Beavah

Yah, GKlose, no reason that it needs to be an outdoors program, eh? Your Venturing program can just be a community band! I reckon Eagledad's point about da mission is a good one, eh? I think that the biggest thing, though, is the nature of youth choices. A soccer player has choices to run this way or that, pass or keep the ball. A band member has some opportunities for personal expression in how they play their instrument, or the parts of marching that get improvisational. Beyond that, most of the decision making is done by the coach or director, eh? The teamwork is limited to doing one part of a linked skill and keepin' the timing right. In some sports like swimming or track, the "teamwork" is really just practicing side by side and encouraging each other. The choices that scouts have to make are oceans wider and deeper than those programs, eh? And I think it's through choices, not lectures, not instruction, that real teamwork and real skill and real character are decided and developed. Scouts plan activities and events from scratch. They lead people in ambiguous, complex environments not on a well-laid out field with highly structured rules and referees. They have to deal with people with a wide range of skills, not just those selected for varsity. And they have to develop a wide range of skills to proficiency - first aid, navigation, fitness, camping, cooking, communication, and on and on. Those differences between scoutin' and sports/band/other school extracurricular activity are huge. Beavah

Yah, before all the band folks get all in a twitter, let me be clear. I don't think extracurriculars are fluff, and I certainly don't think bein' in the band, or on varsity, or in the play, or on the quiz bowl team, doesn't take a lot of hard work and effort, or isn't worth anything. All colleges look at depth of extracurricular involvement (but not necessarily breadth) as a strong indicator of a person who will be successful. But outside of some lad's quest to be valedictorian, a band grade is meaningless from an academic perspective. An A in band or a C in band isn't goin' to affect anyone's future or count for much of anything. Bein' in the band, sure. Bein' president of the band, even more. But a band grade has no real value. Anyone lookin' at grades is goin' to look at Science, and Math, and English, and History, and Foreign Language, then glance at an academic fine arts class and pretty much ignore anything else. The bigger universities that use screening formulas drop band grades as irrelevant. Dat's just the way it is, eh? Not all grades are created equal. So a savvy parent, knowin' that, could push back a bit harder on the band teacher, and give his or her son some room to pursue other extracurriculars more fully. B

I think it is short-sighted of us to expect them to sacrifice their love of something else to put scouting "first" all the time. Yes I agree that scouting is a wonderful program (particularly when it is well-run). But you can't expect it to be the be-all, end-all for every kid. Yah, but doesn't the same apply for those band directors and coaches who demand the boys sacrifice their love for scouting? I may be mistaken, but I've never seen a troop anywhere that has anywhere near 100% attendance expectations the way those other programs do. I've never seen a troop say that a lad has to sit on the bench during patrol competitions because he missed that week's meeting. Never seen a troop that demands practice every day and then kills the weekend with a mandatory 1-hour concert midday Saturday on top of that. So I reckon it's bunk that anybody is expecting a scout to "sacrifice their love of something else." But it's not unreasonable to expect lads in middle and high school to commit enough time to contribute substantively and really grow in their scouting. Especially if anyone thinks the band and sports "commitments" are reasonable! I love da arguments about grades, too. Does anybody really think that a band grade amounts to anything more than a hill of beans? Every college I know of immediately subtracts off those "fluff" classes and evaluates the transcript based on academic performance. Then looks at band as an extracurricular like any other. I can't speak for Eagledad, but I agree with him. Scouting is a better program for boys' development for a very simple reason. It allows kids to make choices. Lots of choices. Choices where there is no right answer. Choices where they are allowed to fail. In all those school programs, the coach makes all the choices, and the band director's job is to make sure the kids don't fail at the concert. Lectures about responsibility and the narrow teamwork required to play your part on the field or in the orchestra are nice and all. But they don't compare to having real responsibility and the broader teamwork required to plan and lead an open-ended task like an outing or a year's worth of events. I love to see kids engage in a passion for anything, eh? Sports, theater, band, robot club, whatever. It's all good for 'em. But school extracurriculars don't hold a candle to a well run scoutin' program. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

