GernBlansten

When we went under mandatory evacuation for the Hayman fire, they did a reverse 911 with a recorded message to evacuate in 30 minutes. A deputy came down the street as we were loading the cars. I asked him what penalty I would sustain if I chose to stay and fight. He calmly took out a notebook and asked who my dentist was. I asked why, and he said so they could use dental records to identify my corpse. He then stated that nobody was going to try and save me if the fire came through. I laughed and loaded the last box in the truck before waving goodbye to the deputy.

Imagine there's no DRP It's easy if you try No ACLU hounding us Above us only sky Imagine all the Boy Scouts Living for today Imagine there's no exclusions It isn't hard to do Nothing to argue about And no expulsions too Imagine all the Boy Scouts Living life in peace You may say that I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will be as one

John, That's my point. The BSA is all about requirements. We haggle over how a boy achieves each one, how to teach and test them. We measure the scouts progress on how many requirements they have met. We are adamant not to add to requirements. We are in all effects a "by the book" organization. A scout can skate all they way through boy scouts and venturing and never have to do anything related to religion, yet BSA refers to itself as a religious organization. Our insistence on excluding a scout when they may never be challenged to demonstrate their faith just seems ridiculous considering the harm we have inflicted ourselves with the policy.

I can understand BWs stance if the BSA included religion as a core element to their program. But they do not. No religious requirements (save cubs) beyond following the DRP at application time. If the BSA wants to be a religious organization, then it should behave as one. Require scouts to earn their religious emblem. Create a merit badge on religion. Bring religion front and center into the program, not tip toe around it. The LDS have basically done that with their own implimentation of the program. Check out the thread on scout's own and realize that even when we try to include a religious element, we have to water it down to such a degree that it becomes meaningless to even the most devout followers.

Its the other way around Ed. Think about it. Unless you have the freedom to NOT engage in religion first, can you truly have the freedom to engage in any religion you wish, to any extent you wish. In your premise, you must have the freedom to be religious before you can exercise your freedom not to. This assumes that one must have exercised his religious freedom by being religious before rejecting it. I know its semantics, but I get riled up when someone posts "Its freedom OF religion, not FROM religion". Kinda like, "America, love it or leave it".

Dropping the DRP and adopting a local option shouldn't drive LDS and other religious charters away. They can retain their exclusion of athiests. But it seems to me their threat is meant to define how other unit's membership outside their spectrum are made up. So is it really just about the LDS (and others) want to have their way for themselves, or are they exercising their power on all units in the BSA?

And Brownie.

I live in fire country. 6 years ago, we got evacuated in the largest wildfire in Colorado history. The fire stopped about 2 miles from the Blansten homestead. Since then we have done fire mitigation to reduce our chances, but to tell you the truth, the next big fire will probably take my home. Will I cry about it? Not to anyone else, just my own misfortune. I have a hard time finding sympathy for those who rebuild in flood plains. And if they do, why don't they put their homes and businesses on pilings that exceed the highest historical flood level?

Well Pack212Scouter, if you are gonna put up that bumper sticker slogan, can I put up my favorite? "You can't have freedom OF religion without first having freedom FROM religion."

Its really the scale of human suffering. How many people have died in the recent floods compared to Katrina? Are there bodies floating around the streets of middle America for weeks? Are people being rescued off the roofs of their houses because they had to cut a hole in the roof to escape the flood waters? Is Brownie there doing a heck of a job?

I understand Rooster's concern. Lets say a fundamentalist administration came to power and forced NPS rangers to only tell visitors to the Grand Canyon that it was created in a few days by the receding waters of the great flood. Those rangers who might disagree, could be fined, imprisoned or dismissed. Then the next secular administration reverses the NPS policy and rangers only can give the currently accepted origination of the canyon. Perhaps it would be best to let the rangers tell the story as best they see fit, and let the audience heckle them if their version is just silly.

Last year, the Blanstens went on a tour of the Mesa Verde ruins in Colorado. The tour guides are national park rangers. Our tour guide was on his last week of his 30 year career. He started his tour stating that he would give us two versions, the official NPS version that all rangers must follow, then his own personal version. He said he couldn't give his version until now because the NPS had strict rules on what version of history was to be presented. The NPS version was that the Anazai used the cliff dwelling as cities, housing many people and sometime around 1000 years ago, the people mysteriously disappeared. The rangers version was in line with the verbal history of the local Indians. The Anazai used the ruins to store corn. Only a few stayed to guard the food stores, the rest lived on the top of mesas farming their crops. They never died off, they are still there. They just moved off the mesas and down into the valleys. However, his version was in contrast, and less compelling than the long established history some Ivy league anthropologists came up with in the late 1800s and adopted as the truth by the NPS.

