Posted on 05/27/2004 3:06:12 PM PDT by .cnI redruM
John Derbyshire brought up an interesting aside while blogging on The Corner about a recently constructed treehouse he built for his children. He mentioned a man who deserves utmost veneration through the ages for his humanitarian work. That man who's life still positively impacts millions is Lord Baden Powell; the founder of Boy Scouting.
Lord Baden Powell came from an utterly different era. His book "Scouting For Boys" proves this beyond any shadow of a doubt. People now laugh at the title and ridicule the Boy Scouts of America until their sorry windbags run out of hot air. What they should never laugh at are the contributions that scouting has made to the lives of so many boys.
In an age where children are deluged with drugs, violence and unthinkably vulgar sex before they even turn off their idiot boxes, go outside, and meet people of bad moral character, the scouting movement stands a lonely, underappreciated vigil against the moral disintegration of the modern American male. This was certainly why my parents enrolled me in Cub Scouts at an early age and encouraged my efforts until they reached fruition. My parents beamed with pride when I joined the Eagle Scout Class of 1985.
The obvious benefits of time spent as a Boy Scout include self-reliance, outdoorsmanship and a deeper appreciation and respect for the majestic elegance of nature that surrounds us all. These gifts in and of themselves are worth more than eight or nine tons of platinum. They only scratch the surface of what scouting offers a willing recipient.
Scouting gives us all a code. A sense of chivalry to guide us through an age of vulgarian, decadent rot. When I wore the Boy Scout uniform and took the Boy Scout Oath, I was being trained to meet obligations. Both in our meetings and around the campsite, we were made by caring adults to put down the toys of children and take up the tools that befit a grown man.
Post-Modern America stands poised at the precipice of perdition. We stand there only partially because of our iniquities. We stand there because we grew up being rewarded for ducking responsibility and punished for taking it. As Boy Scouts we were taught honor. Honor means you do what's right in accordance with, in the absense of and even right into the buzzsaw teeth of a controlling legal authority.
As I said earlier, Baden Powell came from a different era. In fact, he anteceded much of what destroyed the classically liberal modern American. In 1939, the same year Baden Powell was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, the world took a truly tragic turn for the worse that we have yet to set completely aright even today. The war grew so cataclysmic that the Peace Prize went unawarded. Lord Baden Powell never even got fair consideration.
No mere laurel wreath wouls have shut down Ostengrupenfuhrer Heydrich's Final Solution. Nor would Japan have waived off the Rape of Nanking. No mere prize would have torn down the Berlin Wall or rendered the atomic bombing of Hiroshima an unnecessary sortie.
Yet still I believe, in what's left of my youthful idealism, that our world would be just a measure better if Lord Baden Powell had gotten his due. Recognition for his deeds with a Nobel Peace Prize.
Bad thing is Nobel prizes for for anything are not awarded posthumusly.
Sir, you are correct, sir.
Congressman Billybob
John / Billybob
Bump - and read later
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