you find that while he was indeed a great man, he was in fact just a man, and a politician at that, although he was very clever in creating the impression that the politics were always being practiced by others on his behalf. I am reminded of a scene from one of my favorite movies, 1776, and luckily enough I found a web site http://www.bard.org/SectionEducate/Justice1776.html that not only tells the story, but indicates that it is a mostly-true story: "Some months after the stirring events in Philadelphia, Adams wrote with understandable jealousy, The whole history of this Revolution will be a lie, from beginning to end. He knew that Benjamin Franklin and George Washington would become figures of legend, and that the histories would say Franklin did this, Franklin did that, Franklin did some other damned thing. . . . Franklin smote the ground and out sprang George Washington, full grown and on his horse. . . . Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod and the three of them--Franklin, Washington, and the horse--conducted the entire Revolution by themselves. Stone found those lines among Adamss personal papers and let his character speak them verbatim and with some irritation in 1776. The Franklin of the play listens to him contentedly for a moment, contemplates this portrait of himself for posterity, and smilingly responds I like it." So I guess my point is, history is great, history is important, I love reading history -- just be careful of making too much of it all the time.

Rooster says: By the way, concerning - "Bible Teaching and Religious Practice," Europe and Elsewhere I hope you know enough about the world and the Bible, to know that the author of these quotes (see Sturgen's first post) does not know much about either. Although Sturgen's introduction does not come right out and say who all these quotes came from, and some of them are attributed only by title of the work (and not by author each time), it is clear that the author of all the quotes was Mark Twain. I'd say he knew quite a bit about the world, at least the world of his time and before, and most of his little quotes (only a fraction of which appear in Sturgen's posts) stand up pretty well today, though maybe you have to be somewhat cynical to appreciate some of them. As for what Mark Twain knew, and thought, about the Bible, I did an Internet search and came up with a couple of things I found interesting, though the first article requires a bit of time to read: http://www.meadville.edu/eutsey_1_2.HTM http://www.twainquotes.com/Religion.html It seems to me from reading these that Mark Twain knew, and thought, quite a bit about the Bible, and also about how Christianity has been practiced as opposed to what's in the book. Amazingly enough, however, his knowledge and experience somehow lead him to conclusions other than those reached by Rooster.

Wheeler, I am not going to debate the doctrine of "original intent" with you because I don't think it is relevant. Under current views of Constitutional interpretation, courts generally look at the words of the Constitution and what they mean to us today. They do not usually look at a law passed by Congress and agonize over whether James Madison would have thought that it was within the proper role of the federal government. The interpretation of the "spending clause" has indeed changed over time, as the nation has changed. Whole books have been written about this, and I don't have time to write one right now. FDR never threatened to "disband" the Supreme Court. TwoCubDad has explained what actually happened and I can add a couple of details. Yes, FDR was upset that he was trying to get the country out of a Depression and relieve some of the suffering it had caused, and his programs were being declared unconstitutional a Supreme Court majority relying on disputed interpretations (mostly of the same "spending clause", I believe.) So he proposed a bill to Congress to add several new justices to the Supreme Court, which as TwoCubDad says is perfectly fine from a Constitutional point of view, because the size of the Supreme Court is set by statute. This was, quite reasonably, seen as an attempt to "pack the Court" because FDR would have appointed all the new justices who presumably would have been friendlier to "general welfare" and "public works" legislation. Congress resisted this because it was a bit too blatant, and over time the Supreme Court came around. (I believe the decision in which it did so is quoted in that Social Security article I linked to yesterday.) As for the income tax, it was not constitutional under the original constitution. The Sixteenth Amendment was adopted to allow for an income tax. So it's constitutional now.

