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Like many others, I have fond memories of the Boy Scouts. I joined in New Mexico and hiked the Sandias. I ended up as an Eagle Scout with Silver Palm, Order of the Arrow and I held ever position in both Scouts and Cubs except Scoutmaster. Many of skills that I have today came from my years with various troops and I'm grateful for the many leaders who taught us. I had several outstanding Scoutmasters.

We lived next to one of executives at National HQ and I listened to some of the stories that he told. He was in charge of all of the land holdings like Philmont. My view after listening to him was that the National organization was in trouble and that was 20 years ago. Like the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts had their opportunity to forthrightly confront sexual abuse and apparently elected not to do so. The environment could easily be a magnet for those who favor young boys and a difficult place to identify those people and promptly and effectively deal with them. I never saw anything out of line either as a Scout or a leader. If the local organizations were properly run, it would have been hard for one person to be alone with boys and take advantage of them.

Today's bankruptcy was described on the news as a way to perpetuate the organization in the face of the lawsuits. The lawyers involved were reported to say that this would extend the outcomes by many years. In spite of the past benefits that the organization offered, it might have been better to just allow it to be dissolved IMHO.

Lawsuits are the lever used to control people. The same tactic was used on schools to remove anything anyone else considered to be Christmas or Christian related. The amazing part for me is that seemingly unlimited legal funding for the challenging people and groups.

The article says that the lawsuits are based on incidents that happened since the 60s. That was way before SJW. What that implies to me is that the BSA, like the Catholic church, was less than aggressive at dealing with abuse. Perhaps there were no realistic mechanisms for reporting abuse 40-50 years when society as a whole seemed more willing to keep those kinds of incidents from becoming public. I'm torn between wanting to see justice done for those who were abused and wondering why it has taken so long for them to come forward. As we saw in the Kavanaugh hearings, the current environment is ripe for abuse in reporting. If BSA had a good, documented history of dealing with abuse cases, it should be easier for them to have defended themselves. The article said that BSA sued the insurance carriers several times for not living up to the obligations of the insurance in the face of the lawsuits. That has not helped their situation.

I was a long time Scout. I stopped supporting them many years ago because I believed that their leadership had lost its way. I lived next door to one of the National executives for a number of years. For me, it just another institution that didn't understand its own principals. I do believe that it is hard for us as individuals and as groups to stand our ground in the face of the onslaught of zealots and their cronies in the media. But is becomes much more difficult when you don't know what you stand for.