What would have to change if gays were allowed in?

[HiLo]

This is the Internet. Most people post under names that are not their own. Does it matter?

 

Many different views are expressed. Do you want views you disagree with banned?

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

GaHillBilly writes:

Regardless of that, your relationship to Scouting is 100% negative. As far as I can tell, you do not support anything that Scouting does, or is.

 

Oh, sure I do. But that has nothing to do with the current BSA, which is dishonest and supports invidious discrimination.

 

The only thing apparently that you actually SUPPORT is mandating a maximal presence of atheists and homosexuals among youth.

 

"Maximal"? I suppose if the BSA excluded Jews and I advocated that the BSA stop excluding Jews, you would also characterize that as advocating a "maximal" presence of Jews among youth.

 

If you win your campaign against Scouting, I suppose you'd simply turn to something else, like trying to force religious colleges hire gays or atheists.

 

Well, the BSA can either stop discriminating or stop dishonestly chartering units to organizations that can't legally practice their discrimination, like law enforcement agencies. No comment on the BSA's dishonesty from you?

 

You are here, not as a Scouter, but as a pro-gay, pro-atheist activist. Scouting is simply the particular realm on which you've focused your activism.

 

Because the BSA has my own government illegally practicing discrimination against atheists. And yes, I do fight that, and I get results.

[GernBlansten]

GAHillbilly,

I thought you were quitting us?

 

 

Oh well. Word of advise, don't put GaHillBilly in the Google and click its suggested correction. Definitely not for scouts.

[Oak Tree]

Gern, not sure why you would click the suggested correction, but I had to follow suit just to see. That really caused a jump in the irony-meter.

[Lisabob]

OK I think it is pretty creepy that you are keeping "notes" on posters and, apparently, half-threatening to make them public. You're outing people on a scouting forum?! That makes you sound like some sort of internet stalker. That you are evidently encouraging your son to engage in that same behavior is disturbing. Also, I wonder if you don't have better things to do.

[NJCubScouter]

I agree with LisaBob. Let's not make this forum into Wikipedia, where people try to personally destroy those who they disagree with. It does give a new meaning to "Keep the outing in Scouting."

[GaHillBilly]

Hilo asked, "Do you want views you disagree with banned?"

 

No, but I do think it's relevant to know who's party to a discussion. Merlyn's presence here, as an acknowledged anti-Scouting activist, is equivalent to a KKK member posting on an NAACP board, a PLO member posting on a Jewish board for kibbutz members. They are there, not to discuss, but as "trolls".

 

 

 

 

LisaBob commented, "OK I think it is pretty creepy that you are keeping "notes" on posters"

 

Ok. So you find that creepy. I find it creepy that people post under false pretenses.

 

As a former forum operator myself, I have found that anonymity is far more often used to conceal dishonorable activity, than to protect honorable actions.

 

I've preferred to remain anonymous here, because doing so has allowed me to ask, and pursue questions, far more bluntly and vigorously than I can in real life with people I'm going to try to work with. But, otherwise, what I am here, I am in real life.

 

 

 

NJCubScouter asked, "Let's not make this forum into Wikipedia, where people try to personally destroy those who they disagree with."

 

Wikipedia is a good example, NJ, but not for the reason you state.

 

So far as I know, the only attempts to personally destroy people are by those who post FALSE or MISLEADING information about Wikipedia entries. The people who do so are referred to as (again for those not familiar with the term) Internet trolls . . . just like Merlyn is here. Trolls, and NOT those who expose them, are a primary threat to Wikipedia's operation and reliability.

 

It would not surprise me at all to find that Merlyn has modified Wikipedia Scouting entries. If he's done so accurately and honestly, I have no problem with that. But otherwise . . .

 

 

 

Finally, Merlyn asked "No comment on the BSA's dishonesty from you?"

 

Actually, if you were active in the Scouting activity portion of the forum, you'd know that I have. The systemic dishonesty in the BSA's handling of Scout and Scouter skills (ie, bogus advancement and Merit Badges) has been a primary topic I've raised here. Initially, I was incredibly confused about this, and found it hard to believe that the problem was unofficially considered to be a non-issue.

 

So, no, I do NOT considered the BSA, as an organization, to be "trustworthy". I think they have some amazing organizational history, still reflected in a few amazing troops, and they have some great materials and traditions that would be really hard to develop from scratch. And they still have a tremendously positive (if now undeserved!) community reputation among adults. (The reputation among kids is not so good!) But, otherwise, I think the BSA is an organization that has increasingly abandoned its primary goals, but is unwilling to acknowledge that openly.

 

As Kudu's posts have made clear in the past, the BSA is an organization with inconsistent goals and purposes at its very core . . . and that makes it hard to be honest.

 

But, Merlyn, my problem with you has been, almost from the start, your dishonesty. I'd noted long before, that when you totally lost an argument, it had zero effect on your opinions. That's behavior typical of a religious activist, not someone who's genuinely asking questions or seeking answers. Your own response show that you are not listening to anyone who disagrees with you, for example, in the AGW section where you've posted stupidity followed by ignorance followed by non-comprehension). You already have the answers you want, and you hold to them by a faith demonstrated to be irrational by your own response.

