Mr. Boyce

I like the question above about "selling" the troop. It's something that many might find unpleasant, but in the long run, it's important to make it a part of the things you do: getting the word out that scouting exists in your community. I'd check into how much experience the scoutmaster has with small organization finances. I'm of the opinion that when your finances are in good sound shape, a lot of unexpected nice positives will follow.

I guess I'm getting tired of the old "that's the way it is" answer when it comes to internet smut. This kind of thing, the wild west approach, I believe, really ends up restricting the potentials of the internet and tend more and more to make internet content irrelevant and dubious. If it's broke, why not fix it? We have the technology. . .

I admire Troop 68's productions and recently went on YouTube to see their latest stuff. Here's a surprise for you: type "boy scout" in the YouTube search function and see the pornographic stuff that comes up. I'm sending a letter to YouTube complaining of this; consider doing this as well.

Good point: I have 100% concurrence! This said, there may be public occasions in which scouts do flags and which may catch them standing by candidates or elected officials. This isn't so bad; it's something that can happen. Go to any parade. But holding signs really crosses over the line!

My big problem with political correctness is when it butts up against individual civil liberties. This is happening with greater frequency, due to the wide-ranging uses and definitions of "hate crime." I'm an old free-speech advocate, so PC stuff is Orwellian to me. And the nub of the PC idea, being kind toward others, isn't so bad. MANDATING kindness is problematic, though.

Abortion is a low and mean and nasty business any way you view it. Should be outlawed as barbaric. I feel the same way, intuitive dislike, toward capital punishment. I'm a political moderate. It's good you spoke up: more and more it seems people are finding real problems with the practice of abortion.

Lisabob: I remember the '92 election, feeling that Bill Clinton was underqualified for the job. Arkansas' a pretty small state, after all. So's Alaska. In the end, I feel we're picking an administration. We all pretty much knew the crowd Bush hung around with, and this made his selection palatable to some. Bush, too, didn't have much real experience, since the powers of the Texas governor are small, modest in scale. So the question is this: what "crowd" of people will Obama take in with him? what "crowd" of people will McCain bring in, if elected? I'm in Illinois, and I follow politics, and while I admire Obama, I can't point to anything practical that he's done here, although I keep looking for evidence of substantive accomplishment. On the other side of the coin, I'm not at all sure what "crowd" McCain can rely on, since he's been "independent" and "bi-partisan" for so long. . . and being from Arizona, it's anyone's guess.

It all depends. Perhaps she wants to be a mom. It's pretty natural to have children in the late teens---I think our "abhorrence" of the idea is pretty recent, based on women going to college (itself a pretty new post-WW 2 phenomenon). Probably a healthier thing, too. Interesting to see the GOP's take on it. The last time I heard this "it's okay" argument, it came from black Democrats. I do think the "Father Issue" is vital. Increasingly, research indicates that dads, yes, are needed. For me, the nub of the issue is whether dad can get a job to make the family unit work at an early age; unfortunately, the times and work situation is such that it's difficult for a young male to get a decent job in his early 20s.

To me, Palin is a very interesting character and I look forward to finding out more about her. The election seems too close to call right now, and a female VP candidate might toss more votes to McCain. (This said, it's a shame that race and gender by themselves really mean much of anything to voters, rather than something to automatically discard as irrelevant. The older I get, the easier it is to toss off that "face value" stuff). I don't think Obama is unstoppable. I think the Palin choice is another way to try to break up his momentum.

re: time consideration. I could probably find 10 minutes to sew on a badge; I'm not addicted to the television, so I have more time during the week than most people. I mention this since TV takes up a lot of time for many people.

Speaking generally, sewing is a life skill that would be most useful for a boy to learn. By this, I mean more than just a needle and thread, but learning to work a machine, too. I can't count how many times I wish I'd picked this up! In this day and age, it's not an effeminate thing, either: there are many women who never learned to sew.

There are many who find it exciting to promote social change. And for many, pushing change in values justifies their existence. It's exciting, elicits comraderie, and so forth. I've always been skeptical of the notion that "just because everyone's doing it, it's right." So I don't hold much truck with the whole "wave of change" idea. In fact, I don't think voting on moral questions is the right procedure for determining them. If anything, a good procedure on moral values would help RESTRAIN selfish and inhuman impulses. Even if everyone wanted them. This is the old query (sure, that's a pun): if everyone were made happy by killing Bill, should we still kill Bill? Or does Bill have an innate, inalienable right to live, even though he makes us sore? I think thinking homosexuals at this point might question whether there may be a sobering up, and a push-back, to their efforts by the general public.