I have mostly stayed out of this thread, because whatever the Old and New Testaments say, or are interpreted to mean, about homosexuality, and whatever significance people may draw from them about how gay people should be treated today, is irrelevant to the BSA policy. At least, it should be. But I did notice that Rooster mentioned Mel Gibson's new film. For another viewpoint, see: http://www.adl.org/Interfaith/gibson_trigger.asp This explains why the film has been so controversial, and why Mr. Gibson's various statements about what will or might be deleted or added to the film have not resolved the issue. And yes, I do realize that the writer of this article is the person who has been at the forefront of raising objections to the film, and it is not an "objective" news story. However, the news stories that I have seen and heard about this film do not really do a good job of explaining what the controversy is. In recent days, most of what I have heard focuses on the extreme violence in the film (earning an R rating), and I guess that would intensify the concern over the "message" that could be gleaned from the film, but it is not the central issue. This article explains what the issue is.

Hooray! I don't have to pay my taxes! We are free! Good luck, FOG. I suggest you try it. Maybe you will get the cell next to Wheeler's, or if he's in a different kind of place, maybe the institutions will have joint softball game or something sometime. You know, those wacky Founding Fathers, sometimes they didn't write as clearly as they should have...

For anyone interested in Wheeler's assertion that Social Security is unauthorized by the U.S. Constitution, I can tell you that this argument was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court more than 60 years ago. For a full discussion see http://www.ssa.gov/history/aja964.html For a really short discussion: Article I, Section 8, paragraph 1 of the Constitution states: "The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States..." After the ... are some words that limit the taxing authority of the federal government, but they were basically "edited out" of the Constitution by the passage of the 16th Amendment, which authorizes the income tax. The courts have interpreted this section to basically give the people of the United States, through their representatives in Congress, the power to tax themselves and use the funds for the "general welfare," which includes Social Security, federal education programs, purchase of land for national parks and about a million other things that I am sure Wheeler thinks are unconstitutional too.

Wheeler, I think your post adds to (actually multiplies) the growing body of evidence that you are a fraud. You act shocked, shocked you are, to find that the BSA has a Citizenship in the World Merit Badge. You make clear in your second post that your concern is not just about the content of the pamphlet, but in the existence of the badge. And you learned about this, so you say, by wandering into a Scout supply distributor and seeing the pamphlet. Really? In your "profile" post you said you were born in 1960 and you are an Eagle Scout. Given the time-frames that existed at the time (I was born in 1958 and made Life, so I know something about this, and even remember some of it) I'd say it is almost a certainty that you earned Eagle under the new handbook and requirements that came out in 1972. I mean, it may be conceievable that you advanced so quickly that you advanced so quickly that you were grandfathered all the way through and made Eagle in the 1960's handbook, but I doubt it. Now, what do you suppose was one of the new EAGLE REQUIRED merit badges introduced in 1972? CITIZENSHIP IN THE WORLD. So, Wheeler, unless I miss my guess, you couldn't have been surprised to see Cit in the World as a merit badge, because YOU EARNED IT. Unless you were never really a Scout at all. As for your other stuff, it's just nonsense. To you, everybody except you and your buddies in the (real or imaginary) monasteries you lived in are socialists, and a socialist is a communist, so we're all commies. And anything that acknowledges the 20th century is "progressive" and progressive=socialist=blah blah blah blah. Actually in one of your earliest posts you said that most Americans are socialists, and we probably should have caught onto the madness at that point. Although some may disagree, the Boy Scouts DOES try to be "progressive" to a degree. It changes with society, though obviously at the moment there's a little bit of a hangup over one aspect of that. That 1972 handbook that everybody likes to ridicule did do at least one good thing, it acknowledged that there were some people in the United States (and in the BSA) who are not white. Shortly thereafter, the BSA acknowledged that just as the worlds of business and government had finally begun to accept women, females (women and girls) also had something to contribute to the BSA. And actually if you think about it, the creation of an organization in 1910 that allowed in people of all religions was a pretty progressive thing in and of itself. Obviously the "traditional" is important in Scouting as well, and as I alluded to, we don't always all agree on where the boundary is. But Scouting ain't communist. That's just nuts.

