AMERICAblog: Boy Scouts depict US Iraq vets as terrorists in bizarre paramilitary training for teenage Scouts
Ben Dover
· 6 months ago
I'm sure that this sounds much better in its original German.
TK
· 6 months ago
sighhh....so does the the Assault Weapons Ban. It mirrors the Nazi Gun Laws pretty well.
wmforr
· 6 months ago
Yeah. As a university professor, I myself would prefer for all of my students to carry assault weapons to class, just in case.
The 2nd Ammendment says "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed". It's that simple. Now if the Founding Fathers had meant for nuclear weapons to be an exception to this, don't you think they would have said so?
TK
· 6 months ago
I'm sure you would. If you really are interested in law-abiding students carrying while in the classroom, please check out: http://concealedcampus.org/ They would love the support of a College Faculty member.
William_Dawes
· 6 months ago
Brilliant! And they would have included the internet in the first amendment as well. The second amendment says: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. " So why do we have a second amendment, professor? - It is necessary to the security of a free state. Care to define "assault weapon(s)"? ---------------------- "Here we live in a country that has a fabulous constitution and all these guarantees, a contract between the citizens and the government - nobody knows what's in it. It's one of the best kept secrets. And so, if you don't know what your rights are, how can you stand up for them? And furthermore, if you don't know what is in that document, how can you care if someone is shredding it?"
Frank Zappa
December 21, 1940 - December 4, 1993
Quote from Spin Magazine July 1991
JamesR
· 6 months ago
LOL! What do you think Frank Zappa would really think of this issue, this article and these postings?
William_Dawes
· 6 months ago
If Zappa was as passionate about the second amendment as he was the first amendment then there would be some disappointed people here. In reading the Spin magazine article, I felt that Zappa cherished the entire Constitution and did not cherry pick it apart. Maybe you missed his appearance before Congress.
The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
Abraham Lincoln
JamesR
· 6 months ago
Attributed to Frank Zappa "When God created Republicans, he gave up on everything else." LOL.
Unfortunately we cannot ask him about this! Much like the debate regarding the intent of the "Founding Fathers" in the clip above posited by the scum John Lofton, though we may speculate.
But seriously I think this issue is NOT a Second Amendment issue, but rather a judgment issue. Sure these people are free to do this, it is in no way illegal. They have a right to do it for sure. It is rather a political issue, and I would like a better article regarding the trail of money / public support, and the efficacy of the whole program as training and placement. It is good that groups for youth do outreach, but having teens practice busting pot farmers and suspected illegal immigrants and Muslim terrorists, as if someone wearing traditional dress would attack something in Texas.... is POLITICAL, not vocational. The kids are being used and it's morally wrong yet not illegal nor unconstitutional.
Jim Olson
· 6 months ago
Check the connection between Boy Scouts and the Mormon Church, John.
Dave of the Jungle
· 6 months ago
The Hitler Youth are here.
thegroovymind
· 6 months ago
Almost too hard to believe. Watch out for anthrax in your girl scout cookies!
SadieB
· 6 months ago
Not the same. When it comes to the Culture Wars, the to organizations are polar opposites.
Basically, about twenty-thirty years ago when the rightwing started their assault on American cultural institutions (like the Scouts), the Girls Scouts got it right immediately. They said, "Lesbians? Are you kidding? We wouldn't exist without them. We welcome lesbians. GFY"
The Boy Scouts, for whatever reason, did not. They are still thrashing around, trying to find the way.
Personally, I believe they will find it, eventually, and join the rest of the world scouting community which does not share such backwards attitudes.
MC_Haiku
· 6 months ago
My scout master finally got convicted of child molestation about 35 years after i was in the troop. Troop 4 from the Claremont neighborhood of Berkeley. He was a sanctimonious self-righteous, hypocritical asshole. We all knew about him. being kids we just figured "if julian got you, it was sort of your fault." He didn't like me a bit. I truly learned to hate authority in the scouts. I also learned a lot of other useful stuff about camping, cooking, first aid, stealth and sabotage ... all in all I really liked being a scout. I am a life scout, ten merit badges. This new stuff doesn't surprise me a bit.
JamesR
· 6 months ago
I was a Scout, Did everything but Eagle, deliberately. Hard to say I "was" a Scout when one does not stop, the best parts are absorbed. I agree that in it's bits it looks like paintball good fun combined with firearm safety plus vocational education and exploring, which is what the Explorers do. However, how these bits add up to something so WRONG is representative of what has been infecting American Scouting for years. And it's the SAME that's been infecting the military, not the other way around.
The BSA, our military academies, and of course the Republican Party have all been (easily) taken over by the American Taliban. The agenda of the BSA is NOT what it was, which is tragic for all the boys who get caught in the middle and deprived. In addition to leaders who are denied If you want to get even more depressed, read what they are doing with their donated land: http://theihandbill.blogspot.com/2009/02/stop-c...
The Scouts are suddenly paramilitary? Alert Ted Koppel!
Sure they're being a bit more open about it with this new, even more disgusting war gaming, but the Scouts have always been about preparing boys and young men for military service.
As someone who made it to Life, one rank below Eagle Scout, I can say with some authority that just about everything in my Scouting experience was directly or indirectly about war gaming. They just didn't give us pellet guns back then.
We brought our own. And our pellets weren't plastic.
Indigo
· 6 months ago
Forcing children into military training is a tactic of certain terrorist insurgencies in parts of Africa. The practice has been widely condemned both by the United Nations and many nations, incuding the United States. This report has to be turned over to the United Nations for investigation.
KarenMrsLloydRichards
· 6 months ago
It's "Red Dawn" for the Bush-Cheney-Obama era.
