Vermont Scouts denied July 4th vendor permit and withdraw

[walk in the woods]

Or maybe He would have shaken the dust from His sandals.

 

Or maybe both (turned the other cheek and shaken the dust from his sandals) I suppose.

 

In hind sight, and that's where we're all operating from, I hope I would have also pulled the application. No need to put myself or the scouts in front of a politician with an agenda to take a beating about something I have no control over. And worse, on a public street where some member of the public could berate them after the city council member was a jerk.

 

I suppose the "correct" answer, as Pack suggested, would have been to perform the clean up anyway, trustworthy and brave.

 

However, I think my next step would have been to attend the next city council meeting and let them know that in the future my unit would no longer participate as their clean crew as we decided to pursue other service opportunities. Then I'd put the committee to work planning a fundraiser for the next year the weekend before the city celebration !

[qwazse]

One also has to remember that the Godwin Rule/Law has some valid rationale but not when abused. In this case it is over the line a bit' date=' but how much was rhetoric and how much was heartfelt meaning I'm not sure only Scouter99 knows for sure, but it does rankle some with the willy nilly use the argument. ,,, [/quote']

 

Like in our discussion of ethics and scout accounts, the word-choice is one of those situations where I'd say scale matters. Clearly S99 was "free" to use any analogy he chose. However, choosing the holocaust as metaphor for a councilman's grand-standing comes with a cost. Specifically, among survivors, liberators, and their descendants, there is a palpable fear that each casual reference adds to reducing one of the most tragic events in modern history to myth.

 

The posturing in VT may constitute a slippery-slope into a totalitarian, and potentially inhumane, form of governance to some who worry about such things. But, to those whose associates have lived through real horrors, the over-dramatization resurrects real pain and suffering.

 

One can begin to pick up on this very real worry after a few conversations with survivors, as well as the very real carelessness among deniers who've bought into the rhetoric of the USA's sworn enemies. But, let's not think that everyone who is judicious in their speech is one with the survivors or that everyone who is careless is a callous denier.

 

There are some today who would attest that we are all survivors of the very worst that humanity offered in the 20th century. Some of us just don't realize it.

[CalicoPenn]

Let's not forget that there were a lot of people in support of the Councilman as well.

[sst3rd]

Calico,

 

 

And I wish him and his supporters the very best as they clean up after the parade. It's really that simple.

 

 

sst3rd

[NJCubScouter]

Calico,

 

And I wish him and his supporters the very best as they clean up after the parade. It's really that simple.

 

Which, according to the article, seems to be exactly what they did. So, let's see here: The local Scouts didn't do their water-selling fundraiser. The park got cleaned up. The local governing officials got to make a political point because, presumably, the majority of their voters also don't approve of discriminating against gay people. And the BSA national executives get to sit in their cushy offices in Washington, D.C., I mean New Jersey, I mean Texas collecting their bloated salaries while requiring local units to enforce a ridiculous policy regardless of whether they units want or need that policy.

 

It amazes me that there is any dispute about who the real "bad guys" are here. (Okay, big hint here, it's the last group that I mentioned.)

 

Well, it really doesn't amaze me. Which makes the whole thing even sadder.

[NJCubScouter]

Make me' date=' it will fit this entire scenario perfectly. We know what happens when people in power seek to control association and speech. No one will miss me, and you can shut up Huzzar, AZMike, etc.[/quote']

 

"Make me"? What are you, six years old?

 

No, I am not using my moderator's tools here, and I have not censored any opinions in this forum, despite your false accusations in another thread and in your original version of this post. (Which I did see, before you edited it.

 

The reason I think you need to apologize is not in order to comply with some rule of some forum, but in order for you to be a decent human being - something that is far beyond the powers of any moderator to achieve.

[Scouter99]

"Make me"? What are you' date=' six years old?[/quote']

Says the guy who wants an apology for a rhetorical phenomenon so hackneyed that it has it's own name (everywhere, I'm not sure that some of you understand that Godwining is an internet phenomenon, not an OGE thing). But who can blame you? Stamping your feet and demanding a halt to all activity and an apology because you're offended is stock pap nowadays.

 

I also referenced Bastiat; I am sincerely apologetic to all French lower-case-s-socialists (who should not be confused with contemporary capital-S-Socialists).

 

You're not interested in the actual matter at hand--government ransoming business permits to punish personal beliefs, which you apparently support--so you must derail the issue to an emotional meltdown. We get it. Others may not like that I took the analogy to its actual historical climax, but they understand what I meant. When governments seek to control the beliefs and association and thought of citizens, people eventually die.

