Scouter99

That is a very interesting question. I'm sure there would be deep divisions over it from different corners, but, sure, I would sign that. Long-term camping is allowed for the devices, and if the staff sleep in tents, their experience isn't any different than the campers, so I would sign it. But, I'm not your son's Scoutmaster/designee, so it would be up to that guy and I would make sure he feels the same way before I spent 7 weeks in a tent. If the fact that he's being paid is an issue, do it as an unpaid CIT.

I'd agree with BD's plan "Let him enjoy his patrol mates and get to first class. Let him learn his knots, how to pitch a tent, plan and cook a meal on his own. Learn first aid, swim" He can't earn any of them til he's first class, anyway. BUT keep track of what is done on every camping trip. It's damn near impossible to turn around 3 years later and start trying to figure out how many miles were hiked on XYZ trip in 2009, and it takes a lonnnnng time, believe you me. AND use the requirements to guide some of his decisions about which MBs he earns at summer camp and throughout the year.

Well, then, sorry to peg you wrong At times, Andersson veers too far into the personal struggle (or the marketing of the book veers too far to away from its personal nature), so I found it lacking in detail, but his argument is lucid and his point is well demonstrated. "Toward Stonewall" fills in the gaps by giving in-depth coverage to pre-Stonewall gay movements. Reading Wilde or Mann's work, or viewing the paintings of Henry Tuke gives first-hand knowledge of what Andersson, Edsall, and Greer mean when they're talking about the emphasis on the youthful male form. (If you're short on time, Mann's "Death in Venice" was made into a movie in the 60s or 70s, and a photo of its star actually graced the first edition cover of Greer's book decades later, until he found out and objected since being in the movie had been a nightmare). So, all I'm saying is that post-Stonewall, the intellectuals and activists made a sharp left turn in their message. Rather than stressing the virtues/masculinity of gay sex acts, which hadn't worked yet and indeed never would, they radically de-emphasized sex and took a "just like you guys" approach, especially by excluding gays who enjoy young men (but are not pedophiles). This was made very much easier because at the same time Americans were making teen girls off-limits, and our cultural understanding of "pedophile" became more strict than its actual definition. That's all, and if I got too ornery in trying to explain myself I do apologize, it's a charged subject.

The paperwork involved in this award is a capital-N Nightmare. To facilitate boys who want to apply for it, I've created a spreadsheet that keeps track of every trip the troop offers or any Scouting event that any boy from the troop attended (OA, high adv., jambo) going back as far as the oldest scout in the troop. First column is the date (month/year), then trip title (XYZ State Park), then a column for each badge category: Camping, Hiking, Riding, Aquatics, Adventure. In those 5 columns is recorded the applicable data; for camping X nights, aquatics, X hours, riding X miles, etc. It's virtually impossible, in my view, for a boy to calculate his hours, miles, etc by himself, especially since TroopMaster will not allow us to record that information in a trip (it's either a campign trip wtih recorded nights, or a hiking trip with miles, but not both) Take note that a single high adventure trip which doubles the defined parameters of high adventure can count as 2 toward the award. Also take note that multiple activities on one trip count toward all badges (if on one campout you rode 5 miles, swam for 2 hours, and hiked 3 miles, that's creditable to all 4 badges). I do not share your interpretation of the use of long term nights for the camping gold/silver device. The only limit on long term nights for the badge. There is no such restriction listed for the devices. The first 3 boys in our troop to earn the award all qualified for silver camping devices at the same time; and they all applied 15-30 nights of long term camping to the device (they all had multiple years of summer camp and the 2010 nat'l jamboree). I did not allow the boys to count nights spent indoors (our annual lock in, or the rare cabin trip). The council reviewed and approved the applications. They were between 14 and 16 years old, so it's well within an active scout's reach to earn multiple silver devices in camping. The ability for a scout to earn these is dependent upon his troop's program. Our troop goes biking with a 50-mile option every year. We hike all the time, and we go on long-term hikes almost every summer. Riding and camping are a cinch. The real difficulty, in my opinion, is the aquatics badge because of its inclusion of the Mile Swim on the base level, and the high adventure badge because of the amount of high adv a boy has to do (10 for the base badge). So, if your troop camps every month, and your son goes with them, and he goes to summer camp, and throws in a week-long hike once a year, and some OA campouts, there is no need for you to start manipulating the PLC into calling father-son bike rides troop or patrol events. I think you're overthinking it. If you are worried about the ability to earn it within your existing yearly program, then your son should talk-up the award to his patrol mates and get them all inspired to earn the awards, and then they'll want to set up their own patrol day trips and campouts to enable themselves to earn it. Maybe call the council and see how many boys earn it (very few if I were a betting man, mostly due to its clerical nightmarishness) and turn it into a prestige thing for the boys--even rarer than Eagle.

