Scouting

and how the movement abandoned me...

I have been involved with the Boy Scouts since I was 11 years old. So as of last year that was 35 years of being a Scout, Scouter, leader, volunteer, and more. I worked on camp staff as a teenager at my local camp, was involved with the Order of the Arrow on the Ceremonies team for the local Lodge, I volunteered as a young adult at Camporees, was a Den Leader for my son through his Cub and Webelo years and was the Committee Chair when he moved up to the troop level. I LOVED Scouting.

My son and I at the Flight 93 Memorial

My years as a Scout (mid 80’s to 90’s) I consider the last of the golden age of the movement. The focus countrywide was still that of the original intentions of Lord Baden Powell, helping nurture and mold boys into young men. Showing, by example, what we should expect out of young men. Using the great outdoors as a classroom and teaching life skills, traditions, values, morals, and so much more through trial and error, adversity, adventure, and more. But all that seems to have changed.

Now the focus has disappeared from molding boys into young, patriotic, honorable men into a new social experiment by implementing DEI policies taking the focus away from boys and instead the focus is now on the recently implementation of allowing young females into the organization and pushing for greater diversity and inclusion in the name of progressive change. The successes of young women in the program (which, don’t get me wrong, they are being successful) but it is at a cost to the young men in the program. Pay attention to advertising, promotions, programming, announcements and more and you will see that, once again, society is abandoning our boys.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still troops and councils that are trying their best to hold onto the traditional mold of Scouting, but they are the minority in today’s movement.

Now let me tell you my story as to why I left…

Two years ago our council started to take a very progressive turn, misaligned priorities, favoritism of one camp property over another, hiring of folks that had progressive agendas, focus moved to female programs, implementation of DEI programs, etc… Not to mention all the behind the scenes secrets within council.

Now, anyone who knows me knows I am outspoken in my beliefs. You will always know where I stand on things and I will never back down. Myself and a few other volunteers saw the trend in council and started publicly asking the hard questions that no one wants to say out loud. We did this at council meetings, directly with council representatives, and when questions weren’t answered we asked again publicly on social media. The point was to hold their feet to the fire to get honest answers. Others caught on and started asking the same questions.

Well council didn’t like this one bit. So when I was signing up for volunteer spots for the coming season I was told that I had to be talked to first before I could further volunteer. I was given a name of a council representative and called him. Now I have known this person for decades. Our wives even taught together for several years, so calling him was no big deal, right. So I was informed that I was deemed a trouble maker and that my name, along with a few other adults, had been put on a list of individuals that could no longer volunteer. I pressed him for examples of behavior that caused this and he kept citing my failure to be on board with the progressive push in scouting. He repeatedly used the term “progressive” when using examples of the direction of scouting. He went on to inform me that the issue was that I could not let go of the traditional means of scouting. He elaborated by saying that this council is one of the most progressive in the country and that other councils were looking to them as the example of how scouting should be run in the country and that folks either need to be on board with it or leave.

So I tried to turn it around with citing my history with scouting and my years of volunteering and how much scouting meant to me. He stated he was aware of this and because of this was willing to offer a way back into volunteering for the council. He said that if I agreed to sign a form stating that I would no longer associate with the other adults on the “troublemaker” list and if I agreed to refrain from publicly questioning councils actions that I could be allowed to volunteer at council camps and events again. I took a long pause at this moment… Did he really just make this offer? Did he really say that outloud? He can’t be serious…

But he was serious. So I repeated back to him what he was offering and he stated that was correct. He said that the same offer was being made to the other Scout leaders, volunteers, and Dads on this list. I told him in, no kind way, hat he could do with that offer and that he actually made my decision easier for me. Why would I want to be part of an organization that does this? The Scouting that most of us remember is dead. Feminism, wokism, politicalization, the LGBTQ’whatever crowd and progressive liberals have all ruined a once great program for boys. And you know what, they all stated it early on when pushing for including young women into the general program that their goal was to ruin the traditional program, to take it over… Well, they’ve done it.

So fuck ‘em…

Some notes….

-The excuse of programming in Girl Scouts not being outdoor oriented is a flat out lie… I was a Girl Scout leader as well for several years and the programming is there to take advantage of, I know because we took advantage of it in our GS Troop.

-Bullying from the LGBTQ folks in Scouting is rampant towards the straight, white kids. I have witnessed it first hand and it is worse than the normal bullying (any bullying is bad) between regular kids.

-Everything LGBTQ in Scouting is in your face and it is done on purpose to make you uncomfortable.

-Boys act differently around girls, plain and simple. The progressive left has robbed our boys of this opportunity to be boys.

I could go on and on but you get the point.

The world is after our sons (and daughters) and it is not in a good way. Take it upon yourselves to see to it that they grow up to be God fearing protectors of what is good in this world. Set the example for your sons for the man they should become and set the examples to your daughters of the type of man they should seek out in life. Tell them to question everything. Point out the evils that surround them. Be the protector of your family.