BSA SCHISM- RED STATE SCOUTS/BLUE STATE SCOUTS

[scoutingagain]

"Would I prefer a Catholic centered scouting organization for me? Sure. But I could imagine a Jewish Scouting Organization, an Islamic Scouting Organization, LDS, Jehovah Witness, Evangelical Christian, an Ecumenical Scouting Organization, An Atheist Scouting Organization, a Wikan Scouting Organization, and a Secular Scouting organization, etc. Whats wrong with scouting being tailor fitted for the CO or even a Nation-wide affiliation of COs? "

 

And every option you mentioned above is currently available to COs in the current BSA organization, with the exception of an athiest scout unit.

 

"If it increased the scouting movement by satisfying the particular moral and ethical desires of target groups, whos harmed?"

 

I agree 100%

 

As far as the 2000 Democratic Convention goes, it was inexcusable behavior on the part of partisan adults. Personally I don't believe the scouts should have been there in the first place, nor should they have a presence at the Republican convention. I don't believe either party should be trying to use the BSA name and brand to advance their own political agenda. The BSA is non-partisan and shouldn't be involved in party politics. They should not have been there anymore than BSA councils should be having partisan political speakers at fundraisers. It does nothing but alienate one half of the country or the other.

 

SA

 

 

[Hiromi]

You get no arguments out of me there Scouting Again.

 

If it is true that BSA already would allow CO's to create their own values program tailor suited to their own unique BSA-affiliated program, then maybe BSA should market this aspect of itself to these organizations.

 

An Ad line might go something like this:

 

"Let us help you make your Youth Program something your youth will absolutely love. We offer high adventure- adult and youth training, safe access to the great outdoors, and a 100 year tradition helping make youth into Americas most productive adults."

 

As I said- the service model I think is the best model for BSA National. It is already best tooled for it. It can train scouters to provide scouting a wide variety of classic scouting skills, training both adults and youth.

 

The point is- Scouting is good - Spreading the game of Scouting and by implication the lessons it teaches is our aim. Allow the costumer to take from scouting what they value. Give the customer a wide berth and a big menu.

 

Let's do what we do best, and leave the rest to the customer.

 

Pappy

(This message has been edited by Pappy)

[acco40]

I think with talk radio and the pundits on the TV news that the general population is easily confused by such labels as Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, etc.

 

Ponder these thoughts.

 

Right to Life/Anti-abortion is considered a "conservative" stance. Yet, a conservative (root word "conserve") stance by definition would be to "stay the course." Yet, current laws allow abortion in many instances. Also, if abortion was made illegal, it would be government intervention (i.e. "more" government) and therefore not the traditional conservative reasoning.

 

Liberalism is defined in economics as emphasizing individual freedom from restraintand is usually based on free competition, the self-regulationg market and the gold standard (a traditional conservative viewpoint?).

 

So, using such labels a conservative, liberal, etc. are mostly attempts to demonize a political viewpoint.

 

Instead of a red/blue BSA I think we, as Scouters, should re-emphasize Scoutings purpose - character development, citizenship and fitness. It comes in all shapes, sizes and colors.

[OldGreyEagle]

When I think of Liberal Thought, the first thing that comes into my mind is "Global Warming" and other "Green Issues". When I go camping with the Troop, the first thing I think of is "Leave No Trace", how Green is that? If Boy Scouts were the puppets of the vast Right Wing conspiracy, should we not be slashing and burning our way across the country? To leave no trace when camping is a very green thing to do which would seem to be liberally minded, but then again to conserve natural resources would seem to be at the heart of being a conservative as well.

 

Its as if the BSA was on the Conservative-Liberal COntinuum. Sometimes COnservative, Uniforms, saluting the flag, and at other times quite Liberal, Leave No Trace

[Hiromi]

That may be ripe for another thread Old GRey Eagle.

 

But what we conserve seems to be a little more important than teaching boys to keep their paws off Mother Nature.

 

I am firmly in the camp that says slashing and burning, cutting and building, is a lot more about conserving the manly arts and man's proper relationship with his environment rather than doing our darndest to keep the TV Indian from crying.

 

Pollution is bad sure- we get that.

Our National Parks are not for human development - get that too.

 

But I want my boys to see trees as things to harvest as well as to hug and plant and paint pictures of.

 

They should see nature as something that is there not to preserve alone- but to manipulate- form, mold, and use to create things that they imagine. The forest is a play ground, an art studio, a construction zone, a home, a hunting ground, an arena for the game of scouting.

 

We come from pioneers, frontiersman.

 

That is a lot more present in the pioneering skills of BP scouting than the GREEN PC policies of No Trace.

 

I personally loathe No Trace because I believe boys should be taught to look at the world as a place in which they feel at home in, not always as visitors that should clean up after themselves.

 

I want my boys to chop trees down and build things. I want them to blaze trails, build dams, construct forts, make bows and arrows, trap game, and learn that it is more than OK to make their mark.

 

 

Are we making tourists or are we making Men?