To an extent, you are correct that these laws are coming from a desire to prosecute pedophiles. They are also mostly social attempts to control adolescent sexuality, which is something that large portions of the population is still uncomfortable with. There is a succinct article on the history of age of consent here: http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/teaching-modules/230 Basically, the role of those laws began as a way to protect very young children (10 and under) then transformed to a means of (trying) to control teen sexuality as well as protect young people from older people. When a legislature enacts a law that negatively sanctions sex acts between teens, they are explicitly not protecting them from pedophiles, because by definition it is impossible that either party to the act is a pedophile. Those laws are social control laws, and, as your school found out the hard way (along with schoolkids all over the country every week) they don't work. They criminalize normal behavior between adolescents. Texas is one state which has been debating carving out exceptions to their sex and pornography laws for minors. Maybe National will move its HQ back to NY, or to California where the age of consent is even higher and more "conservative"

Packsaddles' use of the word pedophile is (purposefully) erroneous and does not reflect reality or my argument which is exactly the opposite: That relationships with sexually mature/maturing people is not pedophilia. I've replied to him above. In either event, Sandusky's case has no bearing on the tpoic, because it is non-consensual, and I have already made the distinction that we're talking about consensual relationships.

As Rick pointed out, American society has become more conservative (you can say "reserved" if you're allergic to the c-word) about teens' relationships with older people. Ages of consent have risen in US states from 7-12 in 1880 to 15-18 by 2007 in the case of unmarried people, and we know that even into the 1940s men often married girls as young as 13, but today of course marriageable age is much higher with exception in cases of parental or judicial consent. So, that's adult-teen relationships in a nutshell. More conservative nationwide without regard to politically-liberal or politically-conservative states. These same laws also govern teen-teen sex with a patchwork of laws across the country. In New York, two 16-yr-olds who have sex with each other are each guilty of a crime and are each victims of each other. In Virginia, there are complex age difference laws, so a 14-yr-old can consent to a 16-yr-old but not a 17, etc. In every state the specifics vary, but the tilt is the same. I am not "speaking for" society, I am stating the fact of the matter of laws that govern adolescent relationships. This issue is made more complex,however, by the attitudes about those relationships. We can also say that our attitudes about teen-teen sex have in some ways loosened. But they have done so only narrowly, so that a person might not bat an eye about two 16-yr-olds having sex, but that same person would generally be very concerned to here about a 14-yr-old and a 16-yr-old doing the same thing. So, in some cases more "permissive" but in the aggregate more conservative. And all based on widely-varying (by state) arbitrary and artificial age striations. You need not be "bold" to say anything I've just said, you only need to have a cursory, elementary understanding of the issue which comes with reading on it. More intellectual dishonesty. I have outlined the argument, I've given you the resources/sources. You'll either look into it like a person who has honest questions, or you'll keep trying to refocus the locus of these ideas to me personally. But we both know that you will not dare read those books which might challenge your worldview.

