Not just Sustainability

[GKlose]

Along with Cooking being revised and reverting to an Eagle-required merit badge, seems there are quite a few new ones in the works:

 

http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/merit-badge-calendar/

 

Guy

[NJCubScouter]

While I am a big supporter of technology education, I think they may be overdoing it with all the new technology merit badges. By my count they are going from one computer-related merit badge to five (counting Robotics) in two years.

 

Also, I have been "campaigning" on here for years for them to reduce the number of Eagle-required MB's from 12 to 10 or 11, and now they are increasing it to 13. There should be some balance between required and non-required in my opinion, and now they are making it even further out of balance. I am fine with making Cooking required, but they should have taken one or two others off the list at the same time. It is the "good idea syndrome" all over again; same thing with all the new technology MB's.

 

The new "Sustainability" MB (whatever exactly that turns out to be) is fine since it is not adding to the required list, as it will be an alternative to Environmental Science.

[SeattlePioneer]

Sustainability Merit Badge

 

Sounds like more environmentalist propaganda invading Scouting, and there is already too much of that.

 

"sustainability" without an understanding and appreciation of economics is just ignorant environmentalist propaganda.

[NJCubScouter]

SP, nobody has even seen the requirements yet. How do you know what is and isn't going to be there?

[BSA24]

Scouting was founded by environmentalists, Seattle. It is a recent phenomenon that the right wing have begun to see Scouting as their domain. Scouting is what made me a liberal. I earned merit badges in Soil and Water conservation, fish and wildlife management, environmental science, mammal study, reptile study, and lots of other tree hugging badges.

 

American labor is a good one. It teaches you to appreciate unions.

 

Scouting is not a politically partisan activity. I do not see it as a leftist activity. I do not see why you think it is an activity belonging to the right being invaded by the left. If anything, the invasion has gone in the opposite direction.

[SeattlePioneer]

It's quite true that we don't know the content of the "sustainability" Merit Badge.

 

Perhaps it will contain couple of quarters of college economics to give a realistic basis upon which to build a concept of sustainability that makes sense.

 

It's a complicated subject to treat in a meaningful way. To approach it in a simple way (use less of everything) is deceptive and mindless.

 

Unfortunately, a deceptive and mindless approach seems the more likely to me. But I'd be glad to be surprised.

[Callooh! Callay!1428010939]

SP didn't claim to know what the requirements were. He expressed concern over an issue that the word "sustainability" might reasonably suggest to persons whose English language skills extend beyond basic fluency. The linguistic nuance that prompted his observation might be lost on anyone unaware that "sustainability" has become an ostensibly nice sounding buzzword frequently associated with socialist, communist, or other collectivist efforts to assume power and control in the name of some ostensibly greater good like "sustainability."

 

But... "Nothing is more conservative than conservation" - Russell Kirk

 

Environmentalism and Conservation are and have been Conservative concerns. Just as conservatives first championed the abolition of slavery and the civil rights of minorities, it was conservatives that first championed conservation and environmentalism. After conservative succeeded in protecting minority rights, liberals adopted the cause as their own and use it primarily as a means to advocate increased government control over citizens. Likewise with environmental issues.

 

Modern Lefties champion the environment because they think environmental problems demand the solutions they like best for every problem... collectivism. Communism, socialism, and collectivism in general tend not to sell very well these days unless they're packaged as something else.