 

I cannot be actually sorry that I took middle school history, or that you overreacted to my analogy, so I cannot apologize. I'm a jerkwad that way: I'm sorry I won't issue fake apologies in response to fake internet offense.

 

If it makes you feel better, next time I'll say "gulag" instead of "gas chamber." Or "death march." Or "re-education." Or waaayyy back, "hemlock." You will still think it's OK for government to withhold business permits on the basis of beliefs as long as they're beliefs you yourself don't hold, but at least we'll avoid your tantrum.

[TAHAWK]

Totally separate from the issue of the wisdom or justice of B.S.A.'s policy, I wonder about the legality of government discriminating against an organization solely on the basis of the group's adoption of a Constitutionally-protected policy of which that the government does not approve. Didn't the City of SanDiego already lose that case?

[King Ding Dong]

The US Government doesn't punish beliefs. It enforces laws.

[CalicoPenn]

Different situation - The BSA wasn't suing San Diego. San Diego was being sued for leasing Balboa Park to the BSA for $1 per year - the argument was that San Diego was advancing religion by leasing at under market cost to a religious organization. San Diego won (and the BSA benefited by the ruling).

 

For what it's worth - the Montpelier parade was cancelled tonight (July 3) because of severe storm warnings forecast to hit at about 7 pm.

[skeptic]

Calico; San Diego settled for just short of a million dollars with the ACLU and bowed out of the whole thing. BSA finally won after 10 years. The ACLU finally quit pushing it then; but they did not give San Diego their money back either. So, they came out way ahead, assuming the court did not make them pay for the BSA court costs.

[Scouter99]

I wonder about the legality of government discriminating against an organization solely on the basis of the group's adoption of a Constitutionally-protected policy of which that the government does not approve.

 

It's the liberal way. http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/23/...obic-attitude/

 

 

Next stop Siberia. (with apologies to tsarists)

[TAHAWK]

Different situation - The BSA wasn't suing San Diego. San Diego was being sued for leasing Balboa Park to the BSA for $1 per year - the argument was that San Diego was advancing religion by leasing at under market cost to a religious organization. San Diego won (and the BSA benefited by the ruling).

 

For what it's worth - the Montpelier parade was cancelled tonight (July 3) because of severe storm warnings forecast to hit at about 7 pm.

 

 

Right you are. It was Philadelphia.

 

 

Hyperbole can be entertaining or amusing. It rarely convinces the unconvinced.

 

In my youth, at least, it was the right-wing way to attempt to stifle opinion not favored by them: "No freedom of speech for Communists."

[Stosh]

I'm going to go out on a limb here on whether or not Scouter99 needs to apologize or not.

 

First of all, his points are valid and should be discussed.

 

It's not what one wants to hear, but any opposing voice in today's culture is now deemed evil and ... well just plain evil.

 

Any counter argument one proposes on any topic can either be addressed as an issue or in this case attack their character.

 

At one point, free speech, whether I agree with it's content or not, needs to be protected our our Bill of Rights is nothing but a joke.

 

Yes, the use of Hitler's Germany always rankles people (Godwin's Rule), but so does Mussolini's Italy, or Stalin's Russia. Try on today's Mideast, 3rd world despots in African countries Lybia, Egypt, Sudan, Ruanda, S. Africa and sub-Asian countries like Cambodia, Laos, etc. China? Does Tibet ring any bells for people? Most people don't know about those places so the easiest reference is of course Hitler's Germany. It's the simplest way to make the reference.

 

One does not need to apologize for Free Speech on an open forum. A Scouting forum would be the last place I should be finding the curtailment of Free Speech. Lets review "Citizenship in the Nation" MB for a few minutes and focus in on the first of ten rights guaranteed by our Constitution.

 

Scouter99 did not attack any person on the forum, just the idea that the government has certain responsibilities to its citizens and denying something for one group but allowing for others is an abuse of power that became the norm in most of the countries mentioned above. A cautionary note that this abuse of power if left unchecked would be a slippery slope that a lot of our veterans fought and died to keep from happening.

 

I'm a firm believer that the US will not fall to the onslaught of outside forces as fast as it will from the onslaught of a tyrannical government. Hitler was in a position to do great things for getting German out of the doldrums of WW I, but he went too far. Who called him on it? No one. Maybe if someone had, the Godwin Rule would never exist.

 

Stosh

[qwazse]

For what it's worth - the Montpelier parade was cancelled tonight (July 3) because of severe storm warnings forecast to hit at about 7 pm.

I hate when it rains on a parade.