A major shift from the Boy Scouts of America:
Irving, Texas – October 11, 2017 – Today, the Boy Scouts of America Board of Directors unanimously approved to welcome girls into its iconic Cub Scout program and to deliver a Scouting program for older girls that will enable them to advance and earn the highest rank of Eagle Scout. The historic decision comes after years of receiving requests from families and girls, the organization evaluated the results of numerous research efforts, gaining input from current members and leaders, as well as parents and girls who've never been involved in Scouting – to understand how to offer families an important additional choice in meeting the character development needs of all their children.
"This decision is true to the BSA's mission and core values outlined in the Scout Oath and Law. The values of Scouting – trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind, brave and reverent, for example – are important for both young men and women," said Michael Surbaugh, the BSA's Chief Scout Executive. "We believe it is critical to evolve how our programs meet the needs of families interested in positive and lifelong experiences for their children. We strive to bring what our organization does best – developing character and leadership for young people – to as many families and youth as possible as we help shape the next generation of leaders."
[...] Starting in the 2018 program year, families can choose to sign up their sons and daughters for Cub Scouts. Existing packs may choose to establish a new girl pack, establish a pack that consists of girl dens and boy dens or remain an all-boy pack. Cub Scout dens will be single-gender — all boys or all girls. Using the same curriculum as the Boy Scouts program, the organization will also deliver a program for older girls, which will be announced in 2018 and projected to be available in 2019, that will enable them to earn the Eagle Scout rank. This unique approach allows the organization to maintain the integrity of the single gender model while also meeting the needs of today's families.
I'll admit it, I was a little surprised by the announcement. As a longtime member of the BSA and an Eagle Scout, I find this extremely interesting. I know some who are dead set against it, and others who are totally for it. My personal opinion is that it will be a good thing, both for the BSA and for the young men and women who become part of the organization.
The biggest loser in all of this will probably be the Girl Scouts. I can see their membership numbers dwindling rapidly if/when this takes off.
As a side note, Scouting has been co-ed in many countries for decades.
Both the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts have seen decreasing membership in recent years, and both have been trying to find ways to increase their membership. In this context, they now seem to be butting heads:
The Boy Scouts will soon include girls, and not everyone's happy about it.
The 107-year-old organization announced Wednesday that younger girls will be allowed to join Cub Scouts and that older girls will be eligible to earn the prestigious rank of Eagle Scout.
[...] For months, Girl Scouts USA had a notion BSA would try to start recruiting girls. In August, Buzzfeed News obtained a strongly worded letter in which GSUSA President Kathy Hopinkah Hannan accused the BSA of courting girls to boost falling enrollment numbers.
From the letter:
We are confused as to why, rather than working to appeal to the 90 percent of boys who are not involved in BSA programs, you would choose to target girls.
What are your thoughts? Were you ever a boy scout, or a girl scout, or did they ever affect you in any way? And do you think the BSA should be praised for opening their doors to girls or should they be castigated for 'targeting' girls who would be better off staying with their own kind?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @12:53AM (5 children)
I think it's good, I reject gender stereotypes. I may have joined the scouts purely to meet girls if they'd been admitted when I was young. I also reject the notion of "transgender" [soylentnews.org] though, so what do I know?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @01:16AM
You know that you are heterosexual and not mysoginist, but you don't know enough about human biology. Didn't read your link tho
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @09:42AM
You think boy scouts won't earn a badge for helping lady? HashTagGenderStereotypes
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @01:00PM (1 child)
Hahahaha! I followed the link to a comment that links to a comment, and if your problem is raising children as gender neutral is bad, then guess what you'll never listen to! As somebody trans, I think you're right!!!!
You won't listen to that. Obviously I must be lying to you because I'm a feminist SJW that wants to force you to be gay married!!!!
Frist things frist, though. I'm taking what you mean by "gender neutral" as to mean "gender neutered" or somesuch. My interpretation is that you're disdainful of trying to suppress a child's natural gender. And you're right to be disdainful of that!!! But where is this crazy transSEXual feminist SJW going with this? How am I going to deceive you and force you to be gay married?!
You'll never guess why I think raising children in a gender neutered way is wrong. You never will. You reject the notion of the brain as a gendered organ against brain imagining studies that affirm the experience of cisgendered people. That's right! These things affirm your cisgendered experience!!!!
Bwahaha! But you won't listen!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @01:03PM
s/imagining/imaging/. No imagination required for these studies. The images are clear. The reality that the brain is a gendered organ is as clear as daylight. But you're blind, so when I say the sky is currently red this morning, you think I'm crazy, because you know that the sky is always blue, because how could the sky change colors spontaneously! And anyway, there probably is no such thing as color, because you're blind and cannot perceive it, and color is probably another of my crazy SJW feminist transSEXual lies to force you to be gay married!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @06:32PM
That's contradictory in practice. Rejecting the stereotype would mean that clothing, hair style, and makeup wouldn't matter. However, genital-based bathroom laws force it to matter in practice because people will report those who don't "look right" to the "genital cops". If everyone rejected gender stereotypes it wouldn't be contradictory because people wouldn't report visual mismatches, but in practice they don't reject it.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 13 2017, @12:57AM (26 children)
I gotta say I think they made the right choice keeping at least the Cub Scout dens single gender. The girls will learn a whole lot more without a bunch of knucklehead boys hoorahing around. I'm not dogging boys but I was one myself and I'm in no denial about the knuckleheadedness of us at that age.
As for the older scouts, I'm just gonna say that there's no moral code in the world that's strong enough to keep a teenaged boy's hormones under control. That's going to make for some interesting camp outs.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by LoRdTAW on Friday October 13 2017, @01:11AM (2 children)
Oof. Now you got me wishing this happened in 1992.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @01:12AM (1 child)
Too late for me. Now I am a lifelong virgin.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @08:30AM
You won't be a virgin long with titties in the tent!
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday October 13 2017, @01:58AM (6 children)
Was a cub-scout for like a month -- I didn't much like hanging out at my friend's apartment praying and tying knots all day. After a few weeks of not being taught how to whittle my own bow and use it to shoot flaming arrows, my parents reluctantly let me go back to jumping my bike and sitting on my ass playing Nintendo all day.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Whoever on Friday October 13 2017, @05:10AM (4 children)
Praying?