"Abuse" is an ahistorical attribute that you're applying based on a contemporary understanding of relationships which puts culturally-constructed, arbitrary striations on who can have a relationship with who based on nothing but age. Consensual relationships aren't intrinsically abusive simply due to age. Would you call a 20-yr-old who is dating a 17-yr-old a pedophile? 23 and 17? 17 and 18? 17 and 14? Ephebophilia comes directly from the Greek word "Ephebos" which was the young man in a homosexual relationship with an older man--And now we're back to Plato, and you're again demonstrating exactly what Andersson discusses: For centuries, relationships between sexually mature people of virtually any age were normal. Now, we arrive at the point in our history when the gay rights movement has put decades into separating certain homosexual relationships from gay identity, and suddenly we begin to entertain the idea that millenia of normal homosexual relationships are actually disordered, and to re-classify them as some hazy half-disorder called ephebophilia. What a cosmic irony, especially, when we juxtapose it against the removal of homosexual attraction from classification as a disorder! Some gayness is just normal on the sliding scale of human sexuality, but some gayness is still a disorder because gay people say so? The pitfalls of the soft science of psychology. Now, what is more likely: That out of all recorded history, in just 40 years gay men--some within their own lifetimes--have all suddenly stopped being attracted to the robust form and sexual appetite of young men which preoccupied them for millenia, or that in just 40 years a highly-organized, well-funded political movement succeeded in altering (narrowing) our concept of what a gay man is? Kahuna believes we've reached critical mass on gay rights. My answer is "of course" He goes on to ask what we think; my thoughts strayed toward "because..." From my original reply: "The critical mass we're at isn't really surprising. It's the product of 40 years of carefully managed whitewashing, image control, lobbying, and opposition demonizing (that last point not without plenty of help from oppositional loudmouths) toward a political ends of gay rights. Young people's concept of homosexuality has been shaped by a political machine, and that aptly." If you're actually curious as to these issues, again, I've listed several works from historians, gay publishers, feminists, and gay men that you can read at very little or no cost: "Toward Stonewall" by Nicholas Edsall, "Gay Man's Worst Friend" by Karl Andersson, "The Beautiful Boy" by Germaine Greer, "Symposium" by Plato, "The Picture of Dorian Grey" by Oscar Wilde. You can also add "Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann.

Not at all: Sex between an adult and a teenager is not pedophilia. Like "retard" before it, "pedophile" has been hijacked by society and given a meaning that is false; pedophilia is a medical term with a specific definition: sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children. But, just as retard simply means stupid to the avg person, pedophile has come to mean anyone who dates someone under 18, or even just someone who dates someone X years younger than themselves. The actual definition of pedophilia cuts off at age 13, because by 13 virtually every person will have entered puberty and will therefore no longer be attractive to an actual pedophile. However, in recent years, boys (and girls) have been entering puberty as early as 10 in increasing numbers. In short, sex after puberty is just sex. Ironically, in your immediate resort to this line of reasoning ("this troglodyte thinks gay=pedophile") you've demonstrated exactly what Andersson describes in his book: You've accepted as truth the marketing tactic of the gay rights movement, severing gay men who have sex with young men ("boys" in the Victorian sense, see above) from the homogenized gay identity created for the voting consumer. However, (as discussed in the other book I recommended "Toward Stonewall") for centuries, sex between older men and young men defined homosexuality, from Plato (in his "Symposium" on the nature of love) to Oscar Wilde (in his "Picture of Dorian Grey").