Jaguar
· 6 months ago
I'm a Boy Scout Leader. I don't go for this at all.
SCLiberal
· 6 months ago
"If we’re looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like,” he said, “then maybe your role-player would look like that. I don’t know, would you call that politically incorrect?"
Correct me if I'm wrong but Timothy McVeigh didn't wear a robe, did he? I'm pretty sure he dressed a lot like these kids.
ShirleyGoodnessanMercy
· 6 months ago
Boy Scouts of America has become a Young Republicans franchise with Dick Cheney as the role model. What a shame boys are robbed of a decent scouts organization now. Campfire Kids is a good substitute I think.
gravel kucinich paul nader
· 6 months ago
The guilty need & want a very large Police State to protect themselves. Scouting is now being used to indoctrinate.
lol dude you are way off in crazyland...come back to reality
The Man of the Crowd
· 6 months ago
I was an Eagle Scout and this is not representative of my experience at all. From my experience, the vast majority of the scouting experience is determined by the kids and parents involved in the troop, post, etc. Be wary of hasty generalizations about scouting, because the experience really can be quite different for different people.
At least regarding the age rules, in my experience the same exceptions were made for gay and atheist scouts, permitting them to join and participate in programs that the national office would have forbidden them to belong to, so it's not always a bad thing to allow local decision making. In my case, I wouldn't have belonged to the program if they'd actually followed all of the rules, many of which I disagree with pretty deeply.
This is not to say that scouting is a program without problems, because it certainly has many. But it might be more helpful to try to get a bit more three-dimensional perspective on the organization and some contact with actual participants.
markf217
· 6 months ago
Hitler-Jugend redux... I was in the scouts, but got kicked out under their Don't Ask Don't Tell policy.
TK
· 6 months ago
Seems like whoever is running this airsoft game is teaching proper safety. Fingers outside the trigger guard, safeties on, and muzzles pointed in a safe direction.
Donald Orlando
· 6 months ago
We have an American SS ... After the last eight years, the Neo Fascists are not yet ready to give up.
RepubAnon
· 6 months ago
First, the wingnuts claimed that President Obama was creating his own "brown shirts" - now this. Very interesting...
shell
· 6 months ago
Just goes to show the people who said that whatever the wingnuts accuse others of, they did first.
Jophus
· 6 months ago
It is so odd right? I never really believed projection could be so powerful. If Boehner came out tomorrow and accused a liberal of planning on dropping a nuke on Chicago (as crazy as that sounds), I'd be packing my bags bc it is just a clear indication of what the gop is already doing.
shell
· 6 months ago
I know! It's why I sure wouldn't go near the L.A. Library Tower!
shell
· 6 months ago
"...there seems to be some wiggle room. “I will take them at 13 and a half,”...)
I bet there's more wiggle room. Wanna bet those making all D's can get in, too?
MikeinSanJo
· 6 months ago
Sounds like it's run by the cathlick church. "We'll take them as long as they're out of diapers. Well, except Father Finnegan. He always offers to babysit. He likes the dirty stuff."
MikeinSanJo
· 6 months ago
"...is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence..."
So they're gonna have squads of pre-pubescent children camped out on the SE Florida coast picking off Cubans and Haitians as they sail, float, or swim to shore? Nah! We don't care about the REALLY dark-skinned people anymore.
No, based on the photograph, it appears that we are teaching American-born latinos to kill latinos who weren't smart enough to illegally come across the border with these explorer scouts' grandparents.
Makes me so proud to be an Anglo-American whose ancestors were smart enough to illegally immigrate from Britain 500 years ago, back when it was still the chic thing to do.
NMRon
· 6 months ago
I was wondering if someone was going to cover this horror story. The first thing that leaped to mind was a soliloquy by Cary Grant in a WWII submarine movie (Run Silent, Run Deep, I think), where he talked about the difference between 'us' and 'them.' How the dirty enemy put a bayonet in a kids hands, while in US we give our kids ball gloves or roller skates. The right wing is insane and they have infected the country. That's why I want my kid in the scouts, to learn how to shoot someone?
BTW, bullshit, this isn't play time, it's learning combat skills. And, excuse me, learning military assault tactics is a proper introduction to law enforcement? What utter fascist crap.
vkobaya
· 6 months ago
And, excuse me, learning military assault tactics is a proper introduction to law enforcement?
Ah, yeah! Remember during the 2004 Republican convention in New York, the NYPD cops standing around armed with assault rifles with gigantic clips? Those were intended to be used on American citizens. Given how trigger happy cops are, I'm stunned that the somehow they didn't just get their jollies mowing down protesters.
Remember how out of control the Denver cops were during the Democratic convention in 2008? Takes a really heroic, manly, brave cop to beat up Amy Goodman. She may have the courage of a dragon, but she's only 5 feet tall, probably not even 100 pounds. Then again, since cops know nothing about courage, she probably scared the shit out of the Denver cops.
Jophus
· 6 months ago
Goodman and Salazaar were arrested in MN, I believe. You are right on point with your message though. This is a pretty perverted story.
ABProsper
· 6 months ago
If the scouts are still like this when I have kids rather than just being mildly anti scout (homophobia, sexism and dishonesty) I'll tell my kid no,. I don't tolerate Fascist Youth Corp in my family
I'd rather he play Warcraft 4
SadieB
· 6 months ago
It doesn't have to be so. There are people fighting the good fight from within:
Sorry about the slow reply. I don;t have kids (or wife either) so its moot. Thanks for the link though -- I'll file it away for later
Joe Schmo
· 6 months ago
right like playing a game that is considered more addictive than crack cocaine and other drug substances is a better option - I know plenty of kids who have rotted their lives away in pursuit of raiding with their guilds. Why not get over the fact that one organization has made a bad decision and not judge the whole?