Did you attend one of the many troops that are sponsored by the Mormon church? Otherwise, I can't imagine any more than token prayers in scouts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @06:12AM
Indeed and the pack I joined was run by men and we did masculine things like rock climbing and snow camping.
Just because one pack doesn't work for you, doesn't mean another won't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @02:26PM (2 children)
"On My Honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and to my country..."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @04:31PM
To steal a phrase from my Scout Master as he taught that to the new kids, "And notice that GOD comes first, BEFORE everything else!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @08:04PM
While that's always in there, the degree to which it's observed varied. I had Jews and a Sikh in my troop along with those not having religious views.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @09:28AM
They had you tying knots? As a Cub Scout??
Wow. I remember us spent all of our time making crap out of Chlorox bottles, cardboard boxes, vegetable packaging, macaroni, and that kind of junk.
...and I'm as skeptical about the praying as is Whoever (4524).
.
Daddy was an Eagle Scout.
Mama was a den mother for 2 years during the time my big brother and I were a Cubs.
I went all the way to getting my Weblos badge (the old type).
Took a year off from scouts then started back with Boy Scouts.
Mama got really involved in Girl Scouts when my baby sister was in that.
My last days in a Boy Scout troop was as Assistant Senior Patrol Leader (2nd ranking kid in the troop structure).
I was also inducted into The Order of the Arrow.
I got to be a Star Scout and had the merit badges for Life Scout but lost interest.
Looking back, Boy Scouts was kinda paramilitary, with that troop being particularly so (military town with military men as scout leaders).
I joined an Explorer post when I was 14.
That was co-ed, over half a century ago.
When I started working, I quit scouting.
So, do the trickle-down thing age-wise and get all of the kids involved in the same paramilitary structure?
With a chickenhawk in the White House doing a whole bunch of saber rattling (and his opponent last year being just as big a chickenhawk), seems like a pretty natural step to me.
With a repeat of the 1930s in motion and Fascism on the rise worldwide, why not a USAian version of the Hitler Youth?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by mendax on Friday October 13 2017, @04:03AM (11 children)
Well, probably. I suppose BSA could issue a merit badge for virginity, although it would be hard for a boy to prove that he's lived up to it. I wonder what its icon would be.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @05:34AM
We mandate gene therapy for all kids at birth, adding new chemical signals and receptors to the genitalia. The new DNA causes a permanent color change when you first have sex.
We can use the green florescent protein as an indicator.
Note that the change can be non-local. Signal molecules can be transported via the bloodstream from the genitals to where we want a color change. The part that does the color change can be a pattern, kind of like a tattoo. For example, the word "FUCKER" could appear on the forehead. This lets the scout leaders know at the next meeting, without needing an invasive and improper genital examination.
By taking a major source of dishonesty out of dating, this also helps to keep the scouts honest.
If we use different signal molecules for the penis and each orifice, we can even be more specific. For example, the forehead could read "COCKSUCKER" or "BUTTFUCKER" as needed.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @10:09AM (1 child)
"I wonder what its icon would be."
A game controller?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 13 2017, @02:21PM
A stylized DnD wizard or if the graphics arts team freak, the text "/r9k/" would probably do among today's youth.
If we're going to shitpost controversial merit badges I'm thinking of one with the artwork of a simple "red pill".
There's a small subculture of scouts or parents where mom owns a digital embroidery machine or has access at a makerspace or WTF, and somehow they end up with funny/meme fake/artistic merit badges, I've recently seen red MAGA hat merit badges, several variations on topless or nude women presumably the anti-virginity merit badge, the puking in the toilet merit badge for drunkenness, many on the topic of odiferous or flammable flatulence, marijuana leaves of course, sunken canoes, cryptozoologist and several variations on ghost hunting merit badge, a "started a forest fire" merit badge, a dozen variations on "asshole merit badge", many variations on "I burned dinner over a campfire" theme ... every troop has some goofball with a collection of "meme merit badges" its worth finding him for a laugh. The funniest one he had was a "worked all the way to 5 pm" merit badge, LOL.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RedBear on Friday October 13 2017, @11:27AM (6 children)
Don't even joke about that. Virginity tests are complete and total nonsense for either gender, and one of the tools used to oppress women and girls throughout the world.
This "Adam Ruins Everything" video about the hymen explains in detail exactly why there is no such thing as a valid "virginity test" (superstition and religious fundamentalist BS notwithstanding) and such things are a human rights violation. I feel strongly that every human should understand and spread the truth of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ikXim4wevc [youtube.com]
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday October 13 2017, @02:08PM (3 children)
Useless virginity tests are the wrong approach.
Use chastity protection devices instead. Designed using modern tech. Maybe even chastity protecting drugs. Boys and girls could be trusted to be together without doing or even thinking about naughty things. In time the entire world could stop doing naughty things. What a wonderful world it would be.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Friday October 13 2017, @02:45PM (1 child)
By Everlast!
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @07:07PM
CALL THE LOCKSMITH!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 13 2017, @02:46PM
Just have her the fleshy part of her nose surgically amputated at birth. Problem solved.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @07:19PM (1 child)
The hymen is real. Those "virgins" without one are lying. There are multiple motives to do so, but the hymen evolved because it signals value: a lack of disease and a lower risk of cuckoldry.
I get that you don't like this. I get that you want to deny that essentially all women come with a hymen, but that isn't the reality. Women have an anti-tamper seal to ensure freshness.
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Monday October 23 2017, @04:14AM
Oh my non-existent god. Go DIAFF, misogynist troll.
The hymen is not a "seal". Each and every hymen has a hole in it to let out menstrual fluids, otherwise millions of young women would die every year from blood poisoning due to the build-up of menstrual fluids behind the hymen, and you would hear stories of young women routinely having a bizarre sudden explosion of blood from the pressure finally rupturing their hymen. Have you ever heard a story like that in human history? Nope. Because the hymen is designed so that can't happen. There's no such thing as doctors having to puncture the hymen to save a pubescent girl's life, because it already has a natural hole in it. It does very little to keep anything inside, which by definition means that it also does very little to keep anything out.
