David CO

My guess is that all of the endowments will disappear during the bankruptcy. There is no way the lawyers will leave them intact with your council or any other councils. Bye bye endowment funds. My question is about mergers. Why is a failing council automatically merged into other councils? If a council fails, why couldn't they let the community form a new council within the same boundaries? Or maybe the better solution is to break up a failing council into smaller councils.

Yes, but you are cherry picking. Only 5 of the seceding states chose to issue a declaration of causes. In those 5, it was clearly stated that they had other causes in addition to slavery. Texas, for example, pointed out that if they did not secede, they would no longer be contiguous with the rest of the United States (because all of their border states had already seceded). They would have been forced go to war with with an enemy army that could easily surround them. This was a very serious issue in the Texas secession debates, as you might well imagine. Likewise, some Southern states voted to not secede. This wasn't because they were unsympathetic to the rebel cause. They were on the border with Northern states, and knew they couldn't hold out against the federal army.

I see your point. Personally, I don't like any of the large monuments carved on the face of mountains. It's not a political thing. It's a nature thing. So I can also see the reasoning of those who would want to remove these monuments in order to restore the natural beauty of a park.

People have expressed the opinion that confederate statues and monuments should be removed because the confederate soldiers fought against the United States. I haven't heard any of them suggest that the image of Crazy Horse, or those of any other Native American who fought against the United States, should be removed.

Now look who is engaging in historical revisionism.

The Confederacy had many reasons for leaving the Union. Slavery was one of them. Do you disparage the rest of the organization and their goals for that? Sometimes one is enough.

Tell that to all of the liberal mayors and city councils who allow the looting and rioting, the blocking of highways, the destruction of public property, and the threats against honest law abiding citizens. These liberal politicians don't seem to be able to differentiate between criminal behavior and peaceful protests.

No. Listening is not too much to ask. But yes, sitting idly by while they riot, loot, and desecrate monuments is a bit too much to ask. At its core, BLM is an anarchist group.

BLM is arguing for a lot of things. Some I agree with. Most I disagree with.

Almost all youth movements are driven by an older generation. Young people are very susceptible to flattery. Always have been. They love to be told that they are better than the generations that came before them. Political movements, both liberal and conservative, have taken advantage of this. The Black Lives Matter movement are telling young people that they are better than their elders. Bernie Sander did the same thing. It's very effective. The kids love it.

Well, it's not pornographic, but it is still pretty offensive. Maybe they could have delivered it to us in brown paper wrapping with warnings to keep it out of the eyesight of the scouts or sensitive scout leaders.

I think that may be exactly what the executives at BSA have in mind. They want to turn their remaining boy scout camps into commercial camp grounds. They'll sell the ones they can and commercialize the rest. I'm not sure they are talking about adding new membership categories like exploring or venturing. I think it might be membership categories like the ones commercial health clubs have. Weekend memberships. Monthly memberships. Family memberships. This is what happened to the YMCA. They took an association of young Christian men, dropped its mission/purpose, and turned it into a commercial health club.

A lot of good is does them. Pay the premiums for decades. Then the insurance companies refuse to pay out.

I feel about uniforms much the same way as I feel about advancement. It isn't required. If you don't like it, don't do it. But if you choose to do it, do it right.

You had me agreeing with you about practicality and comfort, but you lost me on this comment. The scout uniform is not at all paramilitary. Paramilitary stuff is far more practical, comfortable, and affordable than BSA products.

I might suppose that BSA calls it the Churchill Project because never was so much owed by so many to so few.

The FBI has really tarnished its reputation with conservatives. I don't know if citizen academies (Jr. G-Men) has any great appeal.

Strangely enough, that stuff does actually matter to some people. Look at how many people want an eagle patch on their uniform even though they have very little enthusiasm for outdoor activities. I don't understand it, but it happens. My preference would be to eliminate the council patches entirely. Go back to the community patch. Better yet, have a Chartered Organization Patch.

This part doesn't make any sense to me. Why would we need a separate membership category? Advancement is voluntary. If a scout doesn't want to advance, he doesn't have to. He doesn't need a special membership category.

I wouldn't assume that the national and local councils will survive the bankruptcy. I don't think the lawyers will either. They will want the Victims Fund to have tangible assets. An agreement to contribute to a fund sometime in the future won't do it.

How much income a council generates for national.

At the very least, support would mean the council could survive a vote of no confidence. You're right. Maybe support should include the ability to get a quorum of COR's at council meetings. As it is, COR's are giving the councils a passive vote of no confidence.

Council has the support of the Chartered Organizations. If it doesn't, the council should be dissolved, and the COR's should be invited to form a new council.

This is factually untrue. I've said it before. History has not been a timeline moving steadily from conservative to liberal. It is more like a pendulum, moving back and forth.

85% of students have never gotten a detention or referral. All of the trouble comes from just 15% of the students. A few students will accumulate over 100 referrals. I had a conversation about this with a class of public school students. I was on the school board. We showed them the statistics we had on student behavior, and explained the school policy and the consequences for repeated bad behavior. The badly behaved kids were upset that (under our policy) students could be suspended/expelled after just 15 referrals. The well behaved students were shocked that anyone could could behave so badly that they would accumulate 15 referrals. It is all a matter of perspective.