JamesR
· 6 months ago
The BSA has made some horrible choices, and have made everything they do a referendum on their "morals," and their "rights" as a private organization. They've made their group and all their activities a battlefield in a standing 'culture war.' Until their leaders are raptured I suppose. All this accomplishes is damage to boys' lives and childhoods, left to X-box or wii away when they could otherwise be camping or something. If I had a boy of age I would still want him to join the scouts, but depending on the exact troop and it's leaders - the spirit of scouting does exist, despite it's leadership, in spots. However it would be a really tough call and as a scout I was taught to respect different choices from mine, and the choosers, when made as their best response to an ethical dilemma. People choose according to what they can live with. This means lots of boys who could never join, and everyone looses.
The bottom line is that the current BSA leadership is destroying the organization and ruining lives. This can be judged.
ABProsper
· 6 months ago
Its not just one bad call. I write that off as tacky. I've just seen to many good people in my life treated like crud by "Scouting" in general.
I was being a bit sarcastic about WOW4 of course, stuff like Karate lessons or Soccer teach similar values and have much less baggage
Besides not only do I not have hypothetical kids I don't have any WOW2 or anything else. My machine won;t run it
The Tim Channel
· 6 months ago
Boy Scouts have always been strongly aligned with the military. The uniforms, rank and structure are a red flag. Their outward disregard to homosexuals is mirrored by the military. This is government supported youth indoctrination to militarism.
Enjoy.
Deacon_Blues
· 6 months ago
My son (now 30) was an Eagle scout; he earned that partly by personally laying out, clearing, and building a walking trail in a nearby state park. Make no mistake about it, this is NOT a Boy Scout problem -- this is an adult problem. If you had a scout leader creating a Mafia troop, it would be the same thing as this bunch of yahoos. This borders on child abuse.
CitySteeple
· 6 months ago
Seeing that picture, I feel like I just wandered into a production of Cabaret where the kid is singing "Tomorrow belongs to me."
Armed and trained hormones.... This isn't a horrible tragedy in the making at all.
Xanthippas
· 6 months ago
This piece is ridiculous, and so are these comments. First off, please attempt to understand the difference between the Boy Scouts, and the explorers of the Exploring program, which is a subsidiary program that does not do most of what traditional Boy Scouts do. I know the difference because I used to be one, but they have this handy thing called Wikipedia where you can actually look up things before you go blogging nonsensically about them.
Second, can someone please explain to me what is so horrifying about young boys wanting to learn to be cops, or firefighters, or Border Patrol agents, or anything like that? I'm a mostly anti-gun liberal, but when I was a kid I ran around with guns and pretend to shoot my friends. Getting to wear a uniform and do "exercises" designed to teach me what the police do would've been totally awesome, and would not have necessarily encouraged me to consider joining the Hitler Youth.
Also, anybody notice how many of the kids in that pic and in this article are Hispanic? This particular program gives them experience and training in law enforcement, and hopefully will result in many of them taking productive law enforcement careers. This is a bad thing how?
Question: How do you feel about someone coming to your blog and labeling your post and your commenters ridiculous?
JamesR
· 6 months ago
It's the pretend equivalent of that marine ad where the recruit is fighting a dragon. A fun group of shoot 'em ups. Wheeee. Now the program may have more to it, I am not satisfied with the article - it leaves me immediately wondering the REAL rate of career placement of adult explorers, and where does the money come from to do all this?? Follow the money and the agendas are also more clearly visible. Thanks NYT. Most police work is paperwork and administration. It would be nice if this helped their grades not the other way around. Training children to be shock troops - the fact that it DOES make sense in a certain context - means there is something wrong with the context. I am not against training if it is your career and you are an ADULT - cops and robbers shouldn't involve real cops. It is wrong.
Steve_in_CNJ
· 6 months ago
at first i thought you were being sarcastic. i guess not. how is this remotely similar to running around pretending to shoot your friends? this is military training for 14 year olds. it has nothing to do with law enforcement or putting out fires. it is more like a madrassa.
cowboyneok
· 6 months ago
Yea, be sure and train your kids they might have to shoot a "disgruntled Iraqi veteran" some day. Nice... real nice...
As a veteran, I'm ready for an apology.
cowboyneok
· 6 months ago
What does the kids possibly being Hispanic have to do with anything?
Both creep me out. I'd much rather see young people backing Kucinich's proposed Department of Peace. You can't hate your way to love or kill your way to peace.
Jophus
· 6 months ago
Are they wearing metal shoes?
cowboyneok
· 6 months ago
Great!... Well, I guess we should be glad it can't be pinned on the "homosexuals." Remember, the "hom-uh-sex-shuls" can't have anything to do with this because we aren't allowed to be leaders. I'm sure if a couple of us gays or lesbians had been leaders in the scouts, our liberal good judgment would have prevented this kind of crap from occurring. I know I would never let MY KID participate in that kind of insanity!
Jonathan
· 6 months ago
Depending on how this is being handled, I might not mind it. I played lots of Paintball in high school, Airsoft isn't any different, it is just the guns look and feel real.
Effectively, these kids are getting together and playing paintball as part of their boy scout activities. That really isn't as creepy as it seems. When we played paintball we did scenarios from hostage situations to a downed pilot rescue. It wasn't organized like this is, we just made the scenarios up. So it isn't even the scenario that bothers me.