Rooster, for the most part I agree with you. However, there must be some sort of accreditation whether by government or an independent agency, lest we have no way of truly measuring someones accomplishments. The idea of a degree becomes as worthless as the paper they are printed on. Employers need the tools to evaluate the worth of a candidate and most don't have the resources to research each institution to validate its credibility. Roll this back to scouting. What if BSA outsourced wood badge courses to private educators. I could take the official BSA wood badge training from an accredited source or I could find someone who has a course called wood badge that he runs out of his garage and take that one. I go back to my unit and claim I took wood badge. Unless the unit took the time and effort to verify my course with BSA, they really wouldn't know that I didn't take it from an accredited source.

I would assume the consequences would be the same if you gave a compensated tour without proper insurance. A fine and a cease and desist order.

I can see your arguement. However, if these independant contractors are licensed by the city to provide services, they must meet safety and other standards to operate a business. Having trained guides would be a logical extension to that.

Your right to free speech ends when someone is paying you to speak for them. If these guides want to propagate their stories, they are free to do so on their own time and nobody should squelch it, that would be protected speech. However, if they are paid or even volunteering to be a representative of the organization, they must deliver the material as intended by the organization. The organization gets to set what is said, not the guide.

I vote for BW's #2 reason.

Both protected by the 1st Amendment. What's good for the goose, is good for the gander.

Typical or not, it would be highly likely that the WBC would apply and be granted public funds to propogate their message. That is why restrictions must be applied.

Is my worst case scenario really that far from reality? Let's say the govmint engages a religious organization, for example the Westboro Baptist Church to help in disaster relief. They provide them with funds to procure and distribute food and water to victims. The members of that church then place their famous flyers in the food packs and surround themselves with their posters. They stand on platforms with bull horns and announce their beliefs for everyone in earshot, calling out those who are the subjects of their scorn to repent before they receive the aid. Now all those activities are protected by the 1st Amendment. However, do you think they should be eligible to receive the funds unrestricted? Where is the line?

One benefit of internal frame packs is it requires you pack them properly. It also doesn't allow you to just tie stuff on the outside. This is a huge benefit. Makes you think about what to take and what to leave at home. One thing I've noticed is most external frame packers take way too much junk with them because it's real easy to just clip it on and go. They end up looking like the Clampetts heading to Californy. I also would concur that most backpackers don't know how to adjust their packs, internal or external. Spent the better part of the training hikes for Philmont helping my crew learn their own packs.

The term leveraged was carefully chosen to describe the ability of an established organization to apply more effective force to a problem than the energy supplied. Nothing PC about it. And the theory that the government "uses" these organizations implies that such a program would be involuntary on the part of the latter. We'll see if Mr. Obama will fund this initiative better than the previous POTUS and use it for real good instead of political pandering.

I'm all for faith based initiatives, with caveats. Many religious organizations have the resources and local integration to best deliver social services. They should be leveraged for that. However, the recipients of those services should not have to bow to the will of the provider, including proselytizing. Think of the BSA getting a Faith Based Initiative grant to provide a tent city for homeless people. A great initiative. But because of BSA policy against gays and athiests, they would only provide those tents to those who met their standards. That would be wrong.

Good luck finding one. A few are still manufactured but the vast majority of the market has gone over to internal frame. I think Kelty still makes a good one. Check campmor.com. At Philmont last year, of the hundreds of backpackers we crossed paths with, probably only 5% were external frame jobs. And of those, most were vintage models. They are definitely going he way of the BetaMax tape.

I believe most of the cases you cite are post-Dale (and frankly I was not aware of the others). Seems to me that when the BSA won that court case, they won the battle but lost the war. That case created a precedent (BSA declaring they were a private religious organization) that had a domino effect to bring subsequent cases since its status was altered in the eyes of the law, eg no longer a public accommodation and now a private religious one. The Dale case was the watershed case. I believe the ACLU was correct in bringing it, I also think the BSA was successful and correct in defending it. But I don't blame the ACLU for the fall out because of it. Its BSA's policies that are causing that, not the watchdog group who is pointing it out.