Having a hole means that there are multiple ways in which a "virgin" with a supposedly "intact" hymen (by someone's arbitrary definition of what "intact" means) can be impregnated. All you have to do is somehow get a viable sperm cell past the partial barrier without doing egregious, visibly obvious damage. Et voilá, a pregnant "virgin". It also means that by the reality of variable human biology, some women will have smaller holes in the hymen, and others will completely naturally have larger holes through no fault of their own. Some women will also have larger vaginal openings and stretchier hymens, to the point that some will be able to have penetrative sex for years without appearing to have a "torn" hymen.
So then it comes down to a completely arbitrary decision by the examining physician as to whether any given female has a small enough or tight enough opening to qualify as still being a "virgin". That's not science, it's superstitious insanity. Where are the published specs on exactly how small or how tight a hole has to be in order to qualify for a virginity medal? There aren't any, because the whole idea is BS. You might just as easily try to measure the tightness of a male anus to see if he's ever been on the receiving end of anal sex. Anyone should be able to see that would be a ludicrous idea. Using any measurement of the vaginal opening or the hymen as a virginity test is equally ludicrous.
The hymen can be torn by something as simple as doing the splits or riding a bike. I've never seen a girl in western society that doesn't do at least one of those things many times while growing up. And let's not even talk about the idea of a human female of any age inserting a foreign object into the vagina, thus completely negating the idea that the state of her hymen could be used as proof she engaged in intercourse with a human male. That could NEVER happen for any reason. *cough* tampons *cough* masturbationaids *cough* fingers *cough* Excuse me.
Every male on this planet that is convinced the hymen is some kind of pop-top bottle cap anti-tamper proof-of-penile-penetration hermetic seal is insane and an active danger to half the human species.
There are two different logical issues here that you can drive the planet Jupiter through.
First, you want to claim that the human hymen "evolved" so that modern day doctors can use artificial devices to examine it and arbitrarily decide that it is or isn't "intact". If you thought about that for even a microsecond you'd realize how silly the whole idea is. Show me a single mammalian species besides superstitious humans that gives one rats ass whether any female of the species has an "intact" hymen. If it were really something that evolution provided selection pressure for, it would be a big deal to many mammalian species. And we've already talked about how there is no such thing as an "intact" hymen as far as science is concerned. So, total illogical nonsense.
Second, the female can easily be exposed to STDs in various ways while still technically being a "virgin" as far as penile-vaginal penetration is concerned, and cuckoldry can occur at any point from moments after (or even before, see above) the first sex act between husband and wife, so the state of the hymen is ultimately irrelevant to either of those issues. An examination of the hymen can't even guarantee the parentage of the first born child, much less have any bearing on any of the succeeding 15 or 20 offspring a woman might be capable of delivering during her lifetime.
What you're really saying is that certain incredibly ignorant modern humans have mistakenly interpreted the existence and variable qualities of the human female hymen as having a certain "value", even though the "value" it supposedly provides is superstitious, anti-scientific nonsense. I am in total agreement with that.
I get that this makes you uncomfortable, and that you want your mind-bendingly misogynist "freshness-seal" mythos to be true, but it simply isn't. There is NO science to support your assertions whatsoever, and a mountain of scientific evidence that negates it.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @11:46PM
They have one already. It's called "Eagle Scout."
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @01:30PM (2 children)
Right, so when can boys sign up for girl scouts? Oh wait this wasn't about equality after all?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 13 2017, @02:20PM
Of course it wasn't. It was about growing their community to combat flagging numbers. Why would a boy want to join the GSA anyway? The BSA offers a far better experience in every way except the cookies.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday October 13 2017, @06:04PM
Right, so when can boys sign up for girl scouts? Oh wait this wasn't about equality after all?
When the Girl Scouts, which is a completely separate organization, decides they can.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @03:19PM
It's all a scam. The adults were tired of fighting the boys to cook their own camp meals and clean up afterwards. They're just hiring a ready made clean up crew. Besides, those tents ain't gonna sweep themselves out.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by iwoloschin on Friday October 13 2017, @12:58AM (19 children)
As an Eagle Scout and father of a young girl, I fully support this, my daughter may never show interest in scouting, of any kind, and that's totally fine! I'm just happy that now she has more options open to her.
I do think they could use a name change though...but that might be a harder battle to fight.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 13 2017, @01:10AM (9 children)
Really, it'd be a pretty good time for a merger. The BSA have better numbers but the GSA is way, way better at marketing. I mean, come on, popcorn vs. thin mints?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @03:10AM (8 children)
The boy scouts camp out in the wildnerness, surrounded by wildlife and trees.
The girl scouts camp out at entrances to grocery stores, surrounded by boxes of cookies.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Friday October 13 2017, @08:12AM (1 child)
That at least addresses the issue of wild, raging hormones :)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday October 13 2017, @02:10PM
Please no! It's better to acknowledge that wild raging hormones do not exist. Ignore the problem long enough and it will go away.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Friday October 13 2017, @10:11AM
Girl scouts ftw!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 13 2017, @12:57PM (4 children)
Thats funny because its true, but I was a scout as a kid and my kids have been scouts and the difference are WAY deeper.
Like it or not, just like there's fundamental biological differences in bodies and races there's differences in brains and hormones.
So naturally cub scouts focused on boys has them mix running around and hands on, and play and hobby interests are slightly aggressive. Girl scouts is mostly girls holding hands and talking about their feelings and art projects and singing friendship songs to each other. No shitposting. Seriously. Seen it. Different strokes for different folks. The girl scouts are likely to use crayons to color a picture of a deer and talk about their feelings about the movie Bambi and sing their favorite disney song from the movie and the boys are extremely likely to hang the same picture up and shoot target practice arrows at it to get an archery belt loop (kids) or merit badge (teen boys). Boys and Girls are different, you see. Just like races and cultures and religions and cuisines. Biological level, mental level, all the way. Either you're scientific and red pilled to human biological differences or its Lysenkoism politics overrides scientific fact blue pills.
Now the boy scout environment is not friendly or designed for the estrogen component of humanity so it must be changed and destroyed to fit them because they are higher priority than fucking white males, which will drive away the last of the boys in favor of theoretical girls who won't come anyway, resulting in the immolation of the entire system. It seems VERY foolish.