If I'm not mistaken, the Progressives' origin was in the 1876 election, with dismay over corrupt federal government. Civil Service reform was key to the movement's start, which, with leaders such as Brandeis, Filene, etc., moved squarely into serious economic issues. At times, joined by Bryan, Wilson, Roosevelt the First. Ralph Nader really is the standard bearer for Progressivism in contemporary times. I think liberal's the term you're after. The homosexual issue is difficult, I feel, since (a) there is no conclusive notion of how or why same sex attraction appears (it's a complex phenomenon), (b) heterosexuals are threatened by it, © homosexual practices themselves can be socially disruptive in several quite different ways, (d) homosexuality is challenging to the public health, and (e) the rate of pedophiliac incidents runs proportionately higher among homosexuals than heterosexuals. There may be more problems (such as the great one I have, that homosexuals are forcing and imposing their political agenda upon us in very undemocratic ways), but these are what I can note. The Progressive Parent issue is a real one. But this is chiefly because most people DON'T really study the homosexual issue: they accept the propaganda told them, and Progressive Parents are especially likely to follow the homosexual's description of their situation. I suspect BSA would lose more members than gain, if they had an open-door policy. And I'm confident BSA would start having lawsuits due to predatory homosexual activity, etc.

I'm very grateful at the new emphasis on marketing BSA. Long needed. I'm not so sure the values campaigning reaches across the spectrum, but it DOES hit certain constituencies desperate for this. I'm extremely hesitant about the digital rush. It's been empirically shown that reading comprehension dives when people read from the computer screen, rather than print. I also think print is just so much more handier. It's worth the trouble. In a way, it's a mistake to do such a shift to the computer. It sends a message that books aren't important, but instead, just news-snack on the internet. This has been a very nice summer. When friends ask why others aren't outside, I just say, "there's a lot of really good TV on".

Tokala: I can relate a bit to you. I didn't marry until I was 35. Just never in the right place. In grad school, in small towns; hard to find good women. You forgot to mention how some people quietly freak out if you talk to their kids and you're a single male. I've had some people call that a kind of discrimination. But so it goes; parents are naturally protective. I heartily, whole heartily congratulate you guys in your 20s working in the program! I wish I had done so. It would have been a more constructive and more personally valuable thing to do.

It's still a hoot thinking that there's such a thing as a "Boy Scout Skirt"!

My scoutmaster years ago was a single man in his early 20s. My parents never expressed any concern in front of me. He was an enormously positive influence in my life. His age HELPED him be a good scoutmaster in that he related well to everybody in the whole troop. He was phenomenal. But this was back then. Now, it makes sense to be proactive about one's sexual orientation. Why not have a date attend a court of honor? It would probably not be sensible to include her on a campout. Or even have her hang around the troop.

I agree with John-in-KC. It's good to see someone step up and more visibly present the BSA. In fact, it's good to simply step up in favor of values, in our era in which any and all values are criticized and in which people are told they must not act upon values. The BSA could do wonders if it would raise its public profile on a sustained basis.

I like the idea of the medal being silver; what's the spot rate on an ounce? $10 or so?

Interesting thread. I'm Catholic and was once in a troop chartered to Methodists. In my experience as a youth, we just never much talked about religion. There were occasional ecumenical Sunday services that we optional, and most of us optioned out, due to convenience. I'm surprised to hear the Wiccans have a central authority. You hear so many differing accounts of what Wiccanism is, coming from various Wiccans, that I wasn't sure there was any unity among it all. It's a new old-fashioned religion; the term "pagan" is so hard to deal with, too, that it seems to mean whatever you want it to mean. Most of the time it refers to English/Anglo druid stuff, but the ancient Greeks and Romans were pagans, the ancient North Africans, too, and of course, the Mongols, Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, etc. Just what's a pagan?

In reading over scouting history, I'm left wondering why. . . all of a sudden. . . great numbers of men are rushing around trying to set up scouting organizations. Why the rush? In the case of Boyce, it seems there was some economic connection to his publication: boys were newspaper sellers and carriers. The same may be the case for Hearst. Any clarity on this appreciated.

Maybe the real issue is "knot creep". . . an area that should show achievement being used for additional purposes, public recognition. For my buck-fifty, I like the notion of keeping the knots just for personal achievement ("earned") stuff. In fact, I'd prefer the whole uniform for this. That's why the plaque industry needs more support! A plaque and a handshake should do the trick for the larger contributers. (By the way, you know what irks me? Political contributers getting access, and influence, just because they dumped $500 on an elected official. What's $500? Why does the guy from, say, Exxon, get access for this? I myself could give $500 to an official. . . but should I then expect to get to write legislation? I guess I would hope our elected officials would hold out for much more money!)

Neil, I'm inclined to agree with you. The problem, however, is that people tend to naturally lord it up. So giving someone something as constantly visible as a knot may encourage that tendency. Much better, in my mere opinion, is to give the guy a nice plaque he can stick on his wall at home. I suppose a better way to put it, the feelings or sensibilities of those non-West scouters gets aggravated by the visible display of wealth.

Seriously speaking, I've watched the whole growth of political correctness, and I believe it is EXTREMELY dangerous. (a) It makes tolerance the only social value. . . superior to such things as freedom of conscience and freedom of speech. It is chilling to see basic and essential freedoms get stepped on, so willy-nilly, in the pursuit of an elusive and definition-changing "tolerance." If we forget our essential values, we lose them. (b) It makes us dumb. We intentionally avoid or ignore important things. I'm a political moderate, determinedly so. But here, those conservatives seem to me to have the better of the arguments out there.

I want to emphatically thank people for their responses. I'm tremendously encouraged by them: it is great in this day and age to see people really want to make a positive contribution to the community. In my own case, I'm exploring a few scout-related projects.