 

 

Pappy

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[scoutingagain]

" am firmly in the camp that says slashing and burning, cutting and building, is a lot more about conserving the manly arts and man's proper relationship with his environment rather than doing our darndest to keep the TV Indian from crying. "

 

Pappy,

 

The above is probably the biggest issue I have with your vision of scouting. I could care less about the patatoe guns. Your scouts have their own private camping area to slash and burn. Most of us camp in public parks or other peoples private property. Leaving it as we found it is just a matter of common courtesy. It has nothing to do with being Liberal, GREEN or PC. There are other venues to teach pioneering skills and most scout units do incorporate those skills into their program.

 

I hope you teach your scouts to be respectful of other peoples property or property they share with the rest of us. i.e. public parks, national forests, etc. If they don't own it, they shouldn't be slashing and burning it.

 

SA

[Hiromi]

 

 

 

"Pollution is bad sure- we get that.

Our National Parks are not for human development - get that too."

 

Scoutingagain,

 

If you read my post I actually said that my scouts learn not to pollute and to observe no trace in public parks and such. But the emphasis on No Trace should never supersede our perspective on man's rightful relationship with his environment- which is that we are here to build, create, nurture, plant, hunt, and form. Over-emphasis on keeping nature pristine is really wrong-headed and narrow.

 

I am concerned that we are emasculating our boys by not emphasizing their expression of power and intellegence in the natural environment.

 

Pappy

 

[FireKat]

But the emphasis on No Trace should never supersede our perspective on man's rightful relationship with his environment- which is that we are here to build, create, nurture, plant, hunt, and form. Over-emphasis on keeping nature pristine is really wrong-headed and narrow.

A statement like that is highly egocentric. Mans relationship is to take care of and not treat it as our personal playground.

 

I am firmly in the camp that says slashing and burning, cutting and building, is a lot more about conserving the manly arts and man's proper relationship with his environment

In this day and age I cannot believe anyone would say such things.!

slashing and burning, has never been about much more than laziness. Those type of so called foresters did such things because they did not wish to take the time to do harvesting properly. My dad was an internationally known forester who never believed in the slash and burn attitude. When he harvested trees from a forest there was STILL a forest there.

.. by not emphasizing their expression of power and intelligence in the natural environment.

I really do not see any signs of intelligence in slash and burn!!!!!

Manly arts indeed !

 

(I had wanted to stay out of this but I cannot take someone claiming slash and burn is intelligent in any way shape or form!!)(This message has been edited by firekat)(This message has been edited by firekat)

[Hiromi]

Fire Cat,

 

This Day and Age indeed.

 

There are more trees in North America than anytime in Geologic history. Cutting down forests, preserving forests, burning forests, are all benign acts. Nature is incompletely indifferent.

 

If we didn't cut down the forests of Europe we never would have built her cities, warmed her homes, and sailed the seas and tilled her soil. Forests grow back- sometimes with a vengeance.

 

Environmentalism has become to many a religion, except in that faith man is not created in the image of God but is instead painted as a devil and a destroyer. He is an animal run amuck.

 

Save your outrage for the next rally Firecat- you'll get no sympathy from me.

 

I see a forest primarily as something to cut and fashion and explore and shape and make suitable for human use. I see a mountain as something to cut into for its stone, mine for its minerals and paint for its beauty.

 

The greatest lie ever perpetrated on our youth was the myth of the pristine environment. It never existed. It is not a scientifically verifiable state of existence. Nature is aggressive, opportunistic, and does not heed mans whims or emotions.

 

Last fall my scouts thinned a forest to create a view of a County Wood Covered Bridge. We called it Operation Vista. We chopped down dozens of mature trees and shrubs and in doing so created one of the most majestic vistas in our part of Illinois. It was on county land, and a forester helped us locate the desirable and undesirable trees and shrubs.

 

We kept a large blaze going for 48 hours.

 

My scouts felt very good about what they did. Their dads had some very quality time with their sons. It was very manly very rugged, and very grueling work.

 

You ought to see their faces when they fell their first 50 foot tall honey locust!

 

They love their scout axes because it symbolizes their power to change their environment and to make something of use from nature. You folks are quick to criticize the moralizing of Christian faith, but get all high and mighty about cutting down trees.

 

That is an obscene inversion of values.

 

I am humancentric in both my outlook on life and in scouting. And I think it is the correct perspective in forming boys into men. We should not be ashamed of desiring to change the environment to suit our ends.

 

Pappy

 

 

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[CalicoPenn]

I can't let this statement stand without challenge:

 

"There are more trees in North America than anytime in Geologic history"

 

This statement is complete and utter hogwash! There is no way you can prove this statement as no has ever kept records of the number of trees that are or were in North America - we don't even do so now. We don't know how many trees are in North America today - we don't know how many trees were in North America 150 years ago (back when the folks that lived here said that a squirrel could climb a tree in Eastern Virginia and could travel to Western Kentucky without ever setting foot back on the ground). We don't know how many trees were in North America 10,000 years ago.

 

Calico

[Hiromi]

 

CALICO, I STAND CORRECTED.