Weirdly in practice not a hell of a lot is changing. When I was a kid and when I was treasurer of my son's pack, scout families tend to be bigger and its INCREDIBLY common for sisters to be at the pack meetings. And, well, we're putting band aids on for first aid class or we're visiting the fire station or we're doing family camping in the group campground at the local county park or whatever, and it seems stupid to exclude the moms and sisters, so they come along ... But the meeting and plans were all about the boys and girls were allowed/tolerated, not prioritized above the needs of the boys, as will happen now.
This is actually a fascinating analogy for right wing / alt-right politics. In scouting we had an org of, by, and for the boys, but that doesn't mean we put the moms and sisters in ovens or brought Zyklon B to meetings or campouts. In fact we did the western civilization tradition of treating our visiting guest very well, to the point of luxury. There's only one cabin? Thats for the moms and sisters. There's only one outhouse, thats for the girls you guys shit in the woods. Extra food for seconds? Ladies first. But nice as we were, the org was always of, by, and for the boys. Despite left wing propaganda and talking points, that's how real right wingers think and act around outside or minority groups. You're welcome in our house, just don't forget, its our house. Most of us have very little interest in building camps and ovens, that would definitely be a last resort. A "white supremacist" takeover of the country would look a hell of a lot more like a 00s era boy scout camp than the 40s german final solution camps. Mostly because we're mostly scouts and ex-mil Americans not 40s Germans. Different cultures and all that.
Also the BSA organization has more than cub scouts and boy scouts. They have venturing which is literally older boy scouts that allows girls. Venturing is screwed by this decision. I don't really understand the point. If girls wanted to do "boy scout" stuff they could have joined the boy scouts of america inc's venturing program last week. Now they have to decide between venturing and boy scouting and the difference is ... I donno.
Overall I think this is pretty bad news for the legacy organizations. If my kids were a little younger I guess I'd be doing the Trail Life and Heritage Girls stuff, which is basically less pozz'd boy scouts and girl scouts, think of them like scouting from the "old days" like the turn of this century and you'd be mostly correct. I don't understand why the local scouting org has a catholic church as a sponsor, the church is going to kick scouting out in favor of TL and AHG pretty soon as has already happened across the country. So its hard to guess if scouting will die because of lack of kids / excess of liberal parental destructive virtue signalling or if the sponsor orgs will say enough is enough and kick them out leaving the packs and troops with no sponsor.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @01:35PM (1 child)
My daughter loved tagging along to cub scouts with my son. They learned to make fires, carve things, use a pocketknife, make birdhouses, first aid, build and race wooden cars, tie knots, and had epic games of tag and tug of war.
In Girl Scouts they colored, did workbooks, sold a shitton of cookies, and went to a jamboree once per year.
I participated in both with my children, and the former was more fun for me. The girl scout meetings felt like schoolwork, honestly.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 13 2017, @02:52PM
Confirmed. Four minor extensions:
AC's probably a rare SN female because our council didn't allow male participation other than very strictly isolated events. My wife did volunteer as a leader. Reportedly most of the female GS leaders spend most of their time doing cat fights with the other alpha females. Strangely enough the alpha males in scout leadership got along great, probably because we were over half ex-mil and that teaches you to work for a common goal or maybe its just another human biological difference between the sexes, or whatever. I just thought it was funny that the leadership men in boy scouts all become friends but the leadership in GS are like an adult parody of "mean girls" movie and they all hate each other. If my hypothesis is correct about ACs female-ness, therefore AC was probably in GS leadership which only permits women, then it would be interesting to confirm or deny the GS female leaders were catty and/or cattier than the general population.
I'd subjectively add that everything seemed more expensive for the girls but they seemed to raise more money selling cookies, which I thought was weird. So you sold 4x as much dollar value cookies as my son sold popcorn, but his boy scout two nights overnight swim test/camp is merely $20 donation toward food (teen boys can certainly eat $20 of food over two days especially out camping, so thats totally fair...) yet your four hour girl scout afternoon swim party at the council site is $75, something seems off here... There's a lot of money in GS and its not going to the girls but lots of it is obviously going somewhere. There's less money in BS and every penny, plus some, seems to go to the boys.
There were a lot of girl and parent entries in the pinewood derby some of which were pretty funny. The hello kitty car was extremely popular among the girls. The "buy girl scout cookies" advertising car with a real cookie tie strapped to the car. The "Frozen" movie theme car shaped like a sandal.
I'm convinced "be prepared" as a BS thing isn't so much to prepare for life, although that's nice, but because scoutmasters were tired of kids showing up forgetting stuff. GS show up unprepared all the time. She wore high heels to a couple mile nature hike? And some other girl wore flip flops? WTF? There's "BS screwed up" level which is still less messed up than "GS operating nominally" level and "GS screwed up" is like now we need SAR support, every freaking time. The medieval trope of maidens needing rescuing, its not just lazy novel writers, I think its like female genetic to lure in husbands or something. This ... trait or whatever... might be an interesting issue with "forcing" girls into boy scouts aside from the obvious stuff like sex parties in the tents and skinny dipping and stuff like that. You're going to have girls show up with only one hiking boot or forgot their hair curler or wtf at camp.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday October 13 2017, @03:02PM (1 child)
A shit ton of the politics you're talking are direct responses to the over-aggressive pseudo-scientific assertions you're trying to make here about gender differences.
Let's start with the obvious: there's no biological reason for girl shit to be pink. Hell, pink used to be a boy's color.
What's next? There's no biological reason that boys shouldn't grow up with parenting toys like baby dolls. It's more important for girls, sure, but mainly because boys are so freaked out by the sheer unknown of parenthood they take the opportunity to run away. And plenty of men turn out to be incredibly invested in their families.
We can discuss tons of differences that are primarily hormonal in nature. But guess what: we can change a person's hormones quite easily. So the difference in upper body strength that leads to so many loosely justified cultural differences, well that's biological but it isn't an imperative.
In much the same way, the many ways we treat women differently because women bear children are not an imperative. Women can be naturally infertile, and they can very easily be on birth control. And just like with men, there will always be perfectly fertile individuals who just don't ever want children.
And while you can make generalizations about men and women as groups, you will always find a man and a woman such that the woman is stronger, the man is more emotional, the woman is more aggressive, the man is more family-oriented, the woman is more analytical, the man is more neurotic, the woman is more crude, the man is more gentle. There is no difference between men and women such that every single man stands on one side of the line and every single woman stands on the other.