Considering these are large group events, the "arab dressed" person doesn't bother me. Playing paint ball attracts all sorts of people, from liberals like me to racist jerks. What does concern me is the organizer. I worry the organizer is some right wing nut bag. And, from his quote... that is what he seems to be.
The problem isn't what they are doing, but who is organizing it.
TK
· 6 months ago
It does seem like the kids are just getting dressed up to play cops and robbers with a more complex scenario than the usual "We start at this end of the playground, and you start over there by the swings." Quite honestly, I would be ecstatic to go and do something like this when I was 14 and in the BSA.
As far as why I'm even commenting is cuz this was an RSS feed from an airsoft forum. It's kinda sad how everyone is overreacting over kids with airsoft rifles in an organized game.
We've had ops similar to this with teams split up between fictional "Palestinians, Israelis and Brits." The "Palestinians" dominated the entire day in their shemaghs and civilian wear. The scenario these kids played is a little odd with the "war vet as the bad guy", but hey, it's just a game.
If those kids want to be police officers or join the military, let them. Who's to say they won't be EMTs or doctors instead?
TK
· 6 months ago
Let me rephrase that last bit.
Is this blog having people believe that these children have a limited potential based on their race, color or creed?
JamesR
· 6 months ago
'The leaders have limited awareness based on their apparent ideology.' would be a more fitting summary of arguments here rather than any dig on the children and their ethnic backgrounds. That type of crap appears infrequently on threads here, in my observation, from passing trolls, not from the people discussing things for real here. I saw none of that on this thread, you should look carefully at it and cite an example if you really want an answer from someone.
TK
· 6 months ago
"So they're gonna have squads of pre-pubescent children camped out on the SE Florida coast picking off Cubans and Haitians as they sail, float, or swim to shore? Nah! We don't care about the REALLY dark-skinned people anymore.
No, based on the photograph, it appears that we are teaching American-born latinos to kill latinos who weren't smart enough to illegally come across the border with these explorer scouts' grandparents." - MikeinSanJo
It wasn't quite from the blog, but rather, from a comment.
JamesR
· 6 months ago
Point made concerning the implications of race conflict, yet this wasn't made about the kids themselves, and their incapacity due to their race. It's about the adults. I am all for firearm training - but play acting combat I find wildly inappropriate in this context. A firearm should NEVER be pointed at a human being unless you mean lethal combat, young kids play with toys, old kids play with paintballs, but combat training with mock real firearms is different - this is where I am coming from.
TK
· 6 months ago
Gotcha. I respect your opinion. Mine is more along the lines of, "If the parents ok it, let the kids have at it." It's not much different than the airsoft games I go to. Out there we have kids as young as 12 playing these combat simulations. It just happens that the kids mentioned here are playing a game that is sponsored by a federal agency. I'm not the biggest fan of the Federal Government, but I think this is kinda cool.
Corey Schmitz
· 6 months ago
Yeah, kids pretending to be cops. Kids using pellet guns. That is disgusting. Chill out dude. Wake me up if some actual indoctrination action gets going. Reading this post really made you look like a pretty classic "liberal wus" that right wingers try to make us out to be. A lot of kids that age really are into that sort of stuff, and believe it or not, guns and pretend guns aren't all automatically evil. Boy scout doesn't always equal gay hating bigoted Hitler youth. I think it's sort of weak to overreact to this story. Lastly, what exactly does it say about you that a deranged Iraq war vet as the antagonist is cool, but pretending to be an Arab terrorist results in unspoken snarkiness. Please don't Michelle Bachmann us with any reeducation accusations. There still are a few real wars going on to write about you know.
MikeinSanJo
· 6 months ago
I think there's a difference between kids pretending to be cops and kids being sucked in by an organization that...
"is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters."
frizbeesf
· 6 months ago
In all fairness John the article,while creepy as hell is not an accurate depiction of the Law Enforcement Exploring program as a whole. This particular post is if not in clear in violation of BSA polices certainly running activities that t he local BSA Council needs to check into.
William_Dawes
· 6 months ago
What a bunch of frightened wimps. Afraid of some toy guns. Is the scenario taken from the Right Wing Extremist document that was just released by the DHS? Look at the source – the NYT. No bias there. Just a bunch of fear mongering and left wing propaganda. Personally, I’d rather see these Explorer Scouts (if that is what they really are) learning how to safely handle, and shoot real firearms. In less than 4 years, these Explorer Scouts will be members of the militia. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In our own native land, in defence of the freedom that is our birthright, and which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of it -- for the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our fore-fathers and ourselves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before. Quote from Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms July 6, 1775
JamesR
· 6 months ago
To the kids it's a harmless fun game. As far as training for a militia - this is not really anything the Explorers have any business doing. You are proving the point. It's not about a bunch of toy guns and our wimpitude, it's that these innocent kids have now been drawn into a national debate ruled by the nutbags on both sides. Does this do these kids any good? They are being USED and it is the definition of irresponsibility for their leaders to have gotten them all to this place. The fact they could not see it in advance is also an incredible problem. Practicing human hunting is a child's game like cops and robbers, not vocational education for the police or INS. Or any militia because I do not think they want this type of press, regardless where from.
Butch1
· 6 months ago
After reading this article, what differentiates us from the training of the Nazi Youth Group, making children soldiers and brain washing them to become killers at such a young age. What is happening to this country? The right wing is going to force all of this and bring it to a head with some horrible consequences and we are going to wonder how it happened. C average children are just what these devils want in training them to be killers. They aren't bright enough to question an order and they are too young and inexperienced to know any better. This is just plain sick.
robish518
· 6 months ago
I remember building a pine wood derby racer when I was 8 and the car didn't even make it the whole way down the track... my, how have things changed since I was a boy scout.
tas
· 6 months ago
Isn't there a federal law about this type of training? I know this would be illegal in Florida as there is a state statute that prohibits paramilitary training by non-government entities.
fasteddie
· 6 months ago
Most "explorer " scout groups are sponsored by police or fire departments. This one is obviously sponsored by Border Patrol. Blame them, not the kids.