 

Since I'm here at present -- on a Scouter forum -- to find out what and how Scouters locally think, without having to ask them questions that are really awkward, it's very frustrating to find out that at least one, and probably several of the prolific posters here are not Scouters at all, but trolls like you.

 

 

If I were Scouter.com's admin and owner, it would concern me greatly. Allowing trolls to remain unmolested is a well established recipe for destroying a discussion forum.

 

 

GaHillBilly

 

 

[GaHillBilly]

I just finished running some early morning errands, and I had time to reflect a bit on this.

 

After thinking about it, I believe your response, LisaBob, is the one I find most disturbing.

 

Merlyn is just a distraction and a waste of time, because I already had a fair idea what atheist and gay activists think. What I wanted to know was what other Scouters thought, and how they'd respond to various arguments.

 

But your response, LisaBob, is typical of many other Scouters I've encountered here locally and on this forum.

 

Before I entered Scouting, I'd never encountered the term "aspirational goal", and it confused me. When I asked about it, I got vague and confusing answers. Eventually, I discovered that it meant, a "goal we like to talk about, but don't actually expect anyone to achieve". In traditional Scouting -- in the Scouting that established BSA's reputation -- a Scout was expected to actually BE trustworthy. Those who failed were corrected, or expelled if they would not accept correction. Sometimes, the failures were concealed, because real goals tend to lead to real shame and real hypocrisy.

 

But in modern Scouting, the idea that "a Scout is trustworthy" is a purely 'aspirational goal'. Consequently, there can be no 'real failures'; there's no need for expulsion, and no one has to be a hypocrite . . . because no one ever REALLY expected Scouts to be trustworthy. After all, those goals are only 'aspirational', not real.

 

+ That attitude explains why, when in our last troop the SPL lied outright to a BOR about completing a requirement, the other leaders focused on getting him to complete the requirement, and not on the lie.

 

+ That attitude explains why, here, when HiLo (in the AGW thread) lied outright about what I'd said, and then I called him on it, several posters focused on me, for "uncivility" rather than on him, as a liar.

 

+ And, that attitude explains why LisaBob, when my investigation uncovers Merlyn's dishonesty, you find my actions, not his, "creepy".

 

I wish I could say that your response, LisaBob, is not typical of Scouters. But, I can't. I've come to understand that it is typical of many, and maybe even most. And it explains why so much of modern Scouting is fake.

 

Real skills, real knowledge, real honesty are, for many Scouters today, only "aspirational goals". There's no longer any need for correction, for instruction, for repentance, for forgiveness, for genuine growth and progress . . . for character . . . because all that stuff is only 'aspirational', not real.

 

The benefit, of course, is that in modern Scouting there are no hypocrites. There's nothing to be hypocritical about. In order for there to be real hypocrites, you have to first have real values and real goals.

 

Perhaps the one thing I do agree with Merlyn about, is that the BSA today is often dishonest and untrustworthy, if you define "honesty" and "trustworthy" the way they were when BP started Scouting.

 

 

GaHillBilly

 

 

 

 

[CA_Scouter]

WOW!

 

Note to self: don't disagree with GA ever again

 

[Guest OldGreyEagle]

The subject of why Merlyn LeRoy posts here comes up from time to time and the reason he posts here is because, well, I suppose I should let Merlyn explain that, he does not appreciate it when others tell others what he thinks, or explains why he does things. And that is as it should be, I am not sure I would like several people explaining my behavior, as only I can do that accurately.

 

Several times a year I get a PM asking why Merlyn is allowed to post, and the answer is simple, he brings an alternative viewpoint and follows the Forum's Rules of Decorum as well as many. I don't agree with a lot of what he says, but that could be said of many posters.

 

 

[Trevorum]

Lisa, I don't find him creepy. Obnoxious, yes. Bombastic, pretentious, pompous, myopic, rabid, and shrill.

 

OTOH, at least we're not being bombarded with scripture.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

GaHillBilly, an internet troll doesn't discuss issues, they just post outrageous things to get a rise out of people. I don't do that, I actually discuss issues. You seem to be confusing "troll" with "someone who holds opinions I disagree with, and who has the audacity to post their opinions where I can see them."

 

But, Merlyn, my problem with you has been, almost from the start, your dishonesty.

 

Then post something I have written, and state why you think I'm being dishonest. If you don't, I'll consider you a liar.

[Guest OldGreyEagle]

"OTOH, at least we're not being bombarded with scripture"

 

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

[NJCubScouter]

Allowing trolls to remain unmolested is a well established recipe for destroying a discussion forum.

 

"Unmolested", I'd say that's an interesting choice of words for this thread.

 

Since you seem to be referring to Merlyn here, he has been a member of this forum for almost nine years, which I suspect is more than all but about a half-dozen active posters, and he has just over 3000 posts. If his participation were going to destroy the forum, I think it would have happened before now.

[Eamonn]

"However, I'm gonna quit."

Bye!

Ea