Mr. Boyce

We can only make assumptions about the authorship of the study in the Ziegler book, and perhaps someone can dig this up for us. It would also be worth knowing---if it did turn out to be the Cameron one mentioned--just WHO and HOW the study was discredited. This being 2009, I have seen many instances where a study opposing one person/group's views was loudly proclaimed to be "discredited" . . . upon questionable grounds.

It's very loosey-goosey to say pedophilia is "about power." It's not. It's a sexual deviancy and connects to the sexual interest. Heterosexuals as well as homosexuals can be pedophiles; however, the BSA is about boys/older youths and male---thus of more interest to homosexual pedophiles than heterosexual pedophiles. Hans Ziegler's book on scouting contains reference to research that shows homosexuals more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexuals. . . but he is not the original researcher. It would be interesting to see the original study, and determine what aspects of homosexual behavior made homosexuals more amenable to this deviant behavior. We know, for instance, that as a group homosexuals are more risk-taking and have greater interest in sex. The BSA's policy, at the end of the day, is a pretty wise one, considering it is a large national organization, with many members and many contexts for member interactions.

. . . and I'd like to add that I think religion is getting an awfully short stick in contemporary political discourse---exactly because some aspects of it do not happen to go along with the views of those in the political left. And the political left DOES have a great deal of influence in media and the culture. (Probably because for many liberals, politics is all there really is for them, beyond themselves, and so they can join together in a kind of Religion of Politics, in a way that conservatives cannot.)

The OP has essentially confirmed that he is a troll. We all know this subject has been hashed to several deaths by now. I would just point out that, in my opinion: Science is still very inconclusive about homosexuality. We're still at a very early stage of understanding it. I have read material that indicates that homosexuals are more often pedophiles (in the legal sense) than heterosexuals. (Sure, this is supposed to be an inflammatory idea in politics, but this seems to be the real case here.) Previous generations did not take sexual abuse as seriously as we do know (remember the "Stranger Danger" scare story? No kid ever really knew what he was about, luring you to his car with candy. I always thought it was about getting sold into white slavery.)

Just to chip in. I purchased a Chinese-made guitar about 4 years ago. . . and subsequently the American guitar company put out its own US-made guitar, much better quality, for only about $200 more. I regret my timing: I would have quickly paid the extra for the much superior product. It's that way with most things. I'm willing to pay a bit extra. In the long-run, manufacturing is a very positive thing for an economy. . . good thorughout for everyone. . . and the Chinese know this, hence they egregiously manipulate their currency's rate of exchange to attract more manufacturing. I would not hesitate to pay $5 more per shirt or pants for US-made BSA uniforms.

It's a great buy at $15. I think it also helps convince people that scouting is a serious activity, not just an afterthought dangle.

I don't know about you folks, but as a Christian, I spend most of my "religious time" focussing on trying to be like Christ. I don't bother much with worrying about atheists.

This is quite an overreaction.

I find bellowed pockets on pants to be useful sometimes. Especially if I don't have, at hand, anything else to put stuff in. I don't see why you'd cram a ton of stuff in your shirt. I'd prefer the shirt to look more basic and classic. Less clutter; more plain and simple.

I'll tell you, I saw an Orkin man recently; guy wearing a white shirt with red epaulets. Immediately made me think of the scout uniform. I'd do away with those loops if I could. They just look odd.

This is a really splendid thread. It's very thought provoking. My only chip to toss in is that public opinion MATTERS. There are a few important sources of public opinion: the people in the mass media, and people leading other, mostly local, sources of public communication. The mass media people hate the Boy Scouts for the gay issue; it's the one immediately recognizable thought that comes to their minds. . . and they also, for some reason, don't like the outdoorsmanship stuff (probably some feminist inspired bias). I don't think the Boy Scouts of America can successfully woo the national mass media. I think the organization itself has to get out there on the national stage and promote and marketing and advertise. With respect to minority participation, I'd say look to the long-term. Even if you're from another country, pretty soon you'll be wearing blue jeans and hanging out at the mall. If the scouting program is seen as a regular thing for boys to do, those groups will eventually discover and gravitate towards it. The big threat to scouting, in my opinion, is the increasing focus at earlier ages on sports. Even though sports don't, in my opinion, do much for a kid's development.

