packsaddle

Hey, he's going to get his weapon back and he clearly can defend himself. Unlike Trayvon, he CAN just get in his car and go to the grocery store. If he has paranoid thoughts, I suggest they are merely a continuation of what he evidently had before he killed Trayvon. They might be even more vivid to him now but that's all in his wretched mind. Only IF one of those completely speculative things does happen to him, THEN he will be a victim. Until that speculative time, he has the luxury of being able to 'live' with it. Can't say that for Trayvon. GZ chose to take an action and he got away with it. So be it. Now he must live with whatever consequences come his way. He has demonstrated empirically his ability and willingness to kill another person if he feels like his life is threatened and the system has demonstrated empirically that he is free to continue that way of life. His choice. If that's a heavy weight on his mind, tough luck. I hope it's really heavy and that he lives with it for a very long time.

Ahem, that was JoeC, not JoeBob.

We have not been completely honest. See my comment to your first post. Edit to add: Here's what my disclaimer at roundup would be: "Folks, now that we've explained the program and shown you some of the great things we do, we must also inform you that BSA is a private religious organization. As such we reject membership applications if you are non-believers. We also reject adult leader membership for anyone who is gay. However, if your son turns out to be a homosexual, we will allow him to continue as a member until he is 18 years old." THAT would be honesty. Try that the next recruiting night and see what it gets you. Who knows, in your community it might even boost membership.

When I was CM, doing the 'roundup' thing, there was absolutely no mention, whatsoever, by me or the other CM's present, or the DE, of anything about there being a religious requirement for membership. The only thing we talked about was all the fun the boys would have, with examples of the activities and sometimes even a few scouts present in uniform. We were recruiting. We weren't trying to polarize people by telling them right there that, "By the way, if you don't believe so-and-so you're not welcome as a member". So when you ask why someone would want to join a private religious organization if they didn't share those religious beliefs, in my experience it is because that recruiting process was deceptive and allowed people to remain ignorant of BSA's status as a private religious organization. Years later when I asked him, the DE noted that it would have 'turned people off' if we had stood in front of those families and told them that we want them to consider joining BUT gay persons and atheists are not welcome. If we had then, as the DE went on to explain, we'd probably get fewer people to sign up. THAT, to me, is clearly a deception. And I think that provides part of the answer for the first sentence in your post. Edit to add: I have several times over the years, offered the opinion that in those recruiting efforts, we should prominently and proudly proclaim that BSA is a private religious organization and that we reject gays and non-believers. That way the potential customers would know what the product really is...and the marketplace would take care of things.

JoeBob, in the sense that GZ is not going to prison and can even have his gun returned to him so he can protect the neighborhood some more, he did get away with it. But if, somewhere deep in his mind, there is a conscience, then I agree with you. He will live with it. Trayvon Martin won't. GZ can get on with things, fall in love, have a family, continue his line. Trayvon Martin won't. So don't make GZ appear to be a victim in all this. He isn't. He killed a teenager who was going home from the store with a bag of Skittles. You can spin the events however you want but those are the facts. I hope GZ does have a conscience. I hope he lives for a very long time...and that what he did eats him alive every moment of it. Like others mentioned, he could have taken the advice of the police and waited in the car. He didn't. He chose a path that led to the death, a needless death, of another human being. GZ didn't HAVE to do anything. He could have done nothing and none of this would have happened. If conscience is all that there is left in this for GZ, I hope that, at least, will provide a life-long torment. It will be a luxury he denied another person. Edit to add: I almost missed this: "Under the same circumstances, every one of us would have acted the same." Aside from the preposterous idea that JoeBob 'knows' what "every one of us" would do, I can say with 100% certainty that IF I had been patrolling as part of my neighborhood watch, and IF I had spotted someone who 'looked' suspicious, and IF the police had advised me to remain in the vehicle....I would have remained in the vehicle and insisted that a deputy investigate immediately. So even if I am the ONLY person on the planet who wouldn't have disregarded the police advice, I am one. For some reason, I suspect I'm not alone.

Well, Zimmerman got away with it after all. Interesting.