Ken Robinson
· 6 months ago
This is an example of a rogue group leader who is teaching hate and fear - obviously a far right conservative!
Sadie B.
· 6 months ago
Short answer? Mormons. The Boy Scouts were, as you put it, "about being a good kid and helping others" until they were taken over by the Mormons.
I am an Eagle Scout and a Yale graduate and have been involved in Scouting for 20 years. I am also a proud liberal who volunteered for the Obama campaign. I take issue with two things you said:
1. "Remember when the Boy Scouts were about being a good kid and helping others. Then they turned into religious right activists..."
The top leadership of the BSA in Irving, TX passed a controversial policy banning gays from being leaders in the organization. However, though this is the official policy, what happens in individual troops is another story. For example, my troop, teaches boys to be tolerant and accepting of others. We are far from being "religious right activists" as you say. As a matter of fact, our Scoutmaster, who incidentally is a Jewish ex-marine, flat out told us that he disagreed with and would ignore the anti-gay policy.
2. "...and now they think they're Blackwater."
You just could not be more misinformed about the organization. Being a Boy Scout and being an Explorer are two entirely different things. Although the organizations are affiliated, they are not one and the same. Furthermore, the vast majority of Explorer programs do a lot of good in steering kids into being productive members of society. The border patrol-militia Explorers outfit that the NYT documents is beyond disturbing. I am not trying to defend this particular program, which I find abhorrent, but rather to point out that it hardly can be said to represent the Boy Scouts' "thinking they are Blackwater."
I find it sad that you feel the need to publicly denigrate my organization based on incomplete and factually inaccurate information. I am not saying there do not exist right wing lunatics in the organization. But like any complex issue in life, there are always shades of gray. Nothing is black and white.
Furthermore, it is ironic that you, a gay rights activist, would react so flippantly and with such intolerance to an organization that, despite what you may think, on the whole represents a bulwark for civility, honesty, decency and compassion in a morally bankrupt world.
JamesR
· 6 months ago
Individual scouts do "represent(s) a bulwark for civility, honesty, decency and compassion in a morally bankrupt world" - as do individual leaders and some if not most individual troops. The BSA leadership however do NOT. It is a tragedy, and an ethical dilemma people of good conscience fall on both sides of, orchestrated by outsiders with horrible agendas and small minded martinets at the heart of the current BSA. It is good to point out the difference between the two, the ordinary member vs the higher up leadership, just as the Catholic Church leadership is so different from at least the majority of American laity, as is pointed out often at this blog. The choice as a scout is similar. I do not know if I could be a Catholic, if I believed that way, with the current leadership. I know I would be accepted and wanted / needed and valued if I were to volunteer with my old troop if I had the time to commit, even with them knowing I am an out gay man. However - would I? I do not know. I have heard James Dale speak, the issues are almost Solomonic. If that's a word. I think this thread demonstrates that the issues are known to be more complex, it is good to see dedication to scouting reflected here. That same spirit needs to be shown to Irving Texas and beyond.
FatRat
· 6 months ago
I used to play Cowboys and Indians; I didn't see anything wrong with it. Totally unaware that we were the invaders and not the defenders. We were the good guys and they were the bad guys, that had to be eliminated. Just a child's game. -----In Bosnia, the children would play "capture the pilot". Game made sense, the pilot would be a bargaining chip. -----Now there's a game of hunting down an American veteran (disgruntled). I am deeply disturbed by the implications. Looking back, I'm not to happy about playing Cowboys and Indians. ---I'm going to make my own game. All the MacArthur's will attack the Bonus Army protestors. Everytime they score a kill, they scream out "Kent State" or Ollie ollie oxen free.
AKJDII
· 6 months ago
I was an Eagle Scout and believe me when I say, the author of this post has NO FUCKING CLUE what he is talking about. Don't pay him any attention.
long island girl
· 6 months ago
it's good that they are training the teenagers but they have to make sure that the academic education of the kids will not be affected. and the emotional and mental aspect as well.
TK
· 6 months ago
I noticed that the blogger left out the link to the full article.
Is it so odd that they would do so? There's a kid who participated and wants to be a lawyer someday. The organizations who sponsor some of these events are the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and the Border Patrol. All of these organizations are run under DEMOCRATIC leadership.
TK
· 6 months ago
Correction. The blogger did leave the link in. My mistake.
Logan
· 6 months ago
Hmm....let's look back at history, shall we? In Nazi Germany, Hitler formed a group called "Hitler Youth" (Hitler-Jugend). The HJ was originally Munich-based only. In 1923, the organization had a little over one thousand members. In 1925, when the Nazi Party had been re-founded, the membership grew to over 5,000. Five years later, national HJ membership stood at 25,000. By the end of 1932 (a few weeks before the Nazis came to power) it was at 107,956. At the end of 1933, the HJ had 2,300,000 members. Much of these increases came from the more or less forcible merger of other youth organizations with the HJ. (The sizable Evangelische Jugend, a Lutheran youth organization of 600,000 members, was integrated on February 18, 1934).
By December 1936, HJ membership stood at just over five million. That same month, [b]HJ membership became mandatory, under the Gesetz über die Hitlerjugend law.[/b] This legal obligation was re-affirmed in 1939 with the Jugenddienstpflicht and HJ membership was required even when it was opposed by the member's parents. From then on, most of Germany's teenagers belonged to the HJ.
