AwakeEnergyScouter

In my view, a bigger problem than that it's a uniform rule violation is that it's taking a side in an armed conflict as a scouter. Even if everyone else there agrees with the position. Whether you or anyone else can address it with the person skillfully or not is a somewhat different question. A scene a la GSUSA threatening the scouter with the Palestine bracelets with legal action isn't a great first step. Do you know the person in question?

Yes, all scouting is local. But scouting has a particular value foundation (Scout Law and Oath) that forms the shared ethical and moral framework within which we scout. The types of approaches and styles in scouting that vary from place to place can be substantial, but can't really include whether the pack or troop is doing their best to follow the Scout Law and Oath. Assuming that they are should always be correct. Why is this relevant? Because being untrustworthy, disloyal, unhelpful, unfriendly, uncourteous, unkind, disobedient, sour, wasteful, cowardly, dirty, and irreverent for any a

You're right, I expressed myself imprecisely. Negative affect of some kind. I read downvotes as negative, for example. I believe you do too. Laughing at sincerity I also read as some kind of negative affect. But so is reading what I wrote in such a way that you thought I was trying to dismiss OP. I mean, I presume that you think that dismissing people is bad. When that wasn't at all what I was trying to do, clearly something went very wrong in the communication there, which you also acknowledge. I just want to be clear that it's not you asking questions that makes me think negative affect. I d

As I have already stated, I do not find the start of the conversation civil (as defined in the definitions of civil I previously provided because several elements of it are ideological, the statements are imprecise, and the tone seems angry). In structural dynamics terms, the OP was a move in affect, not a move in meaning. A move in affect can't lead to civil discourse because, as the student primer on civil discourse says, civil discourse is all about sticking to the issues. If there was no issue presented, or the issue is so unclearly presented that the discourse cannot proceed around

I did not write the top post in this thread. I am sincerely trying to advocate for a return to civil discourse about issues where scouts and scouters might disagree. If you don't believe I am, well... Not sure what more to do about that. I have shared a lot about where I'm coming from in the service of that, making sure to mention things that don't fit the culture war narrative so that we can leave it behind and get to scouting instead of fighting political battles.

I agree completely. Let's do that instead of starting conversations with culture war rhetoric with little connection to scouting.

Of course, but that's why you need to remember the assumptions that went into it and the domain in which it was created. Can't get any sense of even a good model too far outside its domain. At some point, it's just not telling you anything. No model is useful in all situations at all times.

Just read something someone said on social media that seems quite relevant here. "The issue with a culture war based epistemology, where all things are seen through the lens of cultural war. Will always lead directly to conspiracy theories. For when you see normal people doing normal things, through that lens, it must take on all the misaligned power of a conspiracy against you personally. This happens to both the right and left side of politics. Yet more frequently on the right. Anyone's vision of a "correct" culture, will always fail. For culture is never isotropic." We are all her

I doubt I am interpreting what you said here the way you meant it, because I just heard "Yes, atheists that don't belong to an organized religion are still being excluded from scouting with the BSA, and so we should remedy that".

I know I certainly don't feel excluded or pushed out by the existence of all the affinity groups that aren't for me, which is most of them. Be welcome, have at it. Just like I don't feel slighted when a meeting opens with a round of applause for veterans but not me, a non-veteran. Exactly because I haven't seek the tiniest inkling of special favor a la sauna dealmaking.