A good deal of my interest in scouting was stoked by my father's old Scout handbook, which contained plenty of line drawings, tiny type and a lot of historical references to knights and great explorers and heroes. There was clearly a connection made between great men of the past and the scouting program's values. It was inspiring stuff. What do we hold up as models for today's 10-11 year old? Just multimillionaire (frequently decadent) sports stars? At any rate, the more I do my mental chewing, the more I think high ideals benefit from using these historical exemplifications. Youth of scouting age clearly want ideals to hold themselves to, to aspire to.

With respect to Obama-proofing, my concern is that I may agree with many of his economic efforts, but I VEHEMENTLY DISAGREE with his social policies of promoting abortion and homosexual marriage and I will fight these. This work has already started. I'm writing monthly letters of complaint to the White House and my representative. I'm putting money into candidates and organizations. Abortion is a horror and an evil and barbaric in several dimensions; homosexual activity is a form of sexual perversion. It's energized me, albeit in a negative way. Perhaps I was too complacent before.

You know, perhaps the origin, or one of the origins of this, was that there were Eagle Scouts returning their Eagle medals in protest, and perhaps one or some of them claimed to be gay. But in terms of something mandated or enforced, I just haven't seen the evidence. If you got it, illuminate me.

. . . one major difficulty for anyone wanting to impose controls on population growth is convincing enough people---billions---to do this. Or taking the easy route and coercing them to do so through political oppression of rights, forced sterilization, etc. Most find this route morally repugnant on many grounds. I suppose we should be concerned about the West imposing economic pressure on nations to curb growth in order to get aid money. That doesn't seem quite right to me somehow.

Gern, I know I'm getting a bit obsessive hear, but it's hard for my ears to hear you say that people with a different view on the population subject all dislike conservation, recycling, limits on resource use and so forth. To my ears, this is stereotyping. I think on this issue it's not in the black/white liberal/conservative paradigm. I also think it's important to point out that experts really have no substantive idea of what sustainability really is. It's still highly conceptual. And at any rate, resources we use today may not be the same we use tomorrow. It's a famous quote from a Saudi oil minister, to wit: the Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stones! The point being that we're working our way away from oil as our energy source. . . and we can find alternative resources.

To me, the "losing Eagle for being gay" thing is an urban myth. I read the papers regularly, and over the years have never seen any specific news item on this. However, it IS something that I have heard people, once or twice when heatedly debating homosexuality, claim to have happened. But of course at that point, those arguments are just hot rhetoric and anything that sounds good/helps your viewpoint gets tossed into the salad.

And also, it is unfortunate (again) that this issue has been turned into an us vs. them, blue vs. red, conservative vs. liberal, etc. kind of argument. I think there are real problems with this black/white approach to issues. This issue in particular calls for sensitivity not to old shibboleths (I mention Ehrlich here), but to serious research into human psychology and development, into agricultural productivity, into rates of technological innovation and economic growth. We know more than we did in 1969, so our views should change to reflect this. The first world would benefit from larger families.

The old-hat "natural limits to growth" argument has been discredited, though. Technological innovation and innovations in transport, communications, etc. all improve food production. . . so that is not the concern that it was back in 1969. Although, of course, are EARS are raised to hear the 1969 viewpoint, and our mouths are used to responding in the 1969 fashion, ala Ehrlich. Frankly, the real question isn't the ability of the world to feed the world, but the first world to feed the first world. In fact it may be better for the third world to have a large and healthy first world. If you have studied this issue, you realize that previous extrapolations have been made laughable.

