David CO

I don't know that they represent a surrender to PC, either. The statements from National sound like they surrendered to marketing studies. It would appear that younger members of BSA may have a different opinion than the majority. Ten or twenty years from now, they may actually constitute a majority. Who knows? But they don't have a majority yet. When BSA disregarded the majority, and instead focused on future trends and marketing studies, they were acting like a business. If BSA wants to operate as a business, than we should be allowed to have an annual stockholders meeting, where we can get together to vote out the Board of Directors.

Do I understand correctly that 72% of CO's supported the old policy? The thing that really irks me, is that the CO's are supposed to have the bulk of the voting power in BSA. But as you go up from each level, (from CO's to Councils to Regions to National), the CO's vote gets diminished each time by about 10%. 70% of CO's 60% of Councils 50% of Regions ...and then the CO's lose the vote at National. I'm not just talking about this one issue, it happens all the time. This system is absolutely corrupt.

Some changes have taken place since this topic was first introduced. It is now possible that a unit could have significantly different membership standards than the OA. This might cause a unit to shy away from OA. But my answer stays the same. If the Scoutmaster has the support of the CO, then yes, he/she can ban OA elections.

I think the new policy has substantial support. It is not a tiny minority. Neither is the opposition. Rick, I think the way you quoted the report is accurate, but I think it might also be causing some confusion. When the report statistics say, the current policy, are we talking about the policy as it was before the change, or the policy as it is after the change (today's current policy)? I think someone reading your post could be turning the numbers upside down.

As you know, I am 100% opposed to the new policies. But in some ways, I have mixed feelings about them. Every time one of these weird stories hits the national news, about a half million more people vote Republican. Is it really such an awful thing if the liberals get to have BSA, and the conservatives get the Presidency, the Congress, and the Supreme Court?

I think you meant self-righteousness. Righteousness is a good thing. Righteousness is always appropriate, especially in scouting. Are you calling Catholics self-righteous? Perhaps we don't coexist in BSA as well as you say, Fred.

Eagle1985, Welcome to the forum. Is this the first time that your son has had to "share" you with other people? Sometimes young kids can become a little possessive of a parent, and act out when the parent is interacting with other kids. This happens every once in a while in youth sports. Do you think this could be happening?

No Fred, the voices on this forum are not at all representative of the membership of my CO and scout unit. Not even close. We are disgusted by what we see happening in BSA.

I don't believe there is a blood test or anything like that. It is just a matter of opinion. I know that there are doctors who believe in this, but I don't think there are any doctors who actually understand this. It is a very strange thing. This thing is beyond the realm of medical science. It exists somewhere in the area of religion and spirituality. I don't think you should consult a doctor or psychologist to get spiritual advise, though many would be happy to give it. I would recommend that people consult their priest or minister.

(Sorry about the down arrow. It was a mistake. I was going for the quote button.) Congratulations, NJ, you have been nominated to be a member of the National Geographic Society. You can celebrate by stopping off a Olive Garden, where you're family. Businesses do all sorts of gimmicks to promote product loyalty. We all have one year "membership" in BSA. It is an annual subscription, just like a magazine. We don't get a share of BSA stock. We don't get any ownership in BSA. We don't get a vote in how BSA is run. More to the point, BSA can radically change the program, at any time, without consulting us or giving us any say in the decision. We don't even know how the decision is made. We just wake up one morning and find out the wizard behind the curtain has completely turned things upside down. I do believe in the scouting movement. It is a movement of shared values and common goals. It exists separately from the business of Scouting Inc.. I am a lifetime member of the scouting movement. I don't need a membership card to prove it. I do disagree with you. BSA has no shared values anymore, just business strategies.

BSA is a corporation. It is a business. It is a vendor. BSA supplies my CO with some products and services, and we pay for them. That is the extent of our relationship with BSA. It is a business relationship. We have a business relationship with many vendors. We buy textbooks and computers and baseballs and all sorts of stuff from our vendors. Other people buy from these vendors as well. We don't feel any kinship with the other customers of our vendors. Why would we? Any sense of fellowship that we have may have developed, or will develop, with other scouts, scouters, and scout units is based on our having shared values and a common purpose. It is not because we use the same vendor. So, I will answer you by saying that if you and I and our units were happen to meet, we might develop a sense of fellowship if we discovered that we have shared values and common purpose. But that fellowship would not be based on our sharing a common vendor.

The moderator has just reminded us of of the "pinned" post at the top of this forum drawing the line as to what we can and cannot say about youth members. I think you are trying to bait me into stepping over that line. For that reason, I will decline to answer your question.

