PETA and the Anti-Scout

[scotiacat]

http://www.peta.org/feat/merit/index.html

 

Is there anything this group won't do????

[OldGreyEagle]

Lets see, this was first released in the summer of 2001, (http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=1731#id_1731), so if he was to be a sophomore in High School in the fall of 2001, then by now he could be a sophomore in college, not exactly the average face of a Boy Scout.

[evmori]

PETA = Put Every Thing Away

[CA_Scouter]

I especially like how PETA tries somehow to link high school violence to fishing without any facts, figures or relevant studies. Good science, that.

 

 

[SWScouter]

Scotiacat wrote, "Is there anything this group won't do????"

 

Considering that PETA is a front for ALF, a terrorist organization, I don't think so.

[Kudu]

PETA is a front for ALF, a terrorist organization

 

There, you see? George Bush was justified in spying on American citizens' e-mail and phone calls without a warrant :-/

[GopherJudy]

I hope that the next time I eat flounder I'm not going to be arrested or after I eat it decide to kill some people! Good grief! I've never heard so much drivel in my life! What a whacked out organization PETA is!

 

Judy

 

P.S. Our pack fishing trip in June 3rd, anyone want to join us!

[OldGreyEagle]

is that ALF or ELF (Earth Liberation Front)

[evmori]

Time to clean up the old rod & reel & head out to the local pond & catch me some swimmy things! Think I'll mail them to PETA!

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[VentureScoutNY]

 

Wow..these people are insane. Last semester I had to do a presentation on why animal testing for medical research is a good thing, and how it helps us "humans". Well a girl in my class, a PETA follower, gave the opposite presentation. She had no facts just assumptions and got unusually emotional about animals being hurt to save the evil humans. She also played a PETA propaganda film in the background of animals being slaughtered. She bombed, cause shes crazy, and the Professor gave me the better grade.

 

I concluded that these PETA nuts see no difference between Human and Animal and hence cannot ever grasp the common sense that us scouters have

 

YIS

[Kudu]

Baden-Powell's original wording of the sixth Scout Law as it appeared in Scouting for Boys was:

 

6. A SCOUT IS A FRIEND TO ANIMALS. He should save them as far as possible from pain, and should not kill any animal unnecessarily, even if it is only a fly--for it is one of God's creatures.

 

By 1911, B-P had added: "Killing an animal for food or an animal which is harmful is allowable."

 

For a chart that shows the history of the changing meaning of Scout Law, see The Inquiry Net:

 

http://www.inquiry.net/ideals/scout_law/chart.htm

 

As noted in the recent Hunting thread, Baden-Powell's program also differs from the BSA corporate brand in that rabbit hunting is an option for the Backwoodsman Proficiency Badge:

 

"2. Know how to catch and skin a rabbit, or catch and clean a fish, " see:

 

http://inquiry.net/traditional/badges/backwoodsman.htm

 

I find B-P's approach to be far more balanced than the apparent effect that the BSA's sixth Scout Law has had on any of the BSA members above, or in any reply that is likely to follow.

 

I encourage my Scouts to organize fishing campouts, because of the overwhelming positive energy that they put into the process of learning how to plan such outings for themselves.

 

But I forbid them to use frogs as bait!

 

As Dan Beard, a BSA founder and author of hunting books for boys wrote in the Outdoor Handy Book "For my part, a live frog is a very unpleasant bait. Its human-like form and its desperate struggles to free itself by grasping the hook with its strange little hands, are too suggestive of suffering." http://www.inquiry.net/traditional/beard/ohb/index.htm

 

My point is that the interpretation of "A Scout is kind," is completely arbitrary, but I seldom see in these mean-spirited discussions any acknowledgement of the unspeakable prolonged cruelty that some animals are forced to suffer.

 

What a different organization the BSA would be if we were as willing to go to court to bar membership to six-year-olds whose parents refuse to sign a "Declaration of Friendship to Animals," as we are about baring membership to six-year-olds whose parents refuse to sign the "Declaration of Religious Principle" :-/

 

Kudu

[ozemu]

"I concluded that these PETA nuts see no difference between Human and Animal and hence cannot ever grasp the common sense that us scouters have"

 

I don't see a difference between human and animal either. And it is part of my spiritual philosophy. It works with Scouting like this (for me - other deep ecologists would be more like PETA.

 

Humans and animals have equal rights to life.

 

Humans - being another animal, need to eat. We have incisor teeth. We were designed to eat meat. Other animals with incisors eat meat.

 

I separate this entirely from the sanctity of (human) life idea. Not being christian it seems to me that christians have difficulty with this concept.

 

Some christians put humans at the top of a pyramid and put greater value on human life than on other animals. For me it is more a food chain thing. After all when we die we get eaten (worms etc) so what animal is really at the top? It is more a chain or cycle.

 

I get a bit peeved when PETA, christians or any other mob try to bludgeon their ideas onto me. I'm interested in a frank discussion but using emotion and particularly guilt annoys me. As does someone making an assumption that their world view is the right one.

[EagleInKY]

I once supported PETA, of course back then I thought it stood for "People Eating Tasty Animals". :-)

[Kudu]

ozemu writes:

 

I'm interested in a frank discussion but using emotion and particularly guilt annoys me.

 

I think emotion and guilt have a legitimate evolutionary social function. Civil discussion is just a way of expressing your emotions in the guise of "logic" and "objectivity" :-)

 

We don't use Baden-Powell's Scout Law here in the United States. In the BSA it is just a jingle-jangle of single words that the Scouts rattle off, and I doubt if one in a hundred sees any connection between "kind" and the treatment of animals.

 

This could perhaps be intentional. For 96 years the BSA has consistently explained the meaning of "kind" with the term "things" in place of "animals:"

 

http://inquiry.net/ideals/scout_law/chart.htm

 

What is the understanding of the meaning of the sixth Scout Law in your country? How is it worded, and do Scouts and Scouters dismiss it with the same bravado as evidenced here?

 

Kudu

[OldGreyEagle]

Kudu, I must have missed the memo, I didnt know you were appointed international mouthpiece for the BSA.

 

Just how do you know how the troop I serve regards the Oath?

 

Congrats on your new position