The Community Organizer in Chief and the BSA Report to the Nation

[Kudu]

The idea that we need to dumb Scouting down to the Hispanic level is inherently racist.

 

I recruited many Latin Scouts using the Scoutcraft methods that were in common use by Boy Scouts on June 15, 1916.

 

Kudu

 

[Eagle92]

I agree with Kudu on this one, we shouldn't dumb down scouting. Do we need to make in roads with the Hispanic community, ABSOLUTELY. Do we need to understand and respect their cultural absolutely. BUT they have decided to join our society. What better way to become integrated than to join Scouting.

[GernBlansten]

Don't Hispanics have a longer history in America than whites? Who should adapt?

[TheScout]

You're right, a lot of the Founding Fathers were Hispanic.

 

Ideas from Spain's backward autocratic monarchy of the period also had a big influence on the Constitution.

 

Oh wait, we conquered all the Hispanic populations that lived in our land before we owned it.

[GernBlansten]

To the victors, go the spoils.

Perhaps the scout motto should be replaced with that.

[Trevorum]

You're wrong.

 

Here in Texas at least, we didn't "conquer". We rebelled, threw off the yoke of tyranny, and declared independence.

 

 

Remember the Alamo!

[Hal_Crawford]

I support Texas Independence!

[SR540Beaver]

Texas? Oh, you mean Baja Oklahoma.

[SSScout]

I heard Mazucca's speech. I wonder that he thinks Latino family values are so foreign to BSA ideals that BSA must adjust to accomodate these newly minted citizens. I have been counseled by my Latino friends, especially those of central American origin, that the Hispanic community is often eager to join Scouts, if the boys (and girls!) are first approached by their friends at school, and if the Scouters involved make sure that they are seen as anything but a semi-military group. The tan shirts, the uniforms, the ceremony tho often done with a military bearing, tends to remind of the less than friendly military of their home country. Our uniforms need to be seen as something other than mere authority. What does Scouting stand for?

Soccer tourneys for Cubs and summer rec programs should not change the BSA program (whatever it is, see another thread!), but if soccer attracts boys to Scouting, all to the good. Adjust the soccer requirements to accomodate the law, should be no problem.

When I was a Cub, We had a CS softball league, the only one in town. Kids joined so they could play ball.

As has been noted, Scout leaders need be sensitive to the cultural, and religious differences of our Scouts. Food choice, non-Christian faith, skin hue, mode of dress or hair style, I defy anyone to find a place in the Scout Promise or Law that requires we deny access to Scouting to any boy or family for any of these reasons. Our boys need to be taught by us , in lesson and example, the openness , the acceptance, the opportunity that is endemic to the American Way.

[perdidochas]

I'm glad to see that our new President accepted the honorary membership, etc. It is a good thing.

[Trevorum]

"Our boys need to be taught by us, in lesson and example, the openness, the acceptance, the opportunity that is endemic to the American Way."

 

 

Except of course for those minority groups BSA doesn't like. We're told it's OK to deny them the Scouting experience.

 

 

 

[Beavah]

Yah, da Community Organizer in Chief bit is a bit of adolescent name-calling that I reckon most scouts I know wouldn't engage in of their own accord.

 

As far as I know these things have never been press events. Press events in da oval office are pretty rare.

 

If it makes yeh feel any better, the Brits are all in a row because Obama met with the Boy Scouts rather than having time to do a press event with Gordon Brown on the same day.

 

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/2009/03/03/barack_obama_cancels_press_conference_with_gordon_brown_because_of_snow

 

I reckon if the man's day is so busy that he's canceling the press conference with the Prime Minister of Britain but he still makes time to welcome the Boy Scouts to the oval office that our proper response should be "Thank you, Mr. President!"

 

Beavah

 

[skeptic]

Trev:

 

Actually, they are told that if they want to participate, they need to meet the BSA requirements. And, for the most part, the so called "won't let them join" refers to adults anyway. It is really tiresome to hear the same old nonsense that by actually adhering to their basic tenets, rather than changing for a minority (many who want to push an agenda)the BSA is in the wrong. You can skew it anyway you like. Those of us in the trenches lean over backward to accept any boy. It is the adults that tend to cause the problem.

 

Case in point from years back now. When the Randall twins were interviewed by an Orange County reporter about what they believed, the boys both agreed that they thought "Mother Nature" was responsible for the natural phenomena, not God. So, they still were assigning some type of spiritual entity to their beliefs, which would have been sufficient if "Daddy, the publicity seeking lawyer, had not gotten into it. They were no way old enough to have reached any kind of final decision on this; but somehow, because Dad made an issue and refused to let them associate, they were deprived. So, whose fault was it? I lean towards the father; but also felt that some of the adults in the local unit were a bit out of line as well. Still, it likely could have all been worked out if the father had not needed to become a public crusader about the awful BSA.

 

Let the organization evolve on its own, rather than try to force everything. It will eventually get where it needs to get. Meanwhile, accept the FACT that not everyone can be part of everything; clubs and organizations are created with certain rules and ideas to be supported, so if you do not fit, find somewhere you do. Just because you DO NOT AGREE does not make the group or individual with whom you have a problem a paria.

 

FJO

[Trevorum]

skeptic, I completely agree that it's the adults who cause the problems: to wit, note the current thread, "Atheist in the Pack," where some of the adults on this forum counsel telling the Cub Scout in question he can't continue because he says he is an atheist.

 

And I also agree that the organization will "evolve". That is inevitable.

 

But I'm sorry that you think it's "nonsense" to have to tell a group of 15 year old Scouts that BSA thinks that homosexuals can not be the "best type of citizen", while full well knowing that some of those boys will eventually discover that THEY are homosexual.

 

This is the way I see ("skew") it: BSA is telling two minority groups that they are not welcome while at the same time knowing it has no factual basis for claiming they can not be the "best type of citizens".

 

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

skeptic, why can the BSA make some people pariahs by excluding them, but it's not OK for people to make the BSA or their members pariahs? Seems to follow the golden rule.