Follow me, boys!

A correspondent has shared a Prager U five-minute video from a few months back, which pretty accurately summarizes the successful attack on a once-ideal American institution, the former Boy Scouts of America. Please view it and share comments with us.

Prager U: The Girling of the Boy Scouts

We understand that some of our readers will object to our opinion regarding the BSA past and present. It was, in many ways, a direct child of British imperialism and nurtured (as the video points out) by the Progressive agenda of Teddy Roosevelt. But it rose far above those beginnings and overcame many of the faults: it not only made boys into men, it also molded American culture and society for the better.

Our own response to the correspondent who shared it with us is provided below. Your thoughts and comments are appreciated:

Her presentation is excellent. My family and I have seen this first hand. I achieved Eagle Scout rank in 1972: my Eagle project was gathering a semi-truckload of emergency supplies in the Denver area and taking it to South Dakota to help the survivors of the Black Hills Flood of 6 June 1972. I was one of the last Lone Scouts to make Eagle (Lone Scouts existed in rural areas where there were no troops or posts.) My sons were in Boy Scouts in the early 2000s; one made Eagle Scout (his project was creating and distributing/placing “No cell phone use while driving” signs in southwestern Colorado). My wife and I served as Scouters (adults on committees and as merit badge councillors and advisors) in the last two decades of last century and first decade of this century. (My wife had been a pre-Woke Girl Scout and Scouter in Germany when we were stationed there.)

We saw the slow but steady deterioration of both organizations, but especially the BSA in the era 2000-2018 or so before we gave up on the BSA completely and severed all connections. The growing irreligious nature (taking the Creator and morality out), elimination of “non-PC” merit badges and requirements, “demilitarization,” the deemphasis on outdoor, camping, survival, and life skills, and the growing Woke emphasis on so-called Progressive (or as we prefer to be more accurate) Regressive philosophy all combined with the acceptance and then active encouragement of homosexuality – long before the transgender insanity of the last decade – all combined to make this organization a mockery of its beginnings. (The GSUSA had even more quickly embraced a lesbian orientation as well as an environist mindset and indoctrination.) Keep in mind that these are not just battles of the last two decades, but is the end-game of a process and conflicts that started in the 1960s, and waxed and waned for decades.

Today, it seems that Trail Life USA is a viable and growing alternative for boys, and American Heritage Girls for girls: our older grandchildren are in their units. Whether they will succeed is yet to be seen. Partially this is a combination of “intellectual rights” held by BSA which mean that many terms, titles, ranks, processes and a vast body of valuable written and audio-visual material is controlled by the Woke creatures running the old, corrupt organizations. Literally, uniforms and insignia and virtually everything have to be reinvented, with constant legal battles over “appropriation” – a situation made worse by the Charter status granted to the BSA and GSUSA by Congress. The decay of the BSA in particular (and the GSUSA before that) has squandered their vast real estate holdings: the camps and ranches scattered across the States have often been liquidated to pay for the fines and damages levied by courts against the institutions because their adult leaders preyed sexually on the boys and girls. All of this must, in some way, be replaced by TLUSA and AHG (or other organizations).

It is clearly a key part of the so-far successful attack on American society, civilization, and ideals. And at the same time, an assault on liberty. Remember that the BSA and GSUSA were voluntary organizations, supported and encouraged by governments (and by various religious groups) but not officially or unofficially government-controlled, nor a defacto branch of the military. (A role filled by such things as the Civil Air Patrol, Junior ROTC, and a few other organizations.

For younger people who want to see how the BSA was once a glorious institution, I suggest finding and viewing a copy of the Walt Disney movie, Follow Me, Boys, starring Fred McMurray and a very young (and innocent) Kurt Douglas. Assuming it has not been cancelled the way, say Disney’s Song of the South has been. The original book and the novelization of the movie can be found if the bookburner/recycling crazies have not dealt with them. At least for now, you can watch it on YouTube. Yes, it is idealized, it is sentimental, it has many flaws. But it is still worth watching and sharing.

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