Mine too. All of them. One of my bosses responded rapidly to a somewhat problematic situation with a co-worker and I never had to deal with that harassment again at one job. HR helped a few folks a level below me with harassment issues, one of which had also raised eyebrows quite widely and so was quite important to deal with. The nonwhite nonstraight nonmale workers that were excellent at their jobs were recognized as being such and promoted at least at most of my employers. (An exception comes to mind.) But I have never heard anyone say that we should give an iffy candidate a chanc

I am attempting to engage you in civil discourse, rather than jumping to conclusions of what you're actually trying to say, your motivations, and your opinions. I am asking you to articulate clearly and factually what you think. This is because without you stating your position clearly and factually, civil discourse is a nonstarter and this thread is, at least in response to you specifically, not going to be civil and as such lacks value for scouting. I am not asking you questions because I cannot find information and form an opinion of my own on it, I am asking you questions to ensure that I

I actually took the rules to mean "no adults that haven't been background checked staying overnight". In part because that makes total sense. If the red flags are already up, use them. It's necessary, if not sufficient.

Our pack is planning to lean into Earth Month this April and make the pack meeting centered on the Outdoor Code and Leave No Trace. We already have a number of LNT materials, games, and such, and there is more online. The question isn't how to find activities, it's how to select good ones for such a range of patience levels and abilities. Would anyone who's used LNT training materials (or similar) with cub scouts be willing to share what worked well and what didn't work so well?

Only the last NOAC? Or also the last US national jamboree? Were these the first such events, or were there previously held events? Are such events held more widely? If BSA is pushing DEI so hard, how come I haven't heard a DEI peep despite being an active scouter? Please provide the wider data basis for your subjective description of DEI in the BSA. You've previously called them "sanctioned" by BSA, what does that mean exactly? Organized by? Allowed to occur organized by some group of scouts and/or scouters but not the BSA itself? What was the stated purpose of the "meetings/gatherin

I agree with Civics for Life that civil discourse is constructive to have for its own sake. "Civil discourse is not simply polite conversation, though courtesy and respect are crucial to it. Civil discourse goes beyond politeness. It is conversation with purpose—that is, constructive dialogue. Though they may disagree, participants in civil discourse are committed to hearing each other’s fact-based opinions and dispassionately evaluating those opinions against their own. Participants enter into civil discourse with a shared goal: to leave it with greater clarity or even, potentially, havi

Yes, I think this is the main point. I did express myself imprecisely, that's true, categorizing a risk level below some undefined cutoff as "YPT working" and categorizing a risk level above that as "YPT not working". What that risk level is is a matter of debate, of course, but because the main point here isn't really that conversation I used the BSA's phrasing to keep the focus on what on Earth this conversation is meant to be good for. The wisdom of starting conversations by lobbing culture war grenades depends in no way whatsoever on statistics. What productive aim did you have i

But that doesn't mean that statistics isn't a valid epistemology. As you reap the fruits of in your daily life. Even manufacturing of physical goods uses statistics for quality control. And that's before we mention statistical mechanics. Knowledge about the world that hinges on statistics is quite possible.

This is the second layer... Does the gender of the abused young person matter? Of course not. Either YPT works or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, the problem isn't "DEI", it's that YPT isn't covering all the bases to prevent CSA.

TBH the rule that you need a female leader around girls all the time sounds a little accusatory of men's character in general to me, despite the statistics. If the idea is that only a woman would protect girls from sexual abuse, what does that imply about all the other male leaders?

Ok, you got any links to official BSA information about these so we can all be on the same page about what specifically you're criticizing? The reason it went off the rails immediately is that people who are angry about too much DEI fit an image of a culture war warrior swinging a sword all around them. IOW it easily looks like you started a conversation by throwing a culture war grenade. If this is not what you intended you may want to be much, much, much more specific about what where when and why.

The blurb itself says right there that they are surveying both girls and boys at the same time, i e they are not only surveying one gender to the exclusion of the other. If you already have a statistically valid sampling of the boys, adding more boys doesn't improve the statistical accuracy, so while it's possible they're collecting more girl data than is useful and/or cost-effective it's not creating a two-tier system. The phrasing does make me wonder if there are relatively speaking few girl members, such that it actually makes sense to send out the survey to all of them in order t

How is this discussion helpful?

Sidebar: Why couldn't you just find an elected German official? Why restrict yourself to the base?

Somebody didn't think that name through 😂