I will readily admit that there are real biological differences between men and women. Some of them are even unchangeable. But none of them are a hard black/white distinction between men and women. And the cultural constructs built up around these differences have gotten pretty weird.
Guess whose rights the feminist is fighting for. It's foremost the women whose desires and personality are closer to those of men (there are lots of them). And if you are talking to the right feminist, it's also the men whose desires and personality are closer to those of women (there are lots of them too).
And why is it a fight? Why does it have to be a huge movement to gain any ground? Because assholes like you keep drawing lines in the sand, declaring that X is for women only and Y is for men only, no exceptions. You like to pretend it's "tradition", even when it was invented in the 20th century by advertisers trying to manipulate us into spending more money. And when people inevitably find themselves forced to the other side of your stupid lines than where they would be naturally, they are forced to wonder what's wrong with them.
But you know what one thing is a biological imperative about all humans? That separation is not equal. It would be nice if we could have separate systems for naturally different groups of people. But whenever that happens, one group always gets to be the boss. And we don't trust in your magnanimity. Because let's face it: the "cultural differences" between "mostly scounts and ex-mil Americans" and "40s Germans" are much narrower than you think. Especially when your underclasses refuse to cow themselves to your self-professed superiority.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday October 14 2017, @04:00PM
OK a distractor of talking about clothes colors. Whatever.
"shouldn't grow up with" has little to do with "have little interest in unless forced by parents proud to post on social media about it"
"we can change" Mutilation of a successful system is always possible. We could chop off everyone's left hand, in theory. Doesn't sound like a very good idea. What is the advantage of replacing a proven working system with a system of unnatural alienation?
Then we have the individual vs group statistical fallacy where over lapping bell curves somehow mathematically proves the curves are perfectly identical and there is no difference and the area underneath has to be treated as equal if there's any overlap. As if it matters or somehow proves ... anything. As if having no overlap, in theory, would somehow prove anything. Its a strange mental meme attractor that accomplishes nothing but is always quoted in these discussions.
"keep drawing lines in the sand" Life is borders. Since the first cell wall evolved billions of years ago.
"And when people inevitably find themselves forced to the other side of your stupid lines than where they would be naturally, they are forced to wonder what's wrong with them." As if that's a problem. Again the handicapped analogy. If there's one car accident victim without a left hand, we must all have our left hands chopped off to be "equal". Or we must spend all day praising each other for ever more eloquent explanations of why there's no difference between people or their abilities with or without left hands and only haters would notice the empty sleeve "in the current year we are all left-hand-less"
Its a replacement for a demand, a human right, of empathy and tolerance, with a demand for lies about equality.
"But whenever that happens, one group always gets to be the boss." Actually, no. A lot of people mistakenly think boy scouts and girl scouts are related or under the same corporate umbrella but they're quite separate with no superiority issues. Under 'normal' conditions, not during war time, most countries with borders mostly have sovereignty, thats kind of the point. My house is separate but equal to my neighbors house. For almost all of human history most of humanity has not lived under a world wide empire and it would be very unusual for, say, an Aztec warrior to live inferior or beneath a roman senator. Its actually the other way around, separation almost never results in hierarchy, in fact its so unusual of a human experience that we blow lots of labor on literature and history narrative when hierarchy does unusually appear.
"Especially when your underclasses refuse to cow themselves to your self-professed superiority." That is essentially the modern right wing or alt-right in a nutshell. A rampage of cultural racism and sexism against white males and western civilization that its universally inferior and to be hated and genocided and that is the only permissible public opinion, and "naah, I don't think so" as the response. I think you were trying to talk about non-whites or women or leftists or something, but they're the dominant violent culture at this time.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Friday October 13 2017, @01:18AM (5 children)
In my house and pack/troop, we always referred to cub/boy scouts as just "Scouts". I dont see what they cant drop the boy and just use the name "Scouts". I know "scouts" is pretty generic so maybe throw in America somewhere. Scouts of America? Or maybe "Boys and Girls Scouts" like the boys& girls club. Whatever. Everyone still gonna just call it scouts.
My father and his brother were both eagle scouts. I went as far as boy scouts but after my father had his stroke, that was pretty much the end of it for me. I was 14 at the time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @03:00AM (3 children)
Scouting USA?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Friday October 13 2017, @01:40PM (2 children)
For those who don't know Scouting history that was a motto from the BSA's 1970s "vatican II moment".
Much like vatican II the peak happened and then it was time to change everything and since then its been continuous decline although surely it could never be the fault of the changes LOL.
Unlike vatican II, most of Scouting/USA got rolled back in the 80s and things did improve quite a bit.
Its an interesting compare and contrast of organizational response to lack of support of massive reorganization. The scouts did a successful rollback; the church my wife attends is about 75% 80+ yr senior citizens and will be closing soon. You can draw graphs and trendline models and estimate the date the last white catholic dies or leaves the faith in the USA, and its surprisingly soon. Reality of course has no obligation to follow a trendline, LOL.
(Score: 2, Informative) by cmdrklarg on Friday October 13 2017, @02:48PM
And nothing of value will have been lost. Good riddance.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @05:54PM
There are some huge Catholic families. As long as this behavior is somewhat inherited, by culture or DNA, there will be exponential growth.
Start with 65 million people, but only 1 million are prone to large families. Generation by generation, the number of people will decline, but if you focus on the descendants of the 1 million oddballs you will see population growth. So the next generation has 32 million that make small (1 kid) families, and 3 million that make large (6 kid) families. Then it is 16 million and 9 million, the low point at 25 million total. Then it is 8 million and 27 million. Then it is 4 million and 81 million, above the starting point and the slow breeders have become insignificant. Then it is 2 million and 243 million. Then it is 1 million and 729 million. Then it is 0.5 million and 2187 million. Then it is 0.25 and 6561 million. Then... look, we're well past today's world population.
The only chance of failure is violence from other populations that grow even faster. That could be muslims.
The above is of course why "demographic transition" is not long-term stable. We can not help but fill the world to capacity, likely with an occasional overshoot.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Friday October 13 2017, @05:13AM
This is how it is in the UK, where the Scout movement has been co-ed for many years.
Not many girls actually opt to join the scouts, though. This is more of a symbolic move.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @05:06AM (1 child)
It's absolutely ridiculous. Just another instance of women bullying their way in where they don't belong. Where precisely are boys supposed to go to figure out how to be upstanding men if they can't ever get time away from women to just be young men?
