qwazse Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 NJ, I'm not entirely sure this should be in I&P. ...Either keep 18-20 year old Venturers as youth' date=' or make them be adults. Don't go halfway. [/quote'] The choir has been preached to. And what the heck is "cannot date adults." They are adults if they are over 18. Yeah I know. I really resent (should Mrs. Q ever decide to leave me for the milkman) not being permitted to invite a venturer to a candlelight dinner until she ages out of the program. The fraternization policy isn't about age taboos. It has more to deal with leader-subordinate roles being undermined by dating relationships. There's a number of threads around here somewhere that discuss it. Wt*??? No need to cuss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sentinel947 Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 Yeah I know. I really resent (should Mrs. Q ever decide to leave me for the milkman) not being permitted to invite a venturer to a candlelight dinner until she ages out of the program. No need to cuss. Sorry.... I understand about the issue of leader/subordinate roles. However, I think you missed my point entirely. All of the Venturer "adult participants" are in fact. "adults". While I'm not advocating parents dating venturers like what you just implied. If an 18 year old Venturer is dating a 20 year old Venturer, they are both Adults. Especially if the policy is calling them "adult participants." My point has very little to do with dating at all. It wasn't about making 40 year olds able to date 18 year old participants, but rather the absurdity of the verbal gymnastics this policy is attempting to go through. I'm amazed (As I'm sure everyone else is) at trying to make them be somewhat/halfway/not really adults. Like you replied to my post "the choir has been preached to." As a relatively new leader to the program, Who was not a venturer as a youth and isn't a Venture crew advisor now, I haven't had to opportunity to contribute my alto tones to this particular choir. I suppose if this is the price to pay to eventually have rules that make sense three years down the line, I suppose it's a small price to pay. I'm sure the media choir is going to spin this about the membership issue, which is why I'm sure it moved to I&P, but I think this change was long overdue. It never made much sense. Anytime you have to bring out a chart to figure out whether 18+ year old adults are actually adults by the organizational policies, those policies don't make a whole lot of sense. What does this mean for the Order of the Arrow? Sentinel947 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
click23 Posted February 20, 2015 Author Share Posted February 20, 2015 I think this is just more of a reason the BSA should follow the traditional international scouting program model(some of the names vary country to country) Under 10/11 Cubs 10/11-14/15 Boy Scouts 14/15-17 Venture Scouts 18-25/26 Rover Scouts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stosh Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 Hmmm, a 40 year old male can date an 18 year old Boy Scout leader, but if they are registered in Venturing, they can't. Yeah, that makes perfectly good sense to me. Same for a sophomore in college dating a freshman in high school. That works okay for Venturing. Nothing like a good hypocrite laced discussion to get the juices flowing and having a debate where rules are made up as one goes along. Stosh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJCubScouter Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 I will say this, when this goes into effect it will solve one issue that I have mentioned in the past. Under the still-current rules, you can have the following situation: Joe and Charlie are (to start with) both 17, though Joe is actually a few months older. They were in the same den, now the same patrol, and have been sharing a tent for years. They are also cross-registered in the same Venture Crew, where they also usually tent together. Now Joe turns 18, takes YP training and registers as an ASM in the troop while remaining a youth member of the crew. The following week, there is a crew camping trip, and Joe and Charlie can still tent together, because they are both youth members. The following weekend, there is a troop camping trip but Joe cannot tent with Charlie because Joe is an adult leader while Charlie is still a youth member. It doesn't make sense. If it is "safe" for Charlie to share a tent with Joe when the event is called a "crew activity", why does it suddenly become "unsafe" for EXACTLY THE SAME TWO PEOPLE to share a tent when the event is called a "crew activity"? (I don't even want to think about what would happen if the crew and troop went on a joint outing. Maybe every molecule in the universe would implode at the speed of light, if you'll excuse the Ghostbusters reference.) But now THAT problem will be solved: 18 year old Joe and 17 year old Charlie will not be able to share a tent on EITHER trip. So we gain a little bit of consistency. But it doesn't make up for the overall illogic of the new system. Now, instead of being an "adult" in one unit and a "youth" in another, at the same time, Joe will be an "adult" and a "youth" in the SAME unit at the same time. And all because... Nah, I don't need to say it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJCubScouter Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 NJ' date=' I'm not entirely sure this should be in I&P.[/quote'] I'm not entirely sure either. But I don't need to be, I only need to be at least 51 percent sure, especially when I have left a redirect in the Venturing forum so anyone who wants to follow the thread can still find it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwazse Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 Sentinel, part of my comments were just to lighten things up a little. Advisors who I know laugh at this bean-countery. Wanna date across the fraternization boundary? Just let one of your registrations lapse while you do. Worst that can happen? Someone's service star comes in a few months later -- if the registrar even notices. What does this mean for the Order of the Arrow? Hopefully, this link will shed some light on your question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick_in_CA Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 Since day-one, the 18-21 age of Venturers was wrong. Since day-one denial of consumption of alcohol by 18-21 was wrong. Either one is an adult at 18 or not, this hypocritical half-way definition is and always has been a joke. The 18 year old issue came about because society didn't like the idea of sending our children off to war, but certainly wasn't going to really let them be "adults". Stosh Actually, for a big chunk of our nation's history, the legal "Age of Majority" was 21, not 18. In the 20th century, our society began to push elements of adult hood (such as the draft age in WW2) down in age for various reasons. That is how now we have the case where you are legally an adult at 18, but don't have full access to all the adult privileges (such as buying beer) until you are 21. I agree it's a bit a joke now days. It produces the absurd situation where you can have a 20 year old platoon leader in the US Army that is expected to lead some 40 soldiers in combat, but isn't considered responsible enough to buy a beer for himself. When the BSA's Senior Scout program got started in the 1930s, for most of the country, you weren't an adult until 21 (the Age of Majority was set by the states). So the ages for the program were set at 15 to 21. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick_in_CA Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 I think this is just more of a reason the BSA should follow the traditional international scouting program model(some of the names vary country to country) Under 10/11 Cubs 10/11-14/15 Boy Scouts 14/15-17 Venture Scouts 18-25/26 Rover Scouts I think this is an interesting idea, but it would be a big change. Splitting up current boy scout troops in half by age could be pretty disruptive. It would be interesting to hear from our UK members on how it works there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwazse Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 ... I agree it's a bit a joke now days. It produces the absurd situation where you can have a 20 year old platoon leader in the US Army that is expected to lead some 40 soldiers in combat' date=' but isn't considered responsible enough to buy a beer for himself....[/quote'] Not so absurd when you consider the biology. The lack of inhibition that serves so well in conditioning troops against mechanical warfare does not help much in conditioning against voluminous spirit consumption in the age of mechanical transportation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stosh Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 Not so absurd when you consider the biology. The lack of inhibition that serves so well in conditioning troops against mechanical warfare does not help much in conditioning against voluminous spirit consumption in the age of mechanical transportation. Too bad that argument validation doesn't hold true. There are plenty of DUI's written for people over 21. I have even read about people in their 70's getting DUI's. That's a bogus argument. Stosh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stosh Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 Sorry people I was alive when this whole discussion went down. Adulthood was defined as 21, then when the Vietnam War broke out the anti-war sentiment got on the "we're sending our children to go fight!" So the government dropped the age to 18, but then when the parties started to take over campuses, they upped the drinking age to 21 for no apparent reason. Now we have the nowhere people. Pre-18 year olds can be served alcohol by their parents in my state. Once they turn 18, they can't. How's that for myopic simple-mindedness? Stosh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CalicoPenn Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 The drinking age in many states was lowered as a result of the amendment to the constitution that lowered the voting age. The voting age was lowered because of the Vietnam War (old enough to fight, old enough to vote). Until 1975, most states had a minimum drinking age of 21 - after the voting age was lowered, most states figured that if someone was old enough to vote, they were old enough to drink - though oddly enough, many of them didn't lower it to 18, but lowered it to 19 or 20 and many of them lowered it only for wine and beer and not hard liquor. Not all of them lowered it either - I still remember the drinking age in Wisconsin in 1979 as being 18 for beer and wine & 21 for hard liquor but still being 21 in Illinois which meant a lot of "running for the border" from Northern Illinois. The reason the states raised it back to 21 was to prevent the loss of federal highway funds - the federal government did not raise the minimum drinking age but they certainly influenced the states in raising their minimum drinking ages (MDA) back to 21 by passing legislation that would reduce federal highway funds by 10% to any state with a lower than 21 MDA. They did this in response to noticeably higher automotive deaths due to the lowering of the drinking age during that period of time though I have to wonder how much of the increase in deaths was due to uneven drinking ages between the states - there were considerably more drunk driving accidents along the border of Wisonsin and Illinois than there were in the center of those states. As to this new adult/not adult policy, wouldn't it have been easier to make the age out for Boy Scouts at 21 rather than aging out at 18? Keep the age-out at 18 for Eagle Scout rank but resurrect the old "Leadership Corps" and anyone 18-20 wanting to remain in the Troop becoming a member of the "Leadership Corps" as youth mentors to the SPL/PL's and/or as part of a Scouting Reserve. Let common sense prevail as far as camping - Leadership Corps members camp pattrol style with other Leadership Corps members - and not as part of the other patrols. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeBob Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 I still remember the drinking age in Wisconsin in 1979 as being 18 for beer and wine & 21 for hard liquor but still being 21 in Illinois which meant a lot of "running for the border" from Northern Illinois. And Wisconsin's New Glarus Beers and Point were better than Illinois offerings. The reason the states raised it back to 21 was to prevent the loss of federal highway funds - the federal government did not raise the minimum drinking age So I bought beer legally at the PX on the Navy base in Athens, but couldn't drink it off-post. Legally. Federal jurisdiction vs, state. noticeably higher automotive deaths due to the lowering of the drinking age during that period of time though I have to wonder how much of the increase in deaths was due to uneven drinking ages between the states - Underage kids couldn't drink in a bar or at home, so they paid 21 year-olds to get them beer and drank it in private - driving around. Thanks MADD. Overlooked in this whole milieu is the increase in drug consumption caused by the 21 year old drinking age. It was a lot easier to hide a baggie of weed or a gram of cocaine from your folks than it was to slip a cooler of beer past mom and dad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twocubdad Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 Overlooked in this whole milieu is the increase in drug consumption caused by the 21 year old drinking age. It was a lot easier to hide a baggie of weed or a gram of cocaine from your folks than it was to slip a cooler of beer past mom and dad. Yahtzee! Drinking is for the older, college-aged kids into micro-brewed IPAs and porters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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