Looking back over the last 50 years, one of my saddest observations has been the decline of my beloved Boy Scouts of America. I have many memories of our meetings back in the 50s and 60s, learning to tie knots, sharpen an axe, shoot, canoe, splint a leg, use a signal mirror or compass, etc. and took great pride in going to school with my official Boy Scout pocketknife in my jeans. If a kid does that today, he'll be suspended for a week and referred for psychiatric evaluation and anger management counseling.1911 Raptor wrote: ↑Sat Nov 23, 2019 6:02 pmWhat’s sad is that the Boy Scouts turned into a liberal organization pandering to the left. This was their downfall.
I still have my old "Boy Scout Handbook." Good grief, it reads like a wilderness survival manual. If we ever have a global disaster event, it's the first book I'll grab before I head out the door.
The pressure was enormous. Huge donors and supporters withdrew their support, adding to tens of millions of dollars, because of BSA's "discriminatory" policies. These included supporters like United Way, Chase Bank, Levi Strauss, Pew Trust, Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin, UPS, Merck, and many others, as well as big celebrity supporters like Steven Spielberg and Bill Gates. Finally, the BSA broke down, they dropped "Boy" from the organization name, and the floodgates were opened.
I often wonder if they should have stood firm in the face of liberal bullying and held to their original tenets. Sure, they may have lost most of their membership, maybe even vanished completely, but at least they would go down with their honor, holding their heads high. Now they're going down anyway, and soon they'll be history. So much for "oaths."