Fat Old Guy

" I would want you to run it by FOG's or any one else's." Once again Bob White shows that he doesn't understand the Scout Law.

" The panda bear, illustrated on the WCA, is the symbol of the World Wildlife Fund." The bears are different. The one on the Scouting badge is a male, the WWF is a female.

Ah-ha! We are supposed to love and obey God but to be wise, we need to fear him. This goes along with the old fashioned concept of child-parent relations: love and obey your parents but fear them as well.

dsteele asserted, "The values, however, are stated -- in the Scout Oath and Law." Not really, the Law is simply a list of characteristics.

NJCubDude swings mightily and misses! " because the anti-gay thing cannot really be "inferred" or "interpolated" from the Oath or Law, either" Sure it can, ever heard of "morally straight"? By the way, Umpire Bob is blind.

"if there was suposed to be an attendance requirement there would be." However, there is a requirement to be "active" which is open for interpretation by anyone and everyone.

"See the problem with a MUST rule?" A Scout MUST earn certain merit badges to advance to Star, Life or Eagle. Maybe we should allow slippage in this requirement. "You have 19 merit badges but you had an essay to write for English Lit so we won't worry about those last two."

"I'm not arguing that it's against BSA rules to do this, but that it would be a misleading practice" There are those among us who believe that if it isn't specifically against BSA policy that it must be okay.

Sorry Bob White, you don't let anyone else use exceptions to rules to make a point so your comments are invalid. Null. Void.

"FOG, Homosexuality is not the subject of the thread. oth ers may follow you down that sideroad in order to avoid the actual topic. I will not." Bob "I don't live by the Scout Law" White, avoids the point by pretending that it doesn't exist.

" you were told that the values of scouting are encased in the scouting ideals represented by the Promise or Oath, The Law, or Law of the Pack, the Motto and Slogan." Thank you Bob White for admitting that I am right. No where is it explicitly stated what the values of BSA are. Those values must be inferred and interpolated from other statements by BSA. Hmmmm. . . now just where does it say in those statements that homosexuals are not good role models?

"When a Scout does not attend troop meetings that may very well be a sign a bad troop meetings." So when 39 out of 40 Scouts show up regularly for meetings but the 40th only comes twice a year, that indicates that there is a problem with the meetings? Interesting logic.

"When they're right, sure, why not?" They are only right in your mind. "FOG, do you really deny that the "past" is a relative term?" Past is an absolute, at least in the current state of physics. There is past and the future separated by the present. "Or to put it another way, there is not mathematical measurement to determine when a particular past act or practice is "ok" because "standards" have changed from then to now." You really don't understand much do you? You judge acts by the standards of the time in which they occurred. Not by last years standards or the standards of next year, by the standards of the time.

I remember the "Scouting Rounds a Guy Out" campaign as being in the 70s.

"This makes me think of a movie that my kids watch a lot, I think it is the Lion King." Disney, Inc., one of the great philosophers of the 21st century. I'm not surprised that you'd quote them.

Values? What are the values of BSA? I looked in my Scoutmaster's Handbook and I couldn't find a list. Are they also in the double secret books that we cannot see without special permission?

Pamaha, Bob White believes that no rules are needed in Scouting beyond whatever BSA sets, however, Bob lives in a town in New York called Utopia. In my mind, as tiny as it may be, a troop may set its own standards for what is considered active in the troop. This really isn't out of line with BSA since they say that every troop or Charter Organization can decide who can join that troop. Do you have some standards for being allowed to attend the merit badge college? If so, they need to be applied to everyone. If the standards are in question, maybe they need to be reviewed by the PLC with some guidance from the SM.

"The difference is that one shares goals and values similar to the BSA (the Mormon church) and one does not (the FOG Crypto-Fascist Fan Club)." Bob White continues to show that he is unable to follow the Scout Law. What are the goals of BSA? Character development, participating citizenship and physical fitness. Sounds like the goals of every crypto-fascist group that I've ever heard of. Xenophobic? Sure but so are the Mormons.

" you can't honestly say that you don't like hearing a "Good job" or getting some sort of appreciative comment because of your presence or effort." I get great satisfaction from knowing that I did a good job. I politely accept kudos but take them with a grain of salt. Far too often, I've seen poor or mediocre performers told "Great job" and given rewards and awards, rewards and awards that should have gone to others (usually not me). There are very few whom I trust enough to believe their "Good jobs" and two of them are my children because they are brutally honest ("Dinner sucks tonight, Dad!").

" What was either ignored or simply not known by the poster is that such an orhanization cannot hold a charter with the BSA." Why? Is there something in the secret documents that BSA won't let the people who pay the bills read without special permission from the Star Chamber? What is the difference between my hypothetical organization and the Mormons? Both are patriotic and neither likes outsiders.

NJCubScoutDude, you can't judge the past by present standards.

dsteele muttered, "PS -- I don't know why people like to gang up on professionals, either. But I've been called lots of bad names over the years, up to an including a short one that begins with a 'W' and ends with an 'e.' " Woe? Wye? We? Why do we gang up on professionals? Probably because most of the time it appears that your goals are widely divergent from ours. When the DE or his boss speaks to us, it is usually about money or membership numbers which are money as well. I was just flipping through our council newsletter and there was an article exhorting us to give to some fund. The article ended with a statement that if we gave to this fund we were still expected to give to FOS. Quite honestly, most of us get tired of hearing about money. It is especially galling when someone gives a pitch about giving more money when you're sitting in a room full of people who put in countless hours into Scouting in addition to their regular 60 hours a week for their full time job. I spend at least seven evening a month at some sort of Scout meeting. Add in the time spent at home and then the weekend excursions. The last thing that I want to hear is that I need to cough up $300 so the DE can get paid, this being the DE that doesn't answer phone calls or emails.

dsteele said, "in the case of a pack that goes camping with no one trained in Baloo, I would hope the council would catch that on the tour permit and not approve the tour permit." We are only required to submit a tour permit is the destination is 50 miles from home so no one knows that no one is BALOO trained. In any case, we've been told that lack of a tour permit doesn't impact insurance coverage. If this is indeed the case, what is the reason behind the tour permit?

" act like they think they're the part of BSA Internal Affairs." Someone needs to do the job. From what I've seen no one steps on Packs that go camping without BALOO training? How about the units that run raffles for fund raising?

"I don't think that's quite how the Native Americans remember it." Why is that no one cries about the displaced Picts or about the Gauls who were pillaged by the Scandnavians. What about the Rus who ravaged the land? How about the countless Arab tribes that were slaughtered by other Arabs looking for water? The Persians stormed all over the place, enslaving and killing people. The Mongols did the same. When it comes right down to it, the Indians should consider themselves lucky that they weren't wiped out.