By 1940, it had eight million members. Later war figures are difficult to calculate, since massive conscription efforts and a general call-up of boys as young as ten years old meant that virtually every young male in Germany was, in some way, connected to the HJ. Only about 10 to 20% were able to avoid joining. In 1940, Artur Axmann replaced Schirach as Reichsjugendführer and took over leadership of the Hitler Youth. Axmann began to reform the group into an auxiliary force which could perform war duties. The Hitler Youth became active in German fire brigades and assisted with recovery efforts to German cities affected from Allied bombing. The Hitler Youth also assisted in such organizations as the Reich Postal Service, Deutsche Reichsbahn, fire services, and Reich radio service, and served among anti-aircraft defense crews.
By 1943, Nazi leaders began turning the Hitler Youth into a military reserve to draw manpower which had been depleted due to tremendous military losses. In 1943, the 12.SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend, under the command of SS-Brigadeführer Fritz Witt, was formed. The Division was a fully equipped Waffen-SS panzer division, with the majority of the enlisted cadre being drawn from Hitler Youth boys between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. The division was deployed during the Battle of Normandy against the British and Canadian forces to the north of Caen. During the following months, the division earned itself a reputation for ferocity and fanaticism. When Witt was killed by allied naval gunfire, SS-Brigadeführer Kurt Meyer took over command and became the youngest divisional commander at age 33.
As German casualties escalated with the combination of Operation Bagration and the Lvov-Sandomierz Operation in the east, and Operation Cobra in the west, members of the Hitlerjugend were recruited at ever younger ages. By 1945, the Volkssturm was commonly drafting 12-year-old Hitler Youth members into its ranks. During the Battle of Berlin, Axmann's Hitler Youth formed a major part of the last line of German defense, and were reportedly among the fiercest fighters. Although the city commander, General Helmuth Weidling, ordered Axmann to disband the Hitler Youth combat formations; in the confusion, this order was never carried out.
All I know is my kids will NEVER serve in any of Obamanation's "volunteer organizations". He is not my president, and from what he said at AZ State, I don't think the military would step up and defend a man that said they had no honor. Put down the kool-aid and come back to reality. We are headed down the same path Germany did. Just remember....Hitler was a nobody with zero political experience as well. He was a bum. Look at what happened.
"Those that choose to ignore history are doomed to repeat it."
Thomas age 13
· 6 months ago
this is pure nazism and totally rascist against the mexican culture boy scouts should be learning about how to survive the outdoors and learning CPR not learning to search for undocumented people the government is being to corrupt in this situation and probably right now this message is being looked at by the government through operation echelon or looking through every email text message phone call or comment. but also scouts was ment to learn important skills not counter terrorism or border violence. this is nazist because before, the nazis believed in creating a master race and getting rid of inferiors. the government is treating the undocumented as criminals and inferiors but they are not they are hard working people that are nice and friendly most of the people are undocumented because 1. don't have enough money 2. the us government makes the green cards very expensive so the mexican people cant come in. all the green card is a piece of paper thats it this message is coming from a 13 year old boy scout thats sad this should not be right. our country is meant to be a clean slate for other cultures to come and start a new life. where mexicans can help the american people. right now are people are too scared to speak against this issue well as v put it "people should not be afraid of their government the government should be afraid of their people" this program is disgusting, cruel, nazist, rascist
Marty Hughes
· 5 months ago
several issues here. 1. why is the subsequent target an American of any kind? 2. is yhis Obama's civilian defense that he mentions in his debates? 3. I personally want to see more resources on this because I think that it is 1000% yes 1000% lefist propaganda...However true it may be it's presentation is completely, "can you believe it?" that it's just not hat believable...Why?
ratman_90
· 1 month ago
Against mexicans? Look at the picture! Not many WASPs in the pic there fellas!
All Comments
The 2nd Ammendment says "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed". It's that simple. Now if the Founding Fathers had meant for nuclear weapons to be an exception to this, don't you think they would have said so?
http://concealedcampus.org/
They would love the support of a College Faculty member.
The second amendment says: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. "
So why do we have a second amendment, professor? - It is necessary to the security of a free state.
Care to define "assault weapon(s)"?
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"Here we live in a country that has a fabulous constitution and all these guarantees, a contract between the citizens and the government - nobody knows what's in it. It's one of the best kept secrets. And so, if you don't know what your rights are, how can you stand up for them? And furthermore, if you don't know what is in that document, how can you care if someone is shredding it?"
Frank Zappa
December 21, 1940 - December 4, 1993
Quote from Spin Magazine July 1991
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The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
Abraham Lincoln
Crossfire appearance (not the source of that quote:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ISil7IHzxc ZAPPA RULES
Unfortunately we cannot ask him about this! Much like the debate regarding the intent of the "Founding Fathers" in the clip above posited by the scum John Lofton, though we may speculate.
But seriously I think this issue is NOT a Second Amendment issue, but rather a judgment issue. Sure these people are free to do this, it is in no way illegal. They have a right to do it for sure. It is rather a political issue, and I would like a better article regarding the trail of money / public support, and the efficacy of the whole program as training and placement. It is good that groups for youth do outreach, but having teens practice busting pot farmers and suspected illegal immigrants and Muslim terrorists, as if someone wearing traditional dress would attack something in Texas.... is POLITICAL, not vocational. The kids are being used and it's morally wrong yet not illegal nor unconstitutional.