 

Question - I have been told that there are more trees today in the

United States of America than there were when the Pilgrims landed at

Plymouth Rock. Is this true? If so, why?

 

Rather, the forests have been recovering from clearing after the arrival of Europeans.

http://realm.umd.edu/chesapeake.shtml

 

Anthony R. Brach, Ph.D.

==========================================================

I don't know how this could be determined, since there is no real way of knowing exactly what forests looked like at any given time that far back in history. Its likely that there are more trees in some places, like on the great plains, where they have been widely planted around towns and home sites; on the other hand much of what was forested land in the eastern U.S. has been converted to agriculture and urban. Certainly there are more trees now than in 1900, at the end of the great timber baron era of deforestation, and especially since the 1930's depression years much marginal farmland has

been turned back to forest - but much of that was probably forested

originally anyway so its hard to say whether there has been any net gain.And what exactly is meant by "more trees?" If you really mean the total number of individual trees then this is probably a true statement since virgin forests had relatively few large trees per acre, and have been replaced by young forests with more but smaller trees per acre. But if you mean total forested land I think it is a very debatable proposition.

 

J. Elliott

 

In your debate, it would be a good tactic to ask your father where he got his information and investigate his sources. This is a rather tricky question. The first website cited addresses your question and makes a very important point that if there are more trees today it would only be because there are much younger forests and younger, smaller trees that take up less space than the very large trees in virgin forests of Colonial times. Therefore, it is important what you consider a tree, a small seedling or sapling or a fairly large mature plant. Large numbers of tree seeds sprout each year in unforested

areas but very few of them develop into mature trees. For example, millions of tree seedlings sprout each year in mowed areas such as lawns but they are all cut down by the mowing. I don't think it would be fair to count them as trees.

 

In Colonial times relatively fewer tree seedlings sprouted in virgin forests because it was too shady. Would it also really be fair to count the tens-of-millions of live, but small, Christmas trees grown and harvested each year as trees?

 

Your father's idea that technology allows us to "better preserve trees" is correct in some ways but it applies more to landscape trees rather than forest trees. Landscape trees can grow to much greater ages with proper disease and pest control methods. More rapidly growing forest tree varieties actually mean the lifespan of the trees is shorter because they are logged more often. Since Colonial times, the USA has basically lost two major forest tree species, the

American chestnut and American elm, both nearly wiped out by imported diseases.

 

Before Columbus arrived in North America, there was basically one continuous forest in the Eastern United States west to beyond the Mississippi River. It was said that a squirrel could go branch to branch from the east coast to the Mississippi River without touching the ground. A biome map would be the same now as in Colonial times because it is based on climate. A biome map shows that half or more of the USA area consists of forest biomes, even though most of the

trees have been cut down in many of those forest biomes. Notice that second behind forests in area are grasslands in the Central USA and third in area is desert in the Southwest.

 

Today, only remnants of the great eastern USA forests remain. Nonforested areas today include farm fields, buildings, home lawns, roads, golf courses, athletic fields, parking lots, cemetaries, etc. There has also been substantial deforestation in the western United States since Colonial times. Therefore, my educated guess it that there are fewer trees in the United States today than in Colonial times assuming that seedlings and small saplings are not included.

Maybe a more better way to put it is that there is definitely much less forested area today than in Colonial times.

 

The central USA, which was originally grassland or prairie, has gained trees since Colonial times but not enough to offset the losses in the other parts of the USA. The founder of Arbor Day, Julius Sterling Morton, lived in Nebraska, a prairie state. He promoted tree planting on the treeless plains. The first Arbor Day in 1872 was celebrated by planting one million trees in Nebraska.

 

There have been gains in tree numbers in desert biomes, such as Arizona and Nevada, where people have planted trees in irrigated landscapes in homes and cities. However, trees have been planted in limited areas so it is still not enough to offset the losses in forest biomes.

 

 

 

[GernBlansten]

I wonder how many trees are left after Pappy's Scout troop marches through them? More or less? Anyone care to guess?

[Trevorum]

I know that there adults out there who truly believe that humans have a right (obligation?) to dominate and control our environment. I shudder to think that those adults may be teaching the next generation.

[Hiromi]

Trevorum,

 

"Shuddering to think" is a symptom of girly-man-ness.

 

As well as saying things like - "That is really scary".

 

There is a cure for this condition.

 

A. Read the Holy Bible. (Any Edition will do)

B. Watch lots of Westerns, especially John Wayne and Clint Eastwood films.

C. Shoot an animal (or use your bear hands) and watch it die.

D. Break a horse.

E. Read Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged.

F. Read Aristotle

G. Hang out with Real Men.

H. Every time you look at something that you couldnt have come up with yourself, have the humility to admit that there are legions of really smart people who make our life as easy as it is because of their ability to master the environment and get from rock and tree and water the medicines, the papers, the machines, the fragrances, the foods, and everything else that makes us comfortable enough to spend our time debating this trivia instead of huddling in the corner of some cave shuddering in our own waste.

 

Pappy

(This message has been edited by Pappy)

[GernBlansten]

There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games. E. Hemingway

 

Words to live by.