Many people are celebrating the Stonewall Riots right now as the beginning of the gay rights movement, but the fact of the matter is that there have been modern concerted attempts going back to the Victorian age. The book "Toward Stonewall" has large free segments on Google books that cover the Victorian movements, which mostly centered on boy love ("boy" in the Victorian sense means "teenager" in the modern), including Germany's first Scouting movement, the Wandervoegel ("migrating birds"). These Victorian movements focused on the beauty of the young male, and the power of homosexual sex in personal development. The feminist Germaine Greer has also written about this in her book The Beautiful Boy. Gay Swedish publisher/writer Karl Andersson writes about the whitewashing tactic of the contemporary gay rights movement in his book "Gay Man's Worst Friend." Written from his personal perspective of going from gay publishing hero to zero for daring to break the image we're all being sold, Andersson explains how the contemporary gay rights movement has basically whittled down gay culture for a straight, voting audience to mean nothing more than "just like you, except with another man." Except, he tells us, that's not right at all. Both are very interesting reads that can be bought cheap. The critical mass we're at isn't really surprising. It's the product of 40 years of carefully managed whitewashing, image control, lobbying, and opposition demonizing (that last point not without plenty of help from oppositional loudmouths) toward a political ends of gay rights. Young people's concept of homosexuality has been shaped by a political machine, and that aptly. The issue is no longer engaging to me, it is (as your lunch crowd agreed) pretty much over. What will be interesting now is seeing how long it takes for age of consent laws to be weakened and repealed, because at the same time we (as a society) have been learning not to judge people who pick up boys for sex in locker rooms and write Top 40 hits about it, we've ironically become much more conservative about teen sex (or maybe I should have said "wisely" rather than "ironically"--it depends on how much credit you give the average guy.)

I'm just going back and reading, or re-reading this thread. You brought up several varied points in your post, but some really make me think.... I would so much rather see a boy leaning against a tree reading, than playing with technology..... but what I see more of is a boy or boys huddled up in a tent with a video game, with other cubs that didn't bring their games or tablet computers huddled around watching and wanting a turn. Our CM's sons are the ones with all of the latest gadgets, and it's usually around their tent where you find this huddle. On a campout, I view this tech as a sort of cancer. On a camp out last year, I had my son leave his tech at home. Unfortunately, other boys had theirs. I asked my son to go climb a tree or something, but it's hard when he wants to be right in the huddle! I wish I could drive a removal of that cancer from our pack, but as mentioned, our CM, as well as other leaders, are the tech crowd and I think view the tech as a way of getting the boys out of their hair so they can burry themselves in their own smartphones. Your point about TV on the home front is interesting. I was raised without much limit on TV. I have always contented that a kid can learn from TV, even stupid fiction. I feel that I was able to put myself in the situations of the story line and learn from it...... Situations that I may not otherwise find myself in..... shows like Andy Griffith, Brady Bunch, Munsters, Beaver, Lucy, etc.... usually had some sort of moral or social lesson I think even the newer ones that my kids watch now that aren't nearly as "wholesome", can be educational to a degree. Still, I do agree with your point that generally speaking kids with stricter limits tend to be more polite and socially well adjusted. My wife and I limit our kids with TV & tech, but MAYBE not nearly enough.... I'll have to give this some thought for sure. There isn't really any other way to put this, stout: What a goofy logic. There's one person in ~The Workforce~ that needs to know how to use Facebook on the job: The online marketing guy. Everyone else is slacking off. Facebook doesn't promote technology literacy, you don't need to know anything technical to use it. In the troop setting, as DC pointed out, your troop must either be leaving your 10-12-yr-old scouts out in the cold, or encouraging them to break rules--neither is acceptable.