Women get to have women's only groups, seems to me that there were other options for those that wanted a coed experience. I fall to see why they allowed women to ruin something else that was a positive influence in boy's lives.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday October 13 2017, @02:32PM
Why should boys or men ever be allowed to have any time or place where they can be together without the presence of a woman? Can you even imagine the naughty things that could happen? It should be taken further that boys and men shouldn't even be allowed to be alone without the presence of a woman. It would take some doing to reorganize society along these lines. But it would be worth it in the end.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday October 13 2017, @02:23PM
Keep the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts separate please. No need to intermix them. But allow boys to join the Girl Scouts. After all, the Girl Scouts should be inclusive too.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by KilroySmith on Friday October 13 2017, @01:10AM (22 children)
My son is a boy scout, my daughter a girl scout.
The Boy Scout experience, though heavily rooted in 1800's wilderness skills, is a positive one with growth of the boy's skills and self confidence.
The Girl Scout experience is crap. They are so afraid of getting sued, that any activity that might involve a skinned knee or an interaction with a stranger (or, gasp, a man!) is forbidden. The experience is a disjointed set of what appears to be unrelated activities; the growth of skills and self esteem, if it happens, is purely accidental.
I still believe that there are good reasons to allow segregation of boys/girls at this age, assuming equivalent (yes, I know; separate but equal) opportunities. But, my opinion isn't shared by my kids - they're growing up in a different time than I did, and haven't seen the same level of "you go do girl things over there while we have fun here" discrimination - except in the opportunities offered by the boy scouts v. the girl scouts.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday October 13 2017, @01:23AM (13 children)
But will the BSA find themselves forced into the same behavior when they have Girls in their organization? Hopefully not.
Personally, I was never a member of either, but I did subscribe to the BSA magazine for several years when I was of that age. I liked the subject matter but I never found much to like about the organization itself.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday October 13 2017, @01:48AM
Of course they will. The lawyers and feminists are the same evil force that made the Girl Scouts useless. And the segregated packs will last until the first girl wants to be in the boys' club. If they kept the segregation all the way up I'd have to problem with this idea, in theory, but in $current_year and the already existing poz infecting the BSA this is just confirmation: If you didn't put your boys in one of the alternate scouting orgs years ago you have no business objecting to any of this now.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 13 2017, @02:15AM (11 children)
Additionally - you can find instances of mismanagement in both the BSA and GSA. But, that mismanagement is worse in the GSA. They have sold off a lot of real estate, so that they can spend money on frivolities. The BSA is far more reluctant to lose any of their real estate.
And, really, that seems odd to me. In my experience, as individuals, women are more attached to their land than men are, because they make a more personal and emotion connection to the land.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @09:23AM (10 children)
Right.
From the real world, men and women are almost the same and have the same emotions about things. Attachment, sex, whatever. The only difference is men are actually more emotional while women tend to *express* emotions better for their own benefits.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 13 2017, @10:21AM (2 children)
You really need to talk to a shrink or even a sociologist. You're astoundingly incorrect.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @01:02PM (1 child)
So are you just that stupid or are you trying to troll?
It is astounding that people first steer men as "tough" and women as some "magic fragile flowers", then they try to reinforce this through a positive feedback loop while the opposite is true. Both sexes are very much the same. Maybe you should actually *talk* to both women and men instead of accepting societal stereotypes? By nurture, rather than nature, women are simply allowed to express their emotions in our somewhat patriarchal society while men are forbidden to do so. What you end up is a society of broken men.
But you get what you get. People trying to troll, or simply being ignorant (and by acting on their ignorant beliefs, being stupid) -- sad! Then keep your backwards beliefs that men belong in manly jobs, and women belong in the kitchen raising kids...
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 13 2017, @02:25PM
Sweety, you can deny science all you like but it's still going to exist. Men and women are both physically and mentally different. Always have been. Always will be.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 13 2017, @01:38PM (6 children)
Lemme think a second here. Men, especially young men, have raging hormones that stay pretty much the same all the time. Women have a hormone cycle that sends them constantly up and down and up again. Then, they've got this 9 month thing where hormones do especially crazy things to them. And, finally, that end-of-fertility thing, which does some VERY crazy things to some of them, and mildly crazy things to others. And, you're asking us to believe that men are more emotional than women? All of that emotional stuff you see from women are just "expressions"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzlG28B-R8Y [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday October 13 2017, @03:08PM (5 children)
It used to be that we didn't have any ubiquitous counterexamples to this unscientific claim about men and women's emotions. But hey, they said if I voted for Hillary I would end up with an emotionally unstable insider with a private email server. Well, I voted for Hillary, and look what happened.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 13 2017, @03:13PM (4 children)
"unscientific"? What rock are you hiding under. Anyone who's actually studied the brain can look at male and female brain activity scans real-time and easily tell which is which.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday October 13 2017, @04:33PM (3 children)
Sorry, I was responding to the overwhelming use of anecdotal common-sense style argument. You're right, men's and women's brains look different under fMRI. But the "unscientific claim" had nothing to do with brain scans. It had to do with the difference between an estrogen/progesterone cycle and a relatively constant level of testosterone.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 13 2017, @04:49PM (2 children)
Ahh, roger. This would probably best be studied in trans folks, pre- and post-hormone supplementing. I don't know of any good research on the subject though and I doubt we'll see any soon because it would be politically incorrect regardless of the results. PC currently dictates that you not acknowledge any proven mental differences between women and men, while still claiming trans folks are born mentally different enough to warrant major surgery.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by j-beda on Friday October 13 2017, @09:37PM (1 child)
I don't know, most of the gender differences I have seen (ie the differences between the average male and the average female) are comperable or smaller than the agerage differences between members of either population. Men are "on average" taller than women, but the difference in hight of any two randomly selected women (or men) is similar, or larger, than that.