Heh, heh, from your later comment, "Simple physics: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you help someone, that's what you get back. Call it karma or whatever." I'm fairly certain that if this is your idea of how physics structures social interactions, you have a profoundly flawed understanding of human behavior as well as flawed understanding of physics, especially if you think physics can be compared to "karma or whatever", lol. But I guess you DID refer to it as 'simple' physics. So show me the 'facts' about how the majority of scientific ideas have been correct. Be sure to enumerate all the failed hypotheses that were rejected during experiments and led to whatever current understanding we have. If what you claim is true, then there should be fewer rejected hypotheses than 'accepted' ones. So show me the 'facts'. And remember, the failures usually don't make it to publication. Everyone of my colleagues whom I've known over the years have had the opposite experience to what you claim. This has been particularly true for my field. Edit: OK, so it's evident that you're not going to meet my challenge. So I'll add something else. Here is an actual scientific paper which also supports my claim: http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 I remember when it came out back in 2005 and it made a strong impression at that time. At first I was incredulous but when I dug into the idea, I began to appreciate how many bad ideas we've had over the centuries. I suspect things haven't reversed during the ensuing 8 years or so. The author made a sufficiently credible study of the idea that most of us, on reflection, have to shrug and admit that he has a point. More to the point, however, is an acerbic statement made in 2010 by another observer who responded to the Ioannidis paper: "Summary: Yes, that is the conclusion from a remarkably large body of research. Bad news for those who consider science a religion (at least when it agrees with their beliefs)." Worth considering the possibility, I think.

I've had similar experiences, NJ. There's something mysterious about those monkey-looking creatures standing so far away and yet able somehow to reach out an hit with rocks. There's not much as frightening as a shower of stones projected from a dozen arms at a distance. It worked for my troop when I was a boy and we were camped for a week in the Smokies. A few years ago, I whacked the heck out of a black bear with my hiking staff. We both retreated, completely surprised by the outcome of the encounter. I like bears. Raccoons, on the other hand.....

MattR, first there's no way you can possibly know for sure what drives T.J. to write what he writes or to react the way he seems to react. What you can know for sure is how you react to him. If he seems to you to be just as absolutely certain about his 'beliefs' as a fundamentalist Christian is of the literal truth of the Bible, then that hardly makes him anything more than 'human' doesn't it? You too? All of us?

I can't resist. TJ, so please explain exactly what gravity is...exactly. I'm asking about gravity because that's what you mentioned. Please explain what it IS, not what it does.

Yeah, it reminded me of Pascal's wager as well. As if that kind of deception would fool an omniscient being...yeah, right!

I have no idea what you're trying to communicate with that balloon thing. But as for the "journey" I kind of like this quote from Victor Hugo, "La science est l’asymptote de la vérité. Elle approche sans cesse et ne touche jamais." On the other hand, it seems that with religious faith, a person can feel like they are already in possession of it. A person might think there is only a small difference between the two but it is actually a huge difference.

Check it out: http://www.aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_17/issue_5/0796.pdf An actual scientific paper on the population density of monsters in Loch Ness. Journal of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography Look, good fun aside, you must understand that the majority of 'good' ideas that scientists have had over the centuries have turned out to be wrong. You're just ignoring those because the process of science IS in fact the process that rejected them. And the ones we have right now 'seem' to work. Or do I have to quote Theodoric of York, medieval barber?

Na, ah, ahhhhh! Don't give all the credit to the Southwest! There are plenty of kooks in the Southeast and I've heard some of the worst, for that matter, in Wisconsin, eastern Washington and up in Idaho. They're everywhere, they're everywhere!

I bet they voted for the current governor too!

I fairly often read about the 'Riot Plan' in the gun blogs. Lots of bluster and braggadocio, little substance.

NJ, I'm aware of a MOOC, a Massive Open Online Course. That's the only thing I can think of but that doesn't fit the context.

