Tired_Eagle_Feathers

Thanks for that, Fred. Certainly puts things in the light that I understood them to be all along. It seems clear to me that the BSA did the best it could in keeping track of harmful people. I wonder if they still maintain such a list or have abandoned it due to potential liability?

I've been reading about this, and evidently there is significant liability that could fall on the individual board of directors if a troop self-charters by making itself a 501c3. In addition, the problem is that the BOD will constantly be changing as parents come and go in the troop. But whatever we do we need to move away from counting on external charter organizations propping us up.

Well what was the point of having the pervert files?!?!

Both things can be true. There has definitely been an ongoing attempt to undermine American institutions for most of my life. Anything that promotes patriotism and pride in America is under attack. "Nationalism" is now a dirty word. There are many who want to see institutions like BSA fail. A nation full of people who do not love their country is easy to divide. As for the child abuse, I personally think the BSA did the best it could in the times it operated. The earliest entry in the P-list is like 1912 or so. There were no computer databases back then - even into the 70s. What was the best course of action for BSA back then? They could report to the police, but often times nothing was done. People were not as eager to believe that a "fine member of the community" could do such a thing back then. An abuser could simply go to another town and start abusing again. Background checks were probably relatively impossible. I'm convinced that the BSA keeping its own database of abusers was the best course of action prior to about 1970. Maybe sometime after that they could have relied on the government to punish and keep track of pedophiles. But I'm not sure I would rely on that. I wonder if BSA still keeps a database of known abusers? Now one thing BSA should have done was institute powerful YPT policies faster. I'm sure we all agree that YPT is fantastic and is the best way to protect Scouts. Anyway, the reason why charter organizations are dropping Scouts is very simple: money. It has become too financially risky to become legally associated with a youth organization today. The solution is self-chartering. Troops should be chartered via their councils. We shouldn't be trying to hitch our wagons to other organizations.

The Scout Oath and Law are fantastic, and have been fantastic guidelines for decades. They were good enough for decades, and they are good enough now. I was having a discussion with one scout and he said something like, "Aren't we already including everybody?" And I said, "Yes. The Boy Scouts is one of the most inclusive organizations you will ever find. The Scout Oath and Law pretty much guarantee it." I don't think anyone is afraid of having conversations about differences. What people have a problem with is when the differences start being used as metrics for enforced equality of outcomes, or as a bludgeon to make one group feel like they owe another group something, or that others are required to participate in whatever makes them different. Not all of the Society merit badge is terrible. Talking about bullying, for example, is great. Nobody should be made to feel excluded in Scouting for any reason (within reason). Being an "upstander" to be a champion for people is great. Talking about ethical leadership is also fantastic. Making sure that all scouts are given an opportunity to provide input is great. The stuff that skates off into "identity" is suspect, to me. Too many people today want to "identify" as bizarro things that in the past would have people smiling and backing away whereas today people are expected to effectively be active participants. Of course this is probably just more word co-opting. There are many "identities" that of course are normal and fine and people should be ambivalent about them at worst. As long as you keep it to yourself, most people aren't going to care about what religion or political alignment you identify as, for example.

Based on the conversations I've had with Scouts, and listening in to others while they were taking the merit badge, there is a situation, and the kids know it. In fact, given the often-cagey responses from the adults concerning the badge, they know it, too. Most worrisome is that people are clearly afraid to talk about it openly. Because it is. Not only that, it is, in my estimation, immoral. The merit bade speaks to "equity" and "equality". In the context of organizations with DEI efforts, these always, always end up being punitive in nature. The left has done a fantastic job of co-opting and conflating these words. Who could be against equity? Who could be against equality? But what is really meant by these terms in practice is enforced equality. Inevitably. And that always comes at someone's expense. What most people used to have in mind when you talked about equality was equality of opportunity within one's means. Making the most out of the cards life has dealt you. But today, the left has redefined the terms to mean equality of outcomes and equality of opportunity regardless of means. This is literally Marxism - "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." So, if you don't achieve as well as someone else, well, we'll put the thumb on the scale so you appear to do as well as someone who did better. Clearly you need the help, so we will take from others to give it to you. Or they will go after equality of opportunity. Not everyone starts out with the same means, so we'll take from those with the ability, and give to those who have needs. This is inherently leftist political ideology being pushed in a merit badge. I could go on with more, but again, if you know this, you know it, and if you don't, nothing I say is going to convince you. You wont' ever get it because you agree with this stuff. The best way to counter this stuff is to ask the scouts if at the end of summer camp the "equal" thing to do would be divvy up all the merit badges amongst all the scouts. Or if everyone's service hours should get divvied up amongst all the scouts - even those who didn't do any service work. Or if scouts who join late should just be given some ranks and merit badges so that they start off more "equal" with everyone else their age, without having worked for them. They get the idea pretty quick. I continue to be shocked and dismayed that this kind of thing has infiltrated the Boy Scouts of America of all places. This is the absolute last place I thought this kind of thing would creep in. It needs to be resisted.

The best way to help with this situation is become a merit badge counselor for this badge so you can make sure it gets taught properly.

If you know, you know. If you don't, you won't.

Our kids are wise to it.

This whole thing reminds me of how strange it is that troops need a charter organization at all. They should be able to self-charter and just rent a meeting location.

Traditionally and historically, churches have been exempt from certain kinds of taxes.

Girl Scouts is also suffering declining numbers. It's a shame.

I personally don't have a problem with the fees. BSA has been hammered with this lawsuit. It costs money to run BSA. Everything is more expensive these days. Scouting is in decline, so the burdens will fall to fewer to pay.

There is no doubt that our history has led to where we all are today. The past created our present. So a lot of people today are behind the eight-ball from the outset. It will take generations to right the ship. But, we've now also had generations of a relatively level playing field. My parents, born in the mid 1940s, were born poor. My dad's family had to get water in a bucket from the neighbor to flush their toilets. My mother was slightly better off but they did not own their own home when she was growing up, had ice delivery long after refrigerators were mainstream, and had no heat in their bedrooms to deal with Wisconsin winters. Christmas gifts were limited to a new nightgown and slippers which had to last all year. My dad's generation saw every male member of the household (and possibly the girls too, I don't know) get STEM college degrees. They paid for this themselves and by each brother who graduated helping the one behind them. My mother had an excellent civil service job and was making more than my father did out of college. Consequently, I was set up for a good stable family and a college education, and now my children are also. Generational excellence builds quickly - if the parents make good choices. I feel like we've had a pretty equal playing field for the last 50 years. Certainly the last 30. Much of what I see in regards to inequity today is the result of poor parental choices vastly over the sins of the past. Now, I will say that many of these bad parental choices are made simply because the parents have never had good role models and thus don't even understand what the potential is out there let along how to go about achieving it. This is where it is going to take time for families to grow up and discover how to play the game of life to get ahead. It's also true that the world has changed from 50 years ago. Wages have not kept up with inflation. You could buy a house 50 years ago for a couple of times an annual wage. Today it's 10 times that. College is vastly more expensive now (though there are still lower cost community college options). Most people have to take out loans to go to school and this makes them start out their working lives with tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. The days of getting any degree and being successful are over. So while I feel the playing field is pretty level today, it's also more rocky than it used to be. People have to work harder today to make it than they used to. That's life. Neal Boortz used to say something like the way to make it in life was to follow a simple formula: Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Don't get pregnant. Get a job, any job, and work hard at it. You back this up with the Scout Oath and the Scout Law and I think you have as good a shot as anybody to have a decent life.

I don't know what this means.