Hi! I'm a frequent lurker here, but as I have experience with GSUSA as well as Boy Scouts I'd like to comment on this comparison. I agree that you cannot equate the two organizations. The one thing that is true, is that the groups are organized very differently from each other, and have a very different culture. Girl Scout troops are not set up as Cub Packs or Boy Scout troops. That can however be a good thing. If there is no troop for your daughter, you can just start one -- no need to find a chartering organization or to set up an entire Pack for kids grades 1-5 and find den leaders for each den. After years of experience with Girl Scouts, when I first got involved with starting a pack in our town (none had existed for years) I was overwhelmed with how much infrastructure a pack needed; it seemed very top-heavy and took almost 5 years to get everything up and running, by which time my son was in 5th grade. If I had just been able to spend the equivalent amount of time on his den alone, he woudl have had a much better Scouting experience. As it is, because of problems getting the pack up and running, we lost many boys in his den and only ended up with 4. Compare this with our experience with my daughter's troop -- yes, it was only one grade level and not all 5, but we have been able to successfully run a great troop for her and 11 of her classmates and neighbors. I hardly think this system is "selfish" in that we are very open to girls at this level (although we do put a limit on numbers -- 12 seems to be a good size for a troop. If more girls want to join their parents are more than welcome to start a new troop, just as in Cub Scouts you start a new den!) In our Girl Scout Service Unit, girls who go camping do not camp with parents ala pack campouts. We leaders take the girls camping overnight, choosing to start in 2nd grade. We don't need troop tents or supplies because there are tents at the Girl Scout camps. If we want a propane stove, we just borrow one or bring our own. As girls get older and wish to camp in tents and use more specialized camping gear, we can rent anything we need for a couple of dollars each from our council for the weekend. The Girl Scout program doesn't have camping built in to advancement in the same way the Boy Scouts do, and as a result girls don't often go camping nearly as much as the boys do, but it's not because of lack of gear. The reason GSUSA is experiencing a decline in membership right now is that they have completely changed their program. They have brought in something called the "Leadership Experience" and "Journeys" instead of badges and advancement, and the girls and leaders are rebelling. Troops refused to do the Journeys and so National made doing one mandatory for earning the "highest awards" in scouting.... but what you actually do to earn the Journeys is almost completely up to you. You just have to say you have done one; the requirements are extremely vague. Girls complain that the Journeys are too much like school; they are also dumbed down. Thanks for your detailed reply. I think it's definitely true that there are strengths and weaknesses to both systems!

I wondered if any kind soul out there owns one of the 50s t-shirts with the BSA logo: http://www.ebay.com/itm/300807063267?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649 I'd like to have one made at CafePress (or wherever) for myself, but I would need a scan/photo of the emblem laid flat. Let me know if you're willing to oblige.

Now you're arguing with yourself. The letter you linked makes a clear distinction (the same distinction I've been making) between admission of atheist boys (which is discrimination) and the requirement of all members to say the oath (which is a 1st amendment issue). You're not addressing the issue I took with Schiff which was contingent on what he meant by "lost sponsorship."

Contingent on what you mean, I have to take issue with this aspect of your reply; it doesn't accurately reflect the split. --If you mean the loss of gov't institutions as COs, we did not "lose sponsorship due to discrimination"; Chicago Public Schools, Housing and Urban Dev., and the military were forced to drop units by an ACLU lawsuit. When all three settled, then BSA stopped issuing charters to any gov't institution. The lawsuit was not solely over discrimination, it was also over separation of church and state. The argument was that when a teacher, HUD employee, or MP has boys swear to do their "duty to God" then the gov't has breached the First Amendment. http://www.aclu.org/religion-belief/pentagon-agrees-end-direct-sponsorship-boy-scout-troops-response-religious-discrimin --If you mean the loss of access to schools (for things like recruitment), then you get more traction. In 1999, when ACLU sued, BSA had been involved in lawsuits over homosexuals for almost 20 years, and yet schools hadn't dropped us, so its clear that while they might not (we can only guess) have been comfortable, they weren't hostile (they renewed their charters annually 20 times post-controversy in Chicago and everywhere else). Loss of access is not absolute, as schools nationwide continue to allow BSA units to meet in their buildings. The county I live in has a few packs meeting in its schools and leaves it up to the principal about recruiting, while the county next door won't even allow Eagle projects on its grounds. In either case, loss of schools is nuanced, largely dependent upon local sentiment, and was not an on/off switch set to 2005.

Here's your chance to unload, Scouting Magazine just admonished us all that if our troop isn't working, it's because we aren't using the Patrol Method: http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2013/06/24/how-to-keep-your-troop-out-of-the-death-spiral/

Could you include some links or context so we know what you're talking about?

I wish I had that $2000 to flush.