 

"[There is an] absolute necessity of waging all-out war against the debauching of the environment. . . The bulldozer mentality of the past is a luxury we can no longer afford. Our roads and other public projects must be planned to prevent the destruction of scenic resources and to avoid needlessly upsetting the ecological balance." Governor (then) Ronald Reagan

 

Nation's first fuel economy standards signed into law - Gerald Ford

 

Environmental Protection Agency Created - Richard Nixon

 

Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act - signed into law by Richard Nixon

 

1964 Wilderness Act and the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act - cosponsored and advocated for by very conservative Congressman Saylor, PA

 

Arctic National Wildlife Range (8.9 million-acres) - Dwight Eisenhower

 

Herbert Hoover increased national park system 40 percent

 

Theodore Roosevelt doubled the number of national parks, established 130 million acres of national forests, 18 national monuments, and 55 bird and game reservations

 

[SM_Travis]

CC -- Not to sound like a jerk, but take your propaganda to the issues forum. I avoid it for a reason, and this is why. Please keep the rest of this scouting related. And btw, TR may have been a republican, but he was a progressive, not a conservative (his words, not mine). He would not find a welcome home in the current Republican Party.

[BSA24]

>>>>>>>>>>

Environmentalism and Conservation are and have been Conservative concerns. Just as conservatives first championed the abolition of slavery and the civil rights of minorities, it was conservatives that first championed conservation and environmentalism. After conservative succeeded in protecting minority rights, liberals adopted the cause as their own and use it primarily as a means to advocate increased government control over citizens. Likewise with environmental issues.

 

Modern Lefties champion the environment because they think environmental problems demand the solutions they like best for every problem... collectivism. Communism, socialism, and collectivism in general tend not to sell very well these days unless they're packaged as something else.

 

 

[Callooh! Callay!1428010939]

"I think someone needs to be re-educated"

 

Yes. Advocacy for such is common on the Left. In power, it has gone beyond advocacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reeducation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reeducation_camp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-education_through_labor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_North_Korea#Reeducation_camps

 

 

[SM_Travis]

Seriously, take it somewhere else. The Internet is full of places for you to compare me to a North Korean dictator. This isn't supposed to be one of them.

[Callooh! Callay!1428010939]

Sorry. It's easy to forget that this is the thread in which we're told we need to be reeducated - not the thread in which we're supposed to remark on what that has meant.

 

It is, of course correct that this isn't really the right topic area for political commentary. But threads do stray - and sometimes right out of the gate.

 

And so we take to heart the wise admonishment from above to:

"Please keep the rest of this scouting related. And btw, TR may have been a republican, but he was a progressive, not a conservative (his words, not mine). He would not find a welcome home in the current Republican Party."

 

It's interesting that a post requesting we keep it scouting related ends with "and btw" arguments about politics.

 

(This message has been edited by Callooh! Callay!)

[BadenP]

Callooh

 

BSA24 made some very good points to debunk your own propaganda which you do in reply is to pull out your same old rhetoric of the leftist vs right wing politics. Of course when all you read is wikipedia and use only that to support your views I can understand why you are so confused and misinformed. As others have said the BSA was founded by some of the avid conservationists of the day and has always been one of the centerpieces of the program which renders your argument irrelevant.

[BSA24]

I do not understand at all the comparisons of American liberals with dictatorships and the like. Not even a little. It's like you've been talking to the neighbors and asking them what I am like, and they lied, and you didn't ask me directly what I believe in. Instead, you just spray painted my internet comment with "Dictator of Korea!!!"

 

I don't think rhetoric helps people to get along or accomplish things. It certainly doesn't help them learn about each other. Instead, it just drives them apart. It's discourteous to compare someone who wants a cross left up on public land with a Taliban theocracy-seeking terrorist. It is discourteous likewise to associate someone who wants their pre-existing medical conditions to be insured inexpensively with a Korean dictator.

 

I am open to a discussion with anyone on this forum who is curious what drives a this liberal who votedf or Ford, Reagan, Bush, Perot, Dole, and Bush Jr. twice and changed sides. You can even call me names if it helps. I already understand the conservative mindset. I was one. I'm in I&P if you want to chat.

[OldGreyEagle]

I do seem to rememeber the initial thoughts about Leave No Trace, mostly along the lines that it was a long haired hippie weirdo tree hugging concept rooted in a pinko commie plot to feminize American boys

 

Is it possible not everything is a politcal football? ?

 

I thought as much