This kid is a true Top Dog. He has an effortless command of the room whenever he stands up, but in the ten months I have been volunteering I never saw him... Yah, I think you're missin' my point and Eagledad's, eh? You're claimin' that the BSA POR bit is what's causin' the troop not to recognize and develop its "Top Dog." I think the real issue is that finding adults who are good at that kind of mentoring is what's really tough. As Eagledad puts it, "I think direct mentoring (as you put it) requires an even more complex set of skills required to succeed." That's the rub, eh? You could write up some materials that say "find and empower your top dog" and most adults wouldn't succeed. They'd pick the smart, nice kid. Or their own son. Then they'd punish the top dog for bein' disruptive when the nice kid was tryin' to lead. What you're talkin' about relies on a genuine depth of expertise and kid-sense, eh? But your average adult doesn't spend enough time around groups of unrelated kids to really have a feel for doin' that well. Now personally, I don't think troops really succeed at the mission without that "right sort" of adult leader, eh? But if yeh have that guy, he can make an election work just by how's it's framed and mentored. It's not the techniques that matter so much as the vision of the adults and their ability to listen with all their senses to the lads. Unlike Eagledad, I don't really think it's possible to do the job well for lots of boys just by havin' 'em follow some written materials, eh? Either yours or Hillcourt's or the BSA's. All that engenders is lots of folks quotin' passages at each other to thump their chest and prove they're right, whether it's ACP&P, G2SS, NYLT, or BP's 300-foot rule. Those things are all good resources to give a good mentor an extra tool or two, but the usefulness of each tool just depends on the lads and the mentor. A good mentor can find a top dog, but a good mentor can also make an election work. A poor mentor will mess up both. BobWhite makes this point, but he talks about it in terms of the majority of scouters not understandin' training. In reality the only thing thing that proves us right is what we add to the life of each boy. IMHO, that doesn't come from any of those rules or materials or whatnot. It comes from the mentoring and example of key leaders. Like your "top dog", I don't think we can teach that. I think we find it. Beavah

Editorial comment: Biden is an idiot. Yah, I was wonderin' what the comedians were goin' to do without George W. Obama is a skilled and thoughtful speaker, which doesn't lend itself to comedy. Happily we now have Joe and his wife, eh? I'm lookin' forward to four years of blundering, run-his-mouth gaffes, with repeated trips to the proverbial woodshed. Not as good as Dan Q., but enough to at least make us all shake our heads and groan. B

I think the boys are looking for a place to fit in and feel that sense of belonging. Yah, they sure are! I think this is one of the best insights posted here, eh? Now, how do they get that feelin'? They get that feelin' when they get good at something, and are recognized for their skill. Which takes regular practice and play. They get that feelin' when they share tough adventures and tough times with other guys. I've always said that the epic disaster campouts are the best at buildin' Scout Spirit and strong patrols. Those tales last and are shared forever. Even decades later former scouts are "belonging" to that group that survived the death march. Which takes active, regular involvement so as to be present for those moments. They get that feelin' when they share routines and become a skilled team that works together - that does the best meals, that can face the harder challenges. Which takes active, regular commitment to each other. High adventure trips often do that for lads, eh? And I reckon everyone demands preparation and skill development for such events. Becoming strong, achieving something hard builds that feelin'. And that demands regular work. I've never really seen many lads get that special belonging feeling to drop-in activities. But I've seen a lot of what Eagledad describes, eh? Lads who make commitments to each other in Scouting, and build real skills, and want to tackle bigger adventures get annoyed by havin' lads around who just drop in. Left to themselves, the culture that they build by social pressure is one of commitment. Yah, I do know a lot of drop-in troops, eh, and I support some. They run fine activities. But they never quite get that "belonging" feelin' that the troops with strong patrol method do. The band and sports programs get it, eh? They mandate participation so the lads have the best shot at gettin' that belonging feeling. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Yah, great, now my PC needs a birth certificate? Sheesh! Next my laptop will need a passport in order for me to take it across the border. A Certificate of Live Birth is, in fact, a birth certificate. B (This message has been edited by Beavah)

One point no one has mentioned is that most sports have a finite amount of time to them... You start soccer in August - have a few practices and then 8 or so games. Yah, we wish! Around here, by middle school soccer, hockey, swimming, etc. are year-round sports, eh? Summer trainin' camp to fall season to winter indoor soccer to spring season and back. The high schools violate state athletic association rules pretty universally, with not-quite-mandatory-but-everyone-knows-it-is off-season training and practices. I fault da school officials for not reignin' this stuff in. Band programs too, eh? The class is an in-school curricular activity. Marchin' or playin' a concert is an extracurricular. Anything else puts kids from less well-off families at a real disadvantage. I think the real reason sports/band/etc. trump scouting is because the folks who run those programs care about what they do enough to establish standards and expectations. By and large, most troops don't. Truth is, I've always found that when yeh establish high expectations and are willing to force a few kids to choose (and maybe opt out), yeh end up with a bigger, more successful troop. That's because when yeh set high expectations, the boys live up to 'em, and they experience more satisfaction and their parents see more growth. That attracts more lads, who want to be part of such a "successful" program. Beavah