Really? That would be news to a whole bunch of Buddhist (and a bunch of people of quite a few other faiths). Though I guess you could be one of those people that don't believe Buddhism is a real religion. Qwazse, I think you'll find that every UU is unique in this particular aspect so don't expect, necessarily, to 'understand' TJ by meeting other UUs. Better to just work with TJ if you really want to figure out TJ. This probably applies to everyone else too, lol, IMHO.

Before things get out of hand here, I want to assure everyone that unless a volunteer leader intentionally does harm to a unit or the boys, I'm going to credit them with the selfless contribution of time and probably money they freely contribute and if that is primarily for their own family but provides 'collateral benefit' I'm good with it. I hope this is obvious enough and I also hope that if anyone wants to apply the adjective, 'selfish', to a scouter, in my opinion the persons at the front of that line ought to be the ones getting paid for their service. The more they are paid, the closer to the front.

Mine were 1 hour. I never went beyond that unless parents were late arriving. For that length, parents are sometimes willing to stay and help out. When I was CM, the pack meetings were also supposed to be 1 hour. They mostly went beyond that because of snacks or people just hanging around to talk. But the official meeting was 1 hour. Exceptions, of course, were made for B&G and the derbies.

At their age, immediate gratification and recognition by being able to present mom with a completed project, no matter how mangled it really is, IS important. Mom can fawn over it and the boy can beam on the job well done. When I was DL I tried to make sure the activities were such that they could be finished by the end of the meeting. I do understand how hard that is.

I agree too, with a dash of local option.

KDD, If you will waste an hour or so to peruse the gun 'nutter' blogs, you'll understand that this has virtually nothing to do with anything rational unless you think stocking up for the 'jack-booted thugs' or 'zombie apocalypse' is rational...and a lot of them do - think it's rational. The fear of having their guns (and ammo) pried from their cold dead fingers has caused a run on every type of popular ammo, especially if works in a semi-automatic, personal defense, or 'military-style' weapon. Not only are they buying up nearly everything that can be produced, but the feds have aggravated things by also buying heavily, ostensibly to train new TSA, FBI,...etc. agency enforcement types (a.k.a. jack-booted thugs). But I have read some claims that when the 'apocalypse' finally arrives (and man, they're getting tired of waiting too, I can tell you that), even the lowly 22lr round, a single one, might be so precious as to cost maybe 5-10 dollars each. Heck, don't even think about gold, invest instead in 'lead'! So if I go to a gun store right now, I can find a lot of the normal (and less popular) hunting rounds which most people use in bolt-action rifles. And I can find way-overpriced .38, .40, .41, .45, 9mm, 10mm, .357, and just a little .223 ammo for sale in extremely limited quantities. If it works in something you can hold in one hand and is semi-automatic, don't count on being able to find the ammo. Once in a while a few boxes of 22lr will show up. It all gets snapped up by the survivalist types in just a short time. The ammo 'bubble' may still be expanding for some calibers, especially if its good for killing at theaters and elementary schools. But things are beginning to relax a little I think, at least for some things. The shelves are now restocked with different kinds of shotgun shells and the odd calibers (270, 30-06, etc.) are there. But these guys are still lining up for the doors to open the morning after any shipment comes in. It's like the wee hours of black Friday except instead of people mobbing each other over cheesy Wal-mart specials, they're politely lining up and accepting the 'host' as the store engages in holy 'gun communion' - limited access to 'salvation' of course. Go with the air rifles at camp.

Really? That would be news to a whole bunch of Buddhist (and a bunch of people of quite a few other faiths). Though I guess you could be one of those people that don't believe Buddhism is a real religion. A couple years ago, another forum member who claimed to be Buddhist and atheist noted that he maintained faith in the 'higher power of reason' or something along that line. It made a strong impression on me at the time because other forum members who seemed fairly strong-willed about these things also seemed to back away from that one carefully. But evidently BSA found that sufficient and it didn't involve superstition or supernatural beings or imaginary friends. It only required faith in a personal ideal. I still think it was one of the better responses I've ever read.

What the frakkin' frik are you talking about? What you "quote" me as saying cannot be found anyway in what I had posted. That makes you a gorm-darned liar! Would you please attempt to clarify just what the frak you might be talking about? Blackberry is peaking just now! Yum!