Girl Scout Gold recipient censored by local school board for her Gold Award project.

[AwakeEnergyScouter 248]

5 hours ago, DannyG said:

I believe scouting teaches youth to be involved and engaged. BSA has Eagle-required merit badges that teach civic engagement: Citizenship in the Community, Nation, World, and Society. Certainly BSA teaches this in a way to find common-ground with others: If you are out in the wilderness with a group you need to work together and solve problems as a group. We are stronger when we work together. If you take a stand as an individual, what are the repercussions to the group? There has to be a good reason and you should have allies who support you.

I don't have much to say on the Eagle project topic since we don't have that in Sweden and haven't read up on the instructions, but reading this sparked a potential initial general view of the line between civic and political: civic is supporting building community in a liberal democracy. To the extent that parties promote policies (often implicitly because everyone in mainstream society agrees) that are consistent with liberal democracy, we count those as civic even though one could argue that technically they are political because a political party advocates for it. That remains true even when, like in this example, mainstream citizens in a liberal democracy actually start taking actions inconsistent with liberal democracy. (The non-mainstream I'm specifically thinking of here is the neonazis in the town I grew up in. They explicitly want to crush liberal democracy, but they are also persona non grata outside their own group and nobody in scouting in Sweden loses any sleep about not listening to them or taking action to prevent them from succeeding.) Uniformed scouts marching in an anti-Nazi march is not like uniformed scouts staffing an "election cabin" to campaign for a particular political party, even though technically being anti-Nazi is a political stand that is also proposed policy for multiple political parties. Being anti-Nazi is being pro-liberal democracy, and thus the scouting backing of what is technically also a policy stand of political parties counts as civic.

Does that make sense? Anybody see any holes?

[Eagledad 2781]

3 hours ago, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

 

My point is, I do not appreciate being called duplicitous, and I do not appreciate teachings that are very precious to me and considered a religion by the BSA being called duplicitous. You don't have to agree with the view, but attacking me for holding it is not cool.

Hmm, I know exactly how you feel.

Barry

Edited April 26 by Eagledad

[AwakeEnergyScouter 248]

9 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

Hmm, I know exactly how you feel.

Barry

Are you sincere?

I do not read you to be. Please correct me if I'm wrong. It's quite possible that I am. 

[SSScout 1616]

Well, censorship, The Golden Rule, Kharma, Rinpoche, freedom of expression and choice,  protecting youth (from adults?),  civic duty versus personal responsibility,    quite a discussion.

I came here late, I have not been able to read the article because the Richmond Times-Dispatch keeps wanting me to SUBSCRIBE.  But GOOGLE is your friend:   https://dailyprogress.com/news/nation-world/government-politics/hanover-girl-scout-gold-award-censored-book-nooks-banned-hcps/article_283731ad-4dd9-5c8f-ba7a-ae16e18542aa.html 

It is , indeed, a Brave New World.....   Aldous Huxley, call your office.   

[AwakeEnergyScouter 248]

Total sidebar: I noticed the manner of mentioning Rinpoche, @SSScout - were you his student?

[RememberSchiff 3689]

Girl Scout and member of Board of Supervisors exchange.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYicUpJAth8

 

[SSScout 1616]

20 hours ago, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

Total sidebar: I noticed the manner of mentioning Rinpoche, @SSScout - were you his student?

I read widely. Not a "student".   Baha Ullah?   George Fox?  Gandhi?  Jacob Hutter?  Stanwood Cobb? 

[MattR 2667]

I don't see the BSA ever having to deal with this problem because there doesn't seem to be a benefactor that could sign off on such a project. Nobody in the school district.

It's great that this scout wants to unban books, but it's not a service project that helps specific people. Something about working with others to solve a problem rather than just working on it alone sounds better to me.

And yet it does make me want to read Slaughterhouse Five. I don't know how I missed that one. I went and found a synopsis and think it would be a great read.

[mrjohns2 583]

2 hours ago, MattR said:

And yet it does make me want to read Slaughterhouse Five. I don't know how I missed that one. I went and found a synopsis and think it would be a great read.

Very quick read. Very interesting book. A bit of nudity (but maybe a page or 2), but by no means the focus. If I could remember it to give it a synopsis would be almost how someone loosing grip with reality. Just interesting. It also covered how bad the bombing of Dresden was in WWII.

[Eagle1993 2163]

The school board found a way to get kids to read books ... announce that they are banned.  

I would think BSA would be fine accepting controversial Eagle Scout projects.  One of our youth did a project for an organization that provides housing for primarily LGBTQ youth who were abused at home.   That said, there was a clear benefactor and and the project wasn't directed against any political group. 

So, I could see a way for a project like this could work in the BSA, but not in the manner it was conducted as a Gold project.

[DannyG 72]

On 4/26/2024 at 3:03 PM, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

I don't have much to say on the Eagle project topic since we don't have that in Sweden and haven't read up on the instructions, but reading this sparked a potential initial general view of the line between civic and political: civic is supporting building community in a liberal democracy. To the extent that parties promote policies (often implicitly because everyone in mainstream society agrees) that are consistent with liberal democracy, we count those as civic even though one could argue that technically they are political because a political party advocates for it. That remains true even when, like in this example, mainstream citizens in a liberal democracy actually start taking actions inconsistent with liberal democracy. (The non-mainstream I'm specifically thinking of here is the neonazis in the town I grew up in. They explicitly want to crush liberal democracy, but they are also persona non grata outside their own group and nobody in scouting in Sweden loses any sleep about not listening to them or taking action to prevent them from succeeding.) Uniformed scouts marching in an anti-Nazi march is not like uniformed scouts staffing an "election cabin" to campaign for a particular political party, even though technically being anti-Nazi is a political stand that is also proposed policy for multiple political parties. Being anti-Nazi is being pro-liberal democracy, and thus the scouting backing of what is technically also a policy stand of political parties counts as civic.

Does that make sense? Anybody see any holes?

One of the simplest ways it was described to me as a uniformed adult leader: The scouts should know that you participate in elections. They shouldn't know who you are voting for.

[Eagledad 2781]

6 hours ago, DannyG said:

One of the simplest ways it was described to me as a uniformed adult leader: The scouts should know that you participate in elections. They shouldn't know who you are voting for.

As a SM, this is the approach took with politics as well as religion.

Barry