Yah, Eagledad, what rock have you been hidin' under? The claim is that Obama is not an American citizen. He's black, eh, so he must have been born in Africa. Only us good white folk are truly natural American citizens. Now of course, Obama has a birth certificate from Hawaii, and even posted it on his web site to satisfy folks. They of course then claimed it must be a forgery, a computer photoshop job, it doesn't look like real embossing, etc. Obama then produced the birth certificate for media folks, and the Secretary of State of Hawaii confirmed the presence and authenticity of the original. There was one nutjob who filed suit claiming both Obama and McCain weren't eligible to be president because they weren't natural born citizens (McCain being born in the Panama Canal Zone). That was summarily dismissed. Older folks will remember a suit claiming Goldwater wasn't eligible because he was born in Arizona before Arizona became a state. The only thing a bit disheartening is that the bogus claims about Obama have gotten as much play as they have. Lingerin' racism ain't quite dead, eh? http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp Beavah

LOL. Yah, and I reckon da smokers are next, eh? Especially with the new research on 3rd-hand smoke (just bein' around smokers even when they're not smoking increases health risks). Why, da smokers are demonstrably more dangerous than either the atheists or the gays!

Doesn't it just specify that the terms of the old President/Vice President end at noon? And that "the terms of their successors shall then begin." B

Actually, when you listen, Roberts flubs it several times: "I Barack Hussein Obama [pause] do solemnly swear... that I will [pause] execute the office of president to the United States faithfully... faithfully the presid - the office of president of the United States..." I thought it was very human. President Obama stopped and waited at the first flub, but then went on to support his chief justice's modern interpretation of the Constitution's wording . Beavah (edited for gwd . Yeh know, GWD, in my first post I actually typed "Chief Justice Alito". Must be gettin' as old as Roberts )(This message has been edited by Beavah)

Good words. I hope and pray we all continue to live up to 'em. What was really kind of embarrassing was watching Chief Justice Roberts fumbling the oath of office. Poor guy must have been nervous! B (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Yah, vol, I agree 100%. Beavah

Bravo, Buff! Way to go, and a salute to your kids. B

Not that nobody has thought of it before. Just that it was a nice, civic-minded notion worth supporting. I'm happy to support any politician of any stripe who calls on the public for service, eh? But I'm more than happy to have a president who is uniquely placed take what at its origins is a race-based holiday and open it up to being a fully American Holiday. I'd like to see him continue it in future years, eh? The MLK Day of National Service, where we all together volunteer on behalf of the community and work for those less fortunate. I reckon it was a remarkably savvy move on his part, and one worth supporting. Had we heard about it far enough in advance to organize properly, I'm certain da BSA and many councils would have lent their enthusiastic support as part of our good turn for America. Beavah

Yah, jblake, I get the theory, eh? I've just never seen it work in practice. The issue is that Kudu is proposin' that a central piece of the program he envisions is a SM who has the skill, talent, and listening ability to recognize the innate talents in each boy and to steer 'em into positions through direct mentoring. That's not "adult control" or a bad thing necessarily. But it does rely on some really engaged, experienced, and kid-centered mentoring by an adult of the right sort. Youth leaders by and large don't have that skill set, and they don't have the experience to perform da kind of subtle encouragement Kudu's talkin' about. Also, youth followers aren't apt to respond to youth in the same way. So one of da central ingredients in developing patrols as Kudu describes would break down if it were pursued in the way you suggest. Boys tend to retreat to votes in order to be "fair", eh? That's not to say yeh can't get to bigger troops through different means. Just that this one breaks down. Generally speakin', almost all the larger troops I've seen impose a lot of adult management structure/organization, substantially narrowing the scope of youth leadership, but in ways they don't recognize. It sorta moves from youth strategic leadership to youth task/tactical leadership. That's not a bad thing either, eh? Just different. As I recall, it was those large "successful" troops that contributed most to the BSA's current recommended program which Kudu dislikes. Beavah