Basically, about twenty-thirty years ago when the rightwing started their assault on American cultural institutions (like the Scouts), the Girls Scouts got it right immediately. They said, "Lesbians? Are you kidding? We wouldn't exist without them. We welcome lesbians. GFY"
The Boy Scouts, for whatever reason, did not. They are still thrashing around, trying to find the way.
Personally, I believe they will find it, eventually, and join the rest of the world scouting community which does not share such backwards attitudes.
This new stuff doesn't surprise me a bit.
The BSA, our military academies, and of course the Republican Party have all been (easily) taken over by the American Taliban. The agenda of the BSA is NOT what it was, which is tragic for all the boys who get caught in the middle and deprived. In addition to leaders who are denied If you want to get even more depressed, read what they are doing with their donated land: http://theihandbill.blogspot.com/2009/02/stop-c...
Sir Baden Powell would beat their arses.
The Scouts are suddenly paramilitary? Alert Ted Koppel!
Sure they're being a bit more open about it with this new, even more disgusting war gaming, but the Scouts have always been about preparing boys and young men for military service.
As someone who made it to Life, one rank below Eagle Scout, I can say with some authority that just about everything in my Scouting experience was directly or indirectly about war gaming. They just didn't give us pellet guns back then.
We brought our own. And our pellets weren't plastic.
Correct me if I'm wrong but Timothy McVeigh didn't wear a robe, did he? I'm pretty sure he dressed a lot like these kids.
Scouting is now being used to indoctrinate.
911 & anthrax lies
Federal reserve banker lies
Israel-first dual-national AIPAC extortion blackmail bribery lies
At least regarding the age rules, in my experience the same exceptions were made for gay and atheist scouts, permitting them to join and participate in programs that the national office would have forbidden them to belong to, so it's not always a bad thing to allow local decision making. In my case, I wouldn't have belonged to the program if they'd actually followed all of the rules, many of which I disagree with pretty deeply.
This is not to say that scouting is a program without problems, because it certainly has many. But it might be more helpful to try to get a bit more three-dimensional perspective on the organization and some contact with actual participants.
I bet there's more wiggle room. Wanna bet those making all D's can get in, too?
So they're gonna have squads of pre-pubescent children camped out on the SE Florida coast picking off Cubans and Haitians as they sail, float, or swim to shore? Nah! We don't care about the REALLY dark-skinned people anymore.
No, based on the photograph, it appears that we are teaching American-born latinos to kill latinos who weren't smart enough to illegally come across the border with these explorer scouts' grandparents.
Makes me so proud to be an Anglo-American whose ancestors were smart enough to illegally immigrate from Britain 500 years ago, back when it was still the chic thing to do.
BTW, bullshit, this isn't play time, it's learning combat skills. And, excuse me, learning military assault tactics is a proper introduction to law enforcement? What utter fascist crap.
Ah, yeah! Remember during the 2004 Republican convention in New York, the NYPD cops standing around armed with assault rifles with gigantic clips? Those were intended to be used on American citizens. Given how trigger happy cops are, I'm stunned that the somehow they didn't just get their jollies mowing down protesters.
Remember how out of control the Denver cops were during the Democratic convention in 2008? Takes a really heroic, manly, brave cop to beat up Amy Goodman. She may have the courage of a dragon, but she's only 5 feet tall, probably not even 100 pounds. Then again, since cops know nothing about courage, she probably scared the shit out of the Denver cops.
I'd rather he play Warcraft 4
http://www.scoutingforall.org/
You and your kids could be among them.
The bottom line is that the current BSA leadership is destroying the organization and ruining lives. This can be judged.
I was being a bit sarcastic about WOW4 of course, stuff like Karate lessons or Soccer teach similar values and have much less baggage
Besides not only do I not have hypothetical kids I don't have any WOW2 or anything else. My machine won;t run it
Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb6oKCczJjg
Second, can someone please explain to me what is so horrifying about young boys wanting to learn to be cops, or firefighters, or Border Patrol agents, or anything like that? I'm a mostly anti-gun liberal, but when I was a kid I ran around with guns and pretend to shoot my friends. Getting to wear a uniform and do "exercises" designed to teach me what the police do would've been totally awesome, and would not have necessarily encouraged me to consider joining the Hitler Youth.
Also, anybody notice how many of the kids in that pic and in this article are Hispanic? This particular program gives them experience and training in law enforcement, and hopefully will result in many of them taking productive law enforcement careers. This is a bad thing how?
Question: How do you feel about someone coming to your blog and labeling your post and your commenters ridiculous?
As a veteran, I'm ready for an apology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM2c43hhc4c
Both creep me out. I'd much rather see young people backing Kucinich's proposed Department of Peace.
You can't hate your way to love or kill your way to peace.
Effectively, these kids are getting together and playing paintball as part of their boy scout activities. That really isn't as creepy as it seems. When we played paintball we did scenarios from hostage situations to a downed pilot rescue. It wasn't organized like this is, we just made the scenarios up. So it isn't even the scenario that bothers me.
Considering these are large group events, the "arab dressed" person doesn't bother me. Playing paint ball attracts all sorts of people, from liberals like me to racist jerks.
What does concern me is the organizer. I worry the organizer is some right wing nut bag. And, from his quote... that is what he seems to be.
The problem isn't what they are doing, but who is organizing it.
As far as why I'm even commenting is cuz this was an RSS feed from an airsoft forum. It's kinda sad how everyone is overreacting over kids with airsoft rifles in an organized game.
We've had ops similar to this with teams split up between fictional "Palestinians, Israelis and Brits." The "Palestinians" dominated the entire day in their shemaghs and civilian wear. The scenario these kids played is a little odd with the "war vet as the bad guy", but hey, it's just a game.