Two more points to chew (sorry!): ---it's a mistake to immediately toss political issues into a "liberal vs. conservative", "black vs. white," paradigm. It may be convenient, but it may also block a fuller view into a subject. ---Looking around various forums here and there, I'm amazed at how often religion is getting attacked. I'm not sure this is a good thing in the long term, and I think it's probably a mistake to demonize Christians and muslims as the source of all troubles.

It's unfair, and a violation of good etiquette, to say that Mr. Boyce is a nativist. Who knows what this really means anymore? The 1830s are long over. . . I do believe the U.S. Constitution is extremely important to the United States. And I think any clear-eyed and truly open reading of world news would show anyone who considers himself to be objective, that there really ARE people who despite the United States and the constitutional principles upon which the United States is based. In 2009, there are European nations wrestling with this problem of maintaining liberal individual liberties in the face of opposition. It really does happen, like it or not, and because I point it out, it's a logical leap to assume that I'm implying more. And BACK to the original point by this original poster: large families have been villified in recent decades, I believe, and I think there are many positive points to them.

Look. It's easy to be glib about it, but there really ARE muslim sects that are anti-democratic and would not hesitate to pull the plug on the Last Great Hope of Democracy. . . I'm not at all demonizing the muslims; in fact, I greatly admire the depth of their commitment to their faith. The Great Problem everyone faces, as the world gets smaller and shrinks, is Getting Along Together, and in the case of religious faith, it means tolerance of other faiths. . . including tolerance of other faiths by muslims. So the Question of the 21st Century will be. . . can the muslims do it? With respect to quotas, all nations have them. We're blinkered by the Emma Lazarus poem into believing that a wide open gate is the only way to go. Certainly we would be wrong not to be selective in at least a minimal fashion. BUT my OP point wasn't so much about preserving western democracy. It was just that large families are nice and are rather necessary to our current economic structure.

I know this is a topic that gets especially liberals upset, since they still think of the 1960s projections and extrapolations. I'm not sure it makes sense to just toss this subject out as a liberal vs. conservative thing: maybe it simply is, or will be, a problem. I just think the system we have works better with slightly larger families, and in the past couple months have twice heard the expression "four is the new two." With respect to the enormous growth of the muslim population, well, it very well could become a problem in the United States. The Netherlands already is 40% muslim. When you get large populations that live by value systems that are very different than yours, you can run into political problems very quickly. . . in fact, there's a push for sharia law in England. But I'm not saying we should be concerned due to the muslim factor, even though I think many liberals are short-sighted about the whole matter of what happens when Liberal Democracy comes into conflict with Muslim Precepts. . . I don't think the muslims will gladly back away.

My quick response to your questions! First, market economies rely on markets. When populations shrink, the market disappears and there is a gradual return to subsistence economies. This is what happened at the end of the Roman empire,and it took many centuries to recover. So you need a large population to support markets. This is an essential part of capitalism, and a good part of why the European nations began empire-building in the late 19th century. Producers need consumers. . . in fact, some production technologies depend on having a very large base of consumers in order to operate. Second, the reason this is a wide concern is because of the various government programs of social assistance, especially Social Security. Third, and my personal reason or one I believe is important, is that socialization of people is done better when people are raised within large families rather than small families. We see the "Prince" problem in China, in which the one child is so highly pampered that his actual psychological development is affected. I hypothesize that parents with larger families are LESS likely to become helicopter parents, are less tense as parents (and less tense families), and are willing to grant their children a bit more personal independence. With respect to scouts, I think it's obvious is this day and age that the Top 3 Sports rule our children's lives. . . in a perverse fashion, I would add. It's possible that with more children, parents are less likely to force all their kids into the Superstar Athlete paradigm. The comparison with the Third World is extraneous: the Third World has a difficult time supporting itself. This isn't the problem in the First World. Of course, maybe our REAL problem is that we expect to have too high a standard of personal consumption.

. . . regardless of the old "Paul Ehrlich" stuff, it's pretty clear that western nations need larger families. Perhaps this is part of the pinch scouting feels.