The two population overlap so much, that while the differences are potentially useful when thinking about the entire groups, they are almost useless when dealing with individuals. If you divide a population into two groups, "A" and "B" and make comparisons on some characteristic, call is "foo-ness", and find that, on average, group "A" scores 20% higher than group "B", that doesn't mean much if the spread in each group is such that there is a lot of overlap. Pick a person at random from "A" and from "B" and compare them - how much do they differ? Pick two people from "A" - how much do they differ? Two people from "B"? For the most part, if we do "A" and "B" by gender, these differences between groups are not hugely different from the differences within groups. Making policy or societal decisions based on these types of differences make for very poor fit to a large number of individuals, since many of the group "A" are more like group "B" people than they are like other group "A" people, and visa versa, on whatever "foo-ness" measure you might want to make.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 13 2017, @11:15PM
Sure, people do not all individually fit generalizations. That doesn't make the generalization invalid for use, so long as you keep in mind that it's a generalization, though. The mental, emotional, and most physical generalizations of men and women, however, are extremely accurate and that should be kept in mind. Ignore science at your own peril.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @03:03AM (7 children)
well, hopefully you're honest and see it as just "allow for segregation" vs enforcing segregation. Big differences.
My daughters could probably out Boy Scout most of the Boy Scouts. Not that they were deliberately raised to do so, but they could.
Since the Boy Scouts do not include something like a physical fitness benchmark test (one played water polo - 2 state championships, the other could probably hike the PCT), they'd be good to go.
(Score: 5, Funny) by jmorris on Friday October 13 2017, @06:19AM (6 children)
Missing the point snowflake. The purpose of the Boy Scouts was not the merit badges, it was to teach boys to be men. If you put your daughters through the exact same program you would teach your daughters to be men and you will have mentally unstable freaks as a result. If you mix them you can do neither, again you get confused freaks as a result.
If BSA just wants to poach the Girl Scouts they should produce an appropriate training regime targeted at the goal of turning girls into women. Then they would be competing with Girl Scouts for members based on different visions. Girl Scouts seems to have the turn girls into go gurrl feminazis market locked down so BSA could go in different direction?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @08:47AM
You mean, they should turn them into femicommies? ;-)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @08:54AM (3 children)
Snowflake? How does that apply to the person you replied to?
Oh, it was to teach boys to aspire to meet some vague notion of manhood? I guess other people aren't True Men, which I assume is similar to True Scotsmen.
You just make all these vague claims without backing it up with actual evidence.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by VLM on Friday October 13 2017, @02:00PM (2 children)
Its not vague at all, for example
or
That stuff's been constant in scouting for a bit more than a century AFAIK aside from minor issues (UK idioms vs US idioms, etc)
Just because its right wing values, not depraved left wing values, doesn't magically make it vague or unreferenced, LOL. Its a pretty explicit written moral and ethical code, its not some vague "we is john wayne movie character" ridiculousness.
The boys have to do a lot of work over their careers explaining how they follow the motto and law and all that stuff. I'd dare say the average scout is more indoctrinated or faithful to their beliefs than the average churchgoer is to their churches beliefs. The scouts really do focus very strongly on this stuff. Which is good, and is what the parents and scouts want.
Its not a bad moral code for all people, boys and girls although if you read the history of the BSA its basically a rip off of chivalry plus a few other militaristic codes. I would imagine a women's code would have something added for virtuous family life (slut shaming, basically you need some defense against teen male testosterone levels), promotion of house arts and crafts (which girls naturally enjoy), promotion of motherhood and motherhood related skills (duh). Stuff that's pragmatically worked for a few millennia rather than modern depravity already proven to have strongly negative results.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday October 13 2017, @05:58PM (1 child)
I fail to see how a penis is required to meet any of those standards.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday October 14 2017, @03:38PM
Culture trumps biology yes
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @09:27AM
Were you in the wrong scout or something? Seems you have "issues" that may require some professional attention.
time?
Nice flamebait though.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Friday October 13 2017, @01:35AM (3 children)
No way girls can keep the vow [cityonahillpress.com].
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Friday October 13 2017, @08:00AM
Guess the vow will just have to be modified, otherwise that would be sexist/racist/whatever.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Friday October 13 2017, @08:19AM
It seems there's already girls in the Order of the Arrow.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday October 13 2017, @03:28PM
Um, why not? The only "vow" on that page is the "24-hour vow of silence". I'm pretty sure the stereotype about girls and deception goes the other way.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Friday October 13 2017, @01:41AM (8 children)
I think the Girl Scouts USA is in an unenviable position. On the one hand, they are telling girls that they can do anything that a boy can do. On the other, they are explicitly not offering the same experiences that are available through the Boy Scouts.
Here in Australia we have "Scouting Australia" and "Girl Guides Australia" (similar to Girl Scouts). Girls will select one or the other depending on the types of activities they want to be involved in. The girls and boys in my son's Cub Scout pack prefer to stick to single-gender groups when socializing, but they all do the same activities (weekly pack meeting, camps etc) together. In order for girls to attend camp there must be at least one adult female attending too. Presumably there is a similar rule for the boys.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday October 13 2017, @02:20AM (7 children)
Depends on the sale-pitch...
E.g.: door-to-door, foot-in-the-door marketing is a valuable skill in the today's society. Many boys should want to acquire it by selling cookies girl-scout style.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 13 2017, @02:40AM (3 children)
Man, you don't have to sell Girl Scout cookies. You just have to knock on the door and hope you can carry that much money. Things are like crack.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @10:22AM
I submit the theory that thin mints must taste better, based on the exclusionary proof that nothing tastes better.
Rene Descartes might have agreed.
Cookie eato, ergo sum!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 14 2017, @01:04AM (1 child)
Are they made with real Girl Scouts?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 16 2017, @04:03PM
Not sure. They always get really nervous when I ask though, so it's possible.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday October 13 2017, @03:59AM (2 children)
My grandfather bought his piano from a door-to-door piano salesman. I have since inherited it.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday October 13 2017, @05:05AM (1 child)
Was the salesman carrying a demonstrator around with him?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday October 13 2017, @07:09PM
I gave you the reader's digest condensed version. Here's the whole story:
That salesman showed up on my grandparents' front porch, where he offered the piano to grandma.
She told the salesman to get off her property.
Grandpa was somewhat late coming home to work. When he arrived he said to Grandma "Look what I bought!"
The now-mine piano was in the bed of his pickup truck. The door-to-door salesman sold it to grandpa when they passed on the road.
