"slenon" wrote in message
om...

...there was a magic of its own in our program, a
real sense of discovery of nature, history, and self....

very nice (if monocular) description of the scouting experience snipped

As a small boy I had a burning desire to be big enough and good enough to be
a Boy Scout some day. I wasn't very clear about the limits of either of
those requirements but the ambition was strong nevertheless. I used to do
all the things I imagined they did.....I climbed tress....I,
um....ahem....set things on fire (I'd never actually SEEN the manual)....I
ran over the jumbled and uneven blocks of limestone that formed much of the
Lake Michigan shoreline as fast as I could, thinking THIS must be what they
do! Well, painted wings and giant's rings......... I never
did actually become one of the boys in green (well, olive drab,
actually......hm), though I was a Cub Scout (not at all the same thing) for
a couple of years and, in high school, was also heavily involved in the
Exploring program (not at all the same thing) for a couple of years.

As an adult, I've never exactly had a hard-on for the BSA, but there have
been and still are a few things that really bother me about the
organization. Having been in the rather schizophrenic (though not
necessarily always unpleasant) position of being active duty military and
involved in anti-war activities simultaneously, I eventually acquired a
strong distaste for saluting, marching, insignia, oaths, mottoes,
regimentation, orders, and all things martial....well, o.k., there was
kickboxing with all its attendant mystique and paraphernalia, but that was
recreational, right? I mean, as far as I know, nobody has ever side kicked
an entire village of women and children to death, o.k.? Anyway, there can
little doubt that the BSA has raised entire generations of cannoneers.....as
well as cannon fodder.

The Boy Scouts of America has throughout its history been both a politically
and socially conservative organization, thus reflecting the common
perception (if not the actuality) of the broader society within which it
exists. Now, there's nothing intrinsically and irredeemably wrong with
conservatism per se, but humankind has yet to invent a single political
viewpoint, religion, philosophy, societal structure or weltanschauung
sufficiently nutritious to maintain (let alone grow) neurons or synapses. A
large part of the problems faced by the Boy Scouts, as well as most other
entrenched institutions, is directly attributable to a sort of psychic
atherosclerosis or, to put it in the vernacular, brain dead conservatism.
Oh, and lest anyone should think I betray a slant toward one political party
or another, the meathead Democrats are as guilty of it as are the bonehead
Republicans.

The BSA, like all other social, political, religious, and economic
institutions are desperately in need of a memo stating clearly (and in small
words) what century we (or most of us, anyway) are now living in.

Former Boy Scouts, almost to a man, will testify (and do) that they are
better men for the experience. I beg leave to remind them of the advice
given to his son by John Andrew Holmes:

"It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling
exception, is composed of others."

Wolfgang