So yeh agree with Nixon and the neocons on the Saturday Night Massacre then? It should perhaps be telling that the conservatives in congress at the time did not. The Nixon firing of Cox is the same "unitary executive" issue as torturing people, eh? Congress can pass a law prohibiting torture, but under a unitary executive theory, the president can appoint people to positions who agree with torture, remove those who don't, as Executive order them not to release information to Congress because it is privileged, pursue the practice overseas where the writ of the other branches is limited, and then pardon those who happen to get caught. Same with warrantless wiretapping, eh? Or suspending habeas corpus for those declared combatants by the Unitary (even though you'd recognize that suspending habeas is an Article I power belonging to Congress). You are correct that the ultimate response from congress has to be the impeachment of the president, just as it was for Nixon and many argue should have been for Bush. But all it really takes is a third of the Senate to believe in a unitary executive to eliminate even that final line of protection for the republic (not to mention the difficulty of convicting on high crimes without the ability to subpoena evidence or testimony). That's a final line of protection, eh? It isn't designed to be used frequently. Yah, da neocons really love that obscure Myers ruling, but yeh can't place all your eggs in the that basket, eh? Read the opinion and the dissents, and then Humphreys, and then Morrison, US v. Nixon, the Civil Service Reform Act, etc. The courts by and large have looked askance at "unitary executive" notions, Mr. Justice Taft's narrow majority notwithstanding. More to the point, true conservatives look more askance at the "unitary executive" than even the courts do. It really is only a small but vocal group of Nixon proteges and neocons that formulated and embraced this toxic doctrine. Of course, there is an additional remedy other than impeachment, eh? That's prosecution by the subsequent administration. Sadly, that is quite probably a reasonable thing to pursue for some of our recent adherents to "unitary" philosophy. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Yah, I suppose a few physical science theories have definitions. Guv = 8(pi)Tuv and all that. I don't reckon that definition conveys much of an understanding of Gravitation without the rest of the theory and applications. I really don't think this is hard, mate. "Unitary Executive" as a theory was first proposed under Reagan, and expounded on by neocons in the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society. Those folks are hardly a quiet bunch, it's not hard to find their work. The original target of their opprobrium was the independent counsel statute (i.e. they supported Nixon in the Saturday Night Massacre). And therein lies the rub, eh? Unitary executive theory, at its core, espouses the notion that the president can remove any executive officer or law enforcement official who is investigating executive misconduct, or who is in any way faithfully executing the laws contrary to the will of the president. Just like Nixon did. If clean water is not a "priority" of the Unitary Executive, the president has authority to appoint or direct the Administrator to functionally refrain from enforcing those pesky environmental laws too. And on and on. Beavah

Yah, so that's interestin', eh? One thing yeh seem to be saying is "play to the natural talents and strengths of each boy". Let the Top Dog be PL, encourage the detail-oriented to be QM, etc. That's quite a contrast with some implementations of the NSP where leadership rotates, eh? So now let's continue the thought. What happens beyond those two weeks (and first two years)? A hands-on adult mentor can recognize the talents of individual boys and steer 'em in a small group of a half dozen or so. But as the unit gets bigger, that's harder and harder to do, eh? It might even be hard to do in a large NSP where boys start not knowing each other. That bright alpha male might sit back for the first little bit to get the lay of the land in a bigger group. I've no doubt that a caring, active SM who gets to know his boys' talents well and gives 'em some freedom to shine will do well in a small group. But is it scalable? And how far? In my experience, the writ of that kind of SM seems to break around where BP said it did, at about 35 boys or so, if not before. Beavah