MollieDuke, Of course, books and other "traditional" printed materials are not infallible either. I am sure that the the percentage of incorrect information is higher on the Internet as a whole than it would be in books and magazines published by major publishing houses. That's because it's so easy to just stick something on the Internet, and so easy to find it, as opposed to actually having to rev up a printing press, or go to the library or bookstore. However, if a merit badge requirement simply says to read an article, for example, there is no reason why an "article" on a web site does not qualify, even though it is quite possible that the information may be incorrect. By the same token, I think the answer to Ed's question is yes, a "book" includes an e-book or online book, but I think there has to be some common understanding of what that means. I have seen e-books and online books and they all have chapters and a "lot" (whatever that means) of pages. If people start posting what they call an e-book but you look at it and it's the equivalent of 4 typewritten pages, then I'd say a Scout who tries to use that should expect the counselor to question it. Interestingly, I looked at the requirements for the Reading MB at usscouts.org where they have recent changes spelled out, and the major changes that were effective Jan. 1, 2004 have taken Internet-related issues into account. Requirement 1, which is as much about knowing how to use a library and its resources as it is about reading books, says you have to find the six library books on the "shelves." So, no e-books there. The word "shelves" was not in there before, and I have a feeling the Internet is part of the reason. So, requirement 1 is NOT about the Internet. Requirement 2, however, can be about the Internet, it specifically mentions using the Internet ("with your parent's permission) as one of the permitted sources. That also is new as of 2004. New optional requirement 3(b) is ALL about the Internet, and if you do that one, you (again) have to your parent's permission and also must discuss "safety rules for using the Internet" with the counselor or librarian. However, I'm not sure about 3(a), it says use a "catalog" and "order form" which I would take to include an online catalog, and an order form filled-out online and printed out. However, given 2 and 3(b), I suspect the writer was not thinking about online catalogs in 3(a) because there is nothing about parental permission. So I would probably suggest a boy get a printed catalog even though the requirement does not specifically require it. By the way, MollieDuke, I looked at the Genealogy MB requirements and it seems to me that the writers have already taken the Internet into account there as well. Req. 6 requires the Scout to "Tell how you would evaluate genealogical information" and requirement 8a (optional) says "Tell how the development of computers is affecting the world of genealogy," so I'd think that in either or both of these, a counselor might expect to hear some mention of the relative risks of relying on the accuracy of information on the Internet. Also, when you talk about an internet printout of a family tree he found online, I don't think that fulfills requirement 1 ("Begin a pedigree chart with yourself and fill it in as far as you can at the beginning of your project. Add any additional names, dates, or places that you find.") -- even if it is completely accurate and the Scout presents original, certified proof of every fact. The requirement clearly means a chart prepared by the Scout (though he could USE information from a web site.) Now, assuming the chart HAS been prepared by the Scout, the requirement about "proof" (number 5) does not necessarily exclude something found on the Internet. It says "Obtain at least one genealogical document showing proof of some information on your pedigree chart or family group records. This document may be located in your home, a courthouse, an archive, or library, etc." "Etc." is a pretty big word, as is the word "Archive." I think the key here is the "document" and the presence of some reason to believe it is authentic. In other words if there is an Internet site with the actual birth certificate, naturalization certificate, marriage license, etc., and you print it out, why wouldn't that count? But it would have to be an image of the document itself, not just the words on it, so (to my knowledge) it would probably have to be a scanned document in .pdf form. I'd also think you would want it to be a web site or database that is maintained by SOME organization or entity that has a reputation for keeping records, not Wally'sHouseOfDubiousFacts.com. And, only "some" information on the chart must be "proved," so even if the boy got a bad piece of info from Aunt Mabel or SmithFamilyInAmerica.org and put it on the chart, but proved some other fact on the chart, it's still ok. I think.

OK Wheeler, you go first: What do you think Benjamin Franklin meant? And what do you base your opinion on?