Grandma got a new washing machine out of it.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @03:03AM (16 children)
Politics divides our nation. Lots of girls are kept out of Girl Scouts because of liberal ideas. Churches near me are killing off Girl Scout stuff in favor of American Heritage Girls.
Even the cookies are getting harder to sell, since that has come to be associated with abortion. Yes, really. Funding goes from there to that pink ribbon (Susan something) foundation, and then from there to Planned Parenthood.
Boy Scouts are kind of an option, with a huge advantage in terms of summer camp facilities, but they are in danger too. The troop near me just lost half its leadership to an alternate program that is more conservative. I forget, maybe Trail of Life?
It's weird how liberals can take over an organization, then turn it away from the original values. This is especially weird for Boy Scouts though, because camping and shooting in military-inspired uniforms while pledging to the flag isn't something that ought to interest liberals.
It's all quite tragic.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by eravnrekaree on Friday October 13 2017, @04:06AM (7 children)
Both have been dying. This is a move of desperation by the BSA because of the membership collapse due to the gay scoutmaster debacle. They think they can steal some members from Girl Scouts.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @06:18AM (6 children)
The scout masters weren't gay, they were pedophiles and child molesters. The organization cracked down hard on it and requires all sorts of training and background checks that other organizations don't in order to ensures that it isn't ever common.
The thing that's really killing them are thesame cultural changes that are destroying so many other conservative institutions.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 13 2017, @04:53PM (5 children)
Incorrect. They were all of the above. The first may be largely irrelevant but facts don't get negated due to irrelevancy; they get dismissed as irrelevant.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @09:59PM (4 children)
It's intellectually dishonest to imply a correlation. Whether pedophiles molest boys or girls has little to do with sexual orientation. Most male pedophiles that molest boys are involved exclusively with the opposite sex when not molesting children.
Theonly reason why it was men on boys is because females are pretty much non-existent in the organization. They'll show up for some camp jobs and in the office, but rarely, if ever in day to day work with scouts.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 13 2017, @11:16PM (3 children)
It's more dishonest to state an outright falsehood though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 14 2017, @12:09AM (2 children)
I agree and yet you continued to anyways. You made the unsubstantiated claim and are doubling down by shifting the burden of proof. It's your responsibility to prove it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday October 14 2017, @12:33AM (1 child)
What part of male on male sex says "straight" to you? I'm genuinely interested.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 14 2017, @01:19AM
Assuming the boy can't consent, it is rape. According to the leftist narrative, rape is not about sex, it is about abuse of power. Hence, it may not be straight, but it is not gay.
Personally, I think that the feminist pushed nonsense that rape is always about power, and never about sex, is one of their more damaging ideas.
( Not the same AC )
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday October 13 2017, @04:48AM (7 children)
It is the usual Prog program though.
1. ID a respected institution
2. Kill it
3. Gut it
4. Wear it's carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.
5. Institution fades away, Progs can't understand why.
6. GOTO 1
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FakeBeldin on Friday October 13 2017, @08:23AM
That modus operandi fits extremely well to the current US administration. Does that make the current US administration is a prime example of "Prog program"?
Or is this behaviour typical of a certain class of idiots, found on all sides of the political spectrum in the USA?
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday October 13 2017, @03:21PM (5 children)
One thing that has always been true in American politics is that the right-wing is just better organized than the left-wing. They built all these institutions and organizations and bureaucracies to make the country what it is. And the left has always been unable to compete on the same footing.
So what has changed? Is the left suddenly good at organizing? Maybe; it's a lot easier to build momentum on social media than in traditional media programs. But the thing that social media requires is an actual plurality that supports your position.
Which leaves us with two options for why the left suddenly has so much leverage on social issues. Either 1) new technology has made it possible for the left to tap into an existing plurality in support of social progress, or 2) the population has actually moved significantly enough in support of social progress that conservative organizations are no longer viable.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 13 2017, @03:40PM (4 children)
Um... You don't think controlling the entertainment industry, the news media, and the educational institutions is weapons grade organization?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Friday October 13 2017, @04:44PM (3 children)
I don't think the entertainment industry is run by people with any more than a veneer of liberalism; look at how much they glorify gun violence, how difficult it is for minorities to get leading roles, and how difficult it is for women to get any roles that don't rely on their attractiveness.
I don't think the news media, which includes such conservative blockades as the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and the Sinclair Group (which now controls a majority of local news stations), is run by people that could even be remotely described as liberal. I would definitely say they have a strong urban bias, which probably looks like the same thing to rural folks. But I assure you, outside the conservative publications I mentioned (and the liberal groups like The Nation and MSNBC), the mainstream media is pretty mainstream...for urban politics.
And I don't think educational institutions are all that well organized. Bureaucratic, sure, but not organized.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 13 2017, @05:14PM (2 children)
Showing gun violence does not mark you as non-liberal. Promoting the idea that citizens should have the right to own and carry firearms does. As for the rest, I never said they weren't hypocrites as well. When they vote or contribute to a political campaign/cause though, it's nearly always liberal.
Major urban centers are far more liberal than the rest of the nation. Middle of the road for them is liberal for the nation and without them very few Democrats would ever be elected. Oh, and 80% or so of journalists/reporters/commentators self-identify as liberal. Own the win if you're winning.
Try inviting an unapologetic and uncompromising conservative to speak at any university (religious and military academies excluded, obviously). You'll see the organization. Or read up during the past few years about all the canceled or denied speaking engagements by conservatives if you don't feel like waiting.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday October 13 2017, @07:33PM (1 child)
There's a difference between the administration and the actual workers. Actors and journalists could be 100% liberal and it wouldn't mean their organizations are based on liberal principles.
And it doesn't take organization to cancel events. That's pretty much the default state, really. But I would view this as pretty much one more way that the country has changed in some way. Either new technology made it easier for anti-racists to organize against Yiannopoulos, or the views of enough people have shifted to make the anti-racist perspective overwhelming. Although in this case there is a third option: there was always a problem with this kind of speech making it onto campuses and we didn't know because there weren't any shock jocks going around seeing how deep they can go into neo-nazi ideology before getting thrown out of the forum.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 13 2017, @08:13PM
Any claims of racism about Yiannopoulos need to come with at least one citation. I've been watching his antics for years and not heard a single racist word out of him. Cultural? You bet your sweet ass. Every day and twice on Sunday. Culture is not race though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.