No, there is a third choice. We can oppose it. We can work to change it. I can remember when Pres. Obama said that Republicans will learn to live with ACA. That didn't happen, and the new administration is now poised to repeal it. You talk as if every conservative policy is temporary, and every liberal policy change is permanent. This decision didn't drag on for years, but the effort to change it undoubtedly will. It is not done, and we will not move on.

You have given us a few clues over the years, but just clues. Nothing definitive. If BSA is to become a values-neutral organization, that would be quite a change. Yes, BSA provides a program and structure. A pretty good structure, in my opinion. BSA used to also provide scouts with a sense of shared values and common purpose. A scout is a friend to all, and a brother to every other scout. That is what we are losing. Yes, my scouts can still benefit from scouting. We can still use the scout program as a boilerplate upon which we can add our own values. Recognizing that these are not shared values, we really won't have any common bond with scouts from any other unit, council, or country. A scout is a friend to all in our Chartered Organization, and a brother to every other scout in our unit. Perhaps that is what scouting has come to. Maybe that is what scouting must come to. Every man for himself. Very sad.

Krypton_son uses "All Around Troublemaker" as his byline, so I suppose that's fair game.

Fred, Conservatives will never accept this and move on. We have never accepted abortion and moved on. We have never accepted homosexuality and moved on. We will never accept bi-gender and move on. I think you should be honest about this. You know that we will never move on.

In 1915, it was very common for young men to learn a trade through apprenticeship. If a boy wanted to be a carpenter, he would learn his skills under the supervision of a master carpenter. A plumber's apprentice would learn under a master plumber. BSA was started by a newspaper publisher. In the newspaper business, back in 1915, there were many skilled jobs that used the apprentice system to teach young men and boys. For example, a printer's apprentice would learn his trade skills from a master printer. I believe this is the meaning intended by the founders of BSA. I am not a big fan of political correctness, particularly when it involves people reading into a word something that was never intended. I don't think any "historically injurious connotations" were ever intended, so I have no problem with using the term Scoutmaster.

I don't think so. My CO is a middle school. Most of my scouts begin to lose interest in the unit as they move on from 8th grade to high school. Those who stay on past their middle school years usually do so only until they "eagle-out" of our unit. I don't mind. We are primarily a middle school unit. I don't think the boys who "eagle-out" do any harm to our program. We can sustain our unit just with the middle school boys.

Fred, I agree with you that it is better to be involved in society than to be separate, and that it is not healthy to be stuck in the past and isolate ourselves. That is very true. I know that there are many liberals out there (and on this forum) who feel that conservatives like myself are isolating ourselves from today's society by clinging to the outmoded and obsolete ideas/ideals of the past. This notion presupposes that liberals and liberal ideas/ideals are currently the dominant force in our society, and they are destined to grow and become even more dominant in the future. I don't think this is true. Even a casual observer might note that the results of our recent national election would seem to contradict this sort of thinking. If we conservatives are isolating ourselves, then we are doing so in great numbers. I don't think we are stuck in the past. I think we are working for a future that has not yet fully arrived. I think BSA has made a terrible mistake. I think it has turned left, just as the country has turned right. I think it is BSA that is seeking to isolate itself by rejecting the values of half the country. Sure, BSA can survive as a much smaller organization serving only the liberal Democrats living in the coastal states. But would that be a good thing?

There is another difference. We have Chartered Organizations.

My CO would never go for that. We would not put a child in danger in order to make a political statement. We would also not put a child in danger because BSA wants to make a political statement. Yes, it does matter. It is worth a lawsuit to protect a child from an unreasonable risk of harm. The real question for CO's will be, "Is it worth a lawsuit to have a Boy Scout troop?"

I think some of you underestimate the potential for hypocrisy at BSA headquarters. BSA will say that the girls can register as boys, and then they will require that female scout leaders be at all their activities.

My school has a co-ed Outdoor Education program. Our security/safety procedures in OE are very different from those in our Boy Scout unit. The kids in OE are never without adult supervision. We even have a couple of adults stay up all night to do "guard duty" in the kid's camp. I can't imagine that my CO would allow a co-ed scout unit to operate under the same rules/policies that our current scout unit enjoys. We would have to become more like the Outdoor Education program. Assuming that the CO will continue to charter a Boy Scout unit, which is not at all certain, this is probably the end of the semi-autonomous boy-led program. It will have to be an adult-run, adult-supervised, and adult-led program.

Hi Pete, Yes, I've heard people use the term (eagle-out) before.

It wouldn't be the first time I've had to deal with it. It happens at school, too.