From my perspective, the GSUSA's big problem is the way they're "organized." There's no continuity in units. Mrs. Jones starts a unit, but it's not like a BSA unit where all comers are welcome, rather, it's just for Katie Jones and Katie's friends. When they get sick of scouts, or stop being friends, the troop is just gone. There are currently 3 GSUSA troops meeting at my troop's CO; why? Balkanism. Of course they have waiting lists and don't have enough volunteers, it's a selfish system. In the past 15 years, there's been a parade of GSUSA units at our CO, perhaps 6; some were founded and folded before we even knew they existed. Of the 3 troops where we meet, none of them owns anything except finger paint and beads. Of course they don't go camping, their troops are a couple years old, have no gear, and won't exist long enough to justify spending the money on tents, stoves, cook kits, etc. BSA units, on the other hand, are true community units. They may even be a narrow Catholic or Mormon unit, but every boy at that institution can join. They may meet at a school, but any boy can join. If a troop is by chance too big to take one more, there's another troop. BSA units are durable; they don't form to serve 5 boys then disband every 3 years. So, BSA and GSUSA face some of the same problems (declining membership, relevance, etc) but the root causes are different, so in my view, no, we can't extrapolate this article to "the future of the BSA."

Thanks for posting these links. I looked up your book a few days ago; do you have any plans for a Kindle edition anytime soon?

Almost every Scouter in the country will tell you that sheath knives and fixed blade knives are "banned by BSA," but they are wrong. The BSA policy on knives can be read here: http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/HealthandSafety/GSS/gss08.aspx#f If anyone at the troops you visit challenges the knife, though, explain that it's standard NL issue, and if they insist, just toss it in the RV til you leave.

The problem with the argument that modern conveniences keep boys at home, is that we know from membership numbers that at the same time that TV, air conditioning, suburban life and all its comforts were exploding, so was BSA membership. A/C, shag carpet, arcade halls, and TV didn't keep boys at home in 1965, we can't assume that's what keeps them home today. In fact, as Rush fans know all too well, it may be the case that suburban life actually pushes boys right into our arms (nerd time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu9Ycq64Gy4) because it denies their nature. But, perhaps the growth in membership had nothing to do with BSA's intrinsic qualities: historians of the US also know the 50s as a "culture of joining"--civic groups of all types, not just the BSA, saw their membership soar. So, we have a few reasons why there was so much growth: adventure, getting out of the home, getting out of the "mass production zone" suburbs, joining for joining's sake. Your point about patriotism doesn't much play, for me. Patriotism has never played a major role in my scouting experience as either a youth or adult. The fashion at this forum is to timestamp our modern problems 1972, tag them "Improved Scouting Program," and lay them all at the feet of national. And to be sure, drastically changing the program drastically changed what boys were getting, and they clearly didn't want the new menu. However, the program was corrected in 1979, but it hasn't stopped the bleeding. That's where we get to your best argument: Cultural change. There's no culture of joining, anymore, it's all about individualism. Mistrust of institutions is rampant. Mommy thinks Johnny will die if he's out of her sight. In the past, mom and dad wanted junior in the woods, out of the house, and to become a man as soon as possible, preferably before his first armpit hair; now they're scared to death to even consider that he will leave home by 30. There is also the proliferation of extra-curriculars. I didn't live it, so I will try not to overstate, but the after-school landscape was not as crowded in the past as it is today. Now, Johnny has a lot more options. Last, in terms of culture still, the baby boom is over. The decline coincided not just with Improved Scouting, but also with the aging-out of the boomers, and birth rates have continued to decline among BSA's core demographic (whitey). The answer, of course, is continued differentiation. The only traditional program that has seen membership growth between 1999 and 2012 is Venturing. Wow, BSA, what a surprise! The most freewheeling program is the only one that's growing. Yet BSA continues to dial back adventure and independence in Boy Scouting. The second thing is to keep reaching out to Spanish-speaking families; they have more kids than whitey, and they don't have the same access to other civic institutions. Quiet, you! The chart I was looking at was '99-2012, didn't catch that.