But it seems to me the Wikipedia definition is the most concise you will get. Its not an argument like you seem to demand. Simply a base definition. Yah, it's a theory, not a word, eh? You need to stop thinkin' in terms of definitions and encyclopedia blurbs. That's schoolboy stuff. Yeh have to understand the theory and its context and applications. There's no such thing as a "definition." Similarly correlation does not imply causation, eh? Conservatives tend to be constructionist because the Constitution tends to be a conservative document, a framework that is coincident with our ideals. So naturally, we want it read that way, strictly limiting the power of government, and checking it where it cannot be practically limited. But where the Constitution is not in line with those ideals (some might cite the 14th Amendment...), a conservative might not be constructionist. Conservativism is a philosophy of governance, not of constitutional law. And like theories, yeh can't really understand a philosophy by lookin' up a definition. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Yah, the article by Dean I chose for you because John Dean is a Barry Goldwater conservative, eh? In fact a personal friend of Goldwater, who collaborated on Dean's Conscience book until his death. I chose the article for yeh because it offered the perspective of a traditional libertarian conservative, which you claimed to be. Not because it was "unbiased." There is no such thing. But 'tis true, "unitary executive" theories do make true conservatives foam at the mouth a bit. And that wikipedia article was just pure promoting and didn't even pretend to be unbiased, eh? If yeh want to understand a theory, go read the views of those who generated the theory and follow the actions of those who supported it. That would be the Nixon folks and the neocons. Things like Cheney's arguments around Iran-Contra, for example, or Addington's positions, or Bush's use of da theory in "signing statements." For academic apologetics, Yoo and Calabresi will give yeh the goods, too, but yeh have to be savvy about readin' academic papers from partisans. They're tryin' to whitewash a pig, eh? To promote a view that has been largely rejected by everyone else in the legal and scholarly community. I don't know why originalism is simplistic. Originalism doesn't have to be simplistic. But the notion of absolute textual originalism is, as is the notion that theories of constitutional interpretation are either originalist or "made up." There is really a continuum, and along several dimensions not just one. Conservatives by definition seek to maintain a status quo and hence have always fallen in the originalist camp. Yah, yeh really need to do some reading from classic conservatives and broaden your contact with constitutional scholarship. The world is really a much more complex and interesting place than you're making out, and the intellectual tradition of conservativism is really much richer. Beavah

But when our boys went to the opening, they were split up into makeshift patrols created from a mix of boys from all troops. Instant patrols. Is this Patrol Method? Why, no. I can already hear Kudu warming up a full-fledged exposition on the inanity of "leadership development" and how it undermines patrol method and the development of patrol leaders. Sadly, with district and council events and camps in some areas, the only way to preserve patrol method is not to participate or to do your own thing. When we do NYLT or WB, or when we put together program for summer camp, we're in a situation where there are no pre-existing patrols. The fellows running COPE or Archery at camp always have a mix of boys from different troops and patrols, eh? So district and council and camp folks are used to either having to create "instant patrols" or provide program that isn't patrol-based. This is an interestin' example of how what we do in NYLT or WB teaches the wrong thing sometimes. Folks get used to making "instant patrols" because they have to in those training environments, but they don't really understand that's not how it's supposed to work IRL. Yah, I think yeh need to give some pointed feedback to your council folks, eh? Beavah

The process spelled out in the policy is more in line with what normally occurrs in a job situation. Yah, just depends on your line of work, eh? In my line of work where yeh have a lot of applicants for a given job, if yeh don't have reference letters you don't get the interview. We're not goin' to spend our time doin' the work for a lazy applicant. B

Hmm, well Yoo doesn't seem to be a neocon, he could be but I do not really know. But he is not the only one who has written such things. Sorry for my lack of clarity. Yoo is a modern writer because the unitary executive is a modern theory. Yeh won't find any references to a "unitary executive" theory prior to the Nixon administration. It's of course not at all surprising that a modern writer would try to see how or if it fits historically. I would say (even though its Wikipedia) that the definition is probably a pretty fair, non-political one. Wouldn't you? No. I think the wikipedia article is written by a neocon making a sales pitch. The point of the sales pitch is to package a poorly reasoned argument as best as possible, while omitting all contrary evidence, counter-arguments, objections, and the applications to which adherents of the theory have put it to use. That is neither fair nor apolitical. The article contains a number of unsupported statements which are objectively false. Maybe I am just totally out of touch on this one, but I don't get why everyone just seems to hate this theory! Because it is unconstitutional and dangerous. You should read Ron Paul on the topic, eh? Like a classic libertarian conservative, he soundly rejects all of the notions of unitary executive theory: "No branch of government should be able to act unilaterally, no matter how cumbersome the legislative process may be. The beauty of the Constitution is that it encourages some degree of gridlock in government, making it harder for any branch to act capriciously or secretly. When we give any president- one man- too much power, we build a foundation for future tyranny." It also seems odd that you pretend to be a traditional conservative and seem to agree with the living constitution theory. The two beliefs aren't compatible. You are mistaking a rejection of simplistic notions of Originalism as embracing the opposite extreme. Life is not a choice between extremes. There are all kinds of rational (albeit not always simplistic) positions in the middle. And unlike conservativism and the unitary executive, the two beliefs are not incompatible; they're independent. Being conservative does not ipso facto determine a constitutional philosophy. Beavah