If those kids want to be police officers or join the military, let them. Who's to say they won't be EMTs or doctors instead?
Is this blog having people believe that these children have a limited potential based on their race, color or creed?
No, based on the photograph, it appears that we are teaching American-born latinos to kill latinos who weren't smart enough to illegally come across the border with these explorer scouts' grandparents." - MikeinSanJo
It wasn't quite from the blog, but rather, from a comment.
"is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters."
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In our own native land, in defence of the freedom that is our birthright, and which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of it -- for the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our fore-fathers and ourselves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before.
Quote from
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms
July 6, 1775
http://atheism.about.com/b/2003/11/21/mormons-t...
I am an Eagle Scout and a Yale graduate and have been involved in Scouting for 20 years. I am also a proud liberal who volunteered for the Obama campaign. I take issue with two things you said:
1. "Remember when the Boy Scouts were about being a good kid and helping others. Then they turned into religious right activists..."
The top leadership of the BSA in Irving, TX passed a controversial policy banning gays from being leaders in the organization. However, though this is the official policy, what happens in individual troops is another story. For example, my troop, teaches boys to be tolerant and accepting of others. We are far from being "religious right activists" as you say. As a matter of fact, our Scoutmaster, who incidentally is a Jewish ex-marine, flat out told us that he disagreed with and would ignore the anti-gay policy.
2. "...and now they think they're Blackwater."
You just could not be more misinformed about the organization. Being a Boy Scout and being an Explorer are two entirely different things. Although the organizations are affiliated, they are not one and the same. Furthermore, the vast majority of Explorer programs do a lot of good in steering kids into being productive members of society. The border patrol-militia Explorers outfit that the NYT documents is beyond disturbing. I am not trying to defend this particular program, which I find abhorrent, but rather to point out that it hardly can be said to represent the Boy Scouts' "thinking they are Blackwater."
I find it sad that you feel the need to publicly denigrate my organization based on incomplete and factually inaccurate information. I am not saying there do not exist right wing lunatics in the organization. But like any complex issue in life, there are always shades of gray. Nothing is black and white.
Furthermore, it is ironic that you, a gay rights activist, would react so flippantly and with such intolerance to an organization that, despite what you may think, on the whole represents a bulwark for civility, honesty, decency and compassion in a morally bankrupt world.
-----In Bosnia, the children would play "capture the pilot". Game made sense, the pilot would be a bargaining chip.
-----Now there's a game of hunting down an American veteran (disgruntled). I am deeply disturbed by the implications. Looking back, I'm not to happy about playing Cowboys and Indians.
---I'm going to make my own game. All the MacArthur's will attack the Bonus Army protestors. Everytime they score a kill, they scream out "Kent State" or Ollie ollie oxen free.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/14explorer...
Is it so odd that they would do so? There's a kid who participated and wants to be a lawyer someday. The organizations who sponsor some of these events are the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and the Border Patrol. All of these organizations are run under DEMOCRATIC leadership.
By December 1936, HJ membership stood at just over five million. That same month, [b]HJ membership became mandatory, under the Gesetz über die Hitlerjugend law.[/b] This legal obligation was re-affirmed in 1939 with the Jugenddienstpflicht and HJ membership was required even when it was opposed by the member's parents. From then on, most of Germany's teenagers belonged to the HJ.
By 1940, it had eight million members. Later war figures are difficult to calculate, since massive conscription efforts and a general call-up of boys as young as ten years old meant that virtually every young male in Germany was, in some way, connected to the HJ. Only about 10 to 20% were able to avoid joining. In 1940, Artur Axmann replaced Schirach as Reichsjugendführer and took over leadership of the Hitler Youth. Axmann began to reform the group into an auxiliary force which could perform war duties. The Hitler Youth became active in German fire brigades and assisted with recovery efforts to German cities affected from Allied bombing. The Hitler Youth also assisted in such organizations as the Reich Postal Service, Deutsche Reichsbahn, fire services, and Reich radio service, and served among anti-aircraft defense crews.
By 1943, Nazi leaders began turning the Hitler Youth into a military reserve to draw manpower which had been depleted due to tremendous military losses. In 1943, the 12.SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend, under the command of SS-Brigadeführer Fritz Witt, was formed. The Division was a fully equipped Waffen-SS panzer division, with the majority of the enlisted cadre being drawn from Hitler Youth boys between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. The division was deployed during the Battle of Normandy against the British and Canadian forces to the north of Caen. During the following months, the division earned itself a reputation for ferocity and fanaticism. When Witt was killed by allied naval gunfire, SS-Brigadeführer Kurt Meyer took over command and became the youngest divisional commander at age 33.
As German casualties escalated with the combination of Operation Bagration and the Lvov-Sandomierz Operation in the east, and Operation Cobra in the west, members of the Hitlerjugend were recruited at ever younger ages. By 1945, the Volkssturm was commonly drafting 12-year-old Hitler Youth members into its ranks. During the Battle of Berlin, Axmann's Hitler Youth formed a major part of the last line of German defense, and were reportedly among the fiercest fighters. Although the city commander, General Helmuth Weidling, ordered Axmann to disband the Hitler Youth combat formations; in the confusion, this order was never carried out.
All I know is my kids will NEVER serve in any of Obamanation's "volunteer organizations". He is not my president, and from what he said at AZ State, I don't think the military would step up and defend a man that said they had no honor. Put down the kool-aid and come back to reality. We are headed down the same path Germany did. Just remember....Hitler was a nobody with zero political experience as well. He was a bum. Look at what happened.
"Those that choose to ignore history are doomed to repeat it."