I have been a Scout in 3 countries, 2 European and the US. This was in the 70s-80s. European and US were quite different, both gender segregated, but still followed basically the same values. Inclusivity was mild but present.
My kids are now staff at a group in Europe. The group is coed, and firmly inclusive. The government has no say, except in training of staff, which is mainly safety, and other practical matters when dealing with kids.
The idea of the government intruding into values (except for exclusive behavior) is so foreign that they would be hit with lawsuits immediately.
I’m an eagle scout, and I’ve been following this story.
I’m going to be returning my medal as soon as I find a good mailing address that gives it the best chance of it landing on Roger Krone’s desk.
I’ve been in touch with every eagle I know. A good handful of them are on-board with sending their medals back as well. Most of the rest of them are at least going to be writing letters and doing whatever else they can to draw some attention to this.
Look, in the grand scheme of things, the changes they’ve agreed to change little to nothing about the scout program.
But if they caved once, that just means that hegseth is just going to try again, and they’ll probably cave in next time too. And the next time.
I’m not doing it lightly, I’m damn proud of my eagle scout award, that goofy little medal ranks among my most priced possessions.
But after a couple more rounds of this bullshit, they’re going to twist scouting into something I’d no longer want to identify with, so one way or another my days of being proud of that medal are coming to an end.
Definitely appreciate that. My first scout master was genuinely Mr. Nature and taught us so much. He stuck around for a couple years after his kids went through and we all benefitted from it.
A few friends and I quit in protest a ways through life scout because our second scout master turned the troop into a nepotistic theocracy. He was a very sad pharmacist who moonlit as a wannabe drill instructor going through a major midlife crisis.
We called it when he began fast tracking kids in his church through eagle and being openly hostile to any of us who weren’t basically white Christian nationalists. Although this dude was a Catholic, it also didn’t help that the Mormon church had entirely captured the administrative structure of scouting in my area around the same time.
I saw how good it could be and then saw it turn to absolute discriminatory and racist shit within the span of about a year and a half. All of that really dispelled any of the magic for me and I was over it.
I will say that it was an early lesson in appreciating, understanding, and emulating good leaders and giving myself permission to cut ties with losers. It was also pretty amusing seeing the kids/families who stayed in the troop get all fussy when those of us who left outperformed and led more well rounded lives than their weird, coddled, and emotionally stunted children.
I like to think I got what I needed out of scouting and more lol.
Fellow Eagle Scout here. I’m so glad my son dropped out last year so he doesn’t have to deal with this bullshit. It’s so embarrassing to see them cave on their principles when tested
Wait to see if this really happens. Who knows if Hegseth is just spewing garbage without actually getting the scouts to agree to this nonsense.
The scouts have already agreed to at least some of the nonsense.
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They bent the fucking knee and this drunk asshole will be back for even more demands later.
This is so fucked.
God forbid girls get to learn outdoor skills!! They belong in the kitchen and away from my manly motorboating merit badge.
Actually they kept girls in. What they caved on was they removed a merit badge that was specifically created in the wake of BLM to teach Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. They are now going to have a military service merit badge.
It’s still bad, just not the specific kind of bad you were thinking.
Kegsbreath has pretty clearly said that he hopes to have girls kicked out and is going to further reevaluate in 6 months though
So it’s coming.
I am not an American, so I may have misunderstood the purpose of D.E.I. policies,
But one thing I haven’t misunderstood is the fact that motivation/interest in a subject is far more important in a subject than most physical/mental qualities.
With the proper motivation and drive, just about anyone can push themselves much further than a person with excellent physical and mental qualities but only a limited interest/drive.
Removing D.E.I. policies indirectly means lowering the performance of a group as you may loose the most motivated members of the group.
D.E.I. Policies also has other benefits, people with different views and abilities sometimes see new solutions that never occurred to others.
No, you understand DEI perfectly. But, to make a long story short, a fundamental principle of fascism is that the in-group is axiomatically superior to the out-group.
