Posted on 12/07/2004 3:13:15 PM PST by CHARLITE
Nearly a century has passed since Lord Robert Baden-Powell founded the Boy Scouts in Great Britain. It has been a century filled with radical ideologies that recruited young men into Hitler Youth and the Communist Party, that populated the American youth cult with hippies and druggies, and that replaced fathers with fanaticisms and mores with MTV. Young men might have annihilated this world had it not been for the Boy Scouts.
The Boy Scouts have always been a great threat to the utopian dreams of the ideologues. In the 1920s, the national secretary of the Young Communist League warned Lord Baden-Powell that he should expect a fight to the finish. Baden-Powell replied, “You can’t fight without two. Our aim is to help to poorer boy, independent of all political questions, to get his fair chance of happiness and success in life.”
Today, the Boy Scouts – at least in America where the Scouts haven’t succumbed to political correctness – remain above the trap of radicalism and ideology. While truth has been supplanted by relativism in most American institutions, the Boy Scouts still study and practice principles.
But the fight to the finish that was launched by the Young Communist League is not over. The Boy Scouts is an exclusive organization; it is only for males who adhere to the Scout Oath and Law. So wherever the gospel of perfect equality is preached, the Boy Scouts are assaulted. As a result of that assault, the Boy Scouts organizations in Great Britain and Canada and many other countries have opened their memberships to females and homosexuals.
In the United States, we know the chief legacy of the communist movement as the American Civil Liberties Union. ACLU founder Roger Baldwin wrote in Soviet Russia Today, “I champion civil liberties as the best non-violent means of building the power on which worker’s rule must be based. When that power of the working class is achieved, as it has been done only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatever.” Later, in a Harvard University publication, Baldwin admitted, “Communism is the goal.”
“There is fresh evidence that the ACLU intends to end all federal support for the Boy Scouts of America,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on November 20, announcing the Save Our Scouts Bill to reaffirm the federal government’s relationship with the Boy Scouts of America. “In their view, where there is government there cannot be faith. But to this legislator, the ACLU’s continued attacks on the Boy Scouts are starting to become its own form of persecution.”
Frist attempted to pass the bill through the unanimous consent procedure, but it failed. So he promises to reinitiate the bill next session.
Frist was responding to a November 15 decision by Pentagon attorneys to prohibit military base sponsorship of Boy Scout troops as settlement of a five-year old lawsuit filed by the ACLU. At issue was the Scouts’ “duty to God” contained in the Oath, which precludes atheists from joining the organization. The ACLU said that BSA partnerships with the federal government violate the First Amendment. Since that isn’t the case, it seems that Eagle Scout Donald Rumsfeld’s Department of Defense broke wartime policy to settle with the terrorists in the ACLU.
The week after the Pentagon decision, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution by a vote of 391 to 3 applauding the Boy Scouts for its contributions to the nation. Darrell Issa (R-California), who sponsored the resolution with Joel Hefley (R-Colorado), said that the purpose was to “defend the Boy Scout's ability to continue the fine work that they have done for nearly a century.” Only Democrat Congressmen John Dingell of Michigan, Barney Frank of Massachusetts, and Lynn Woolsey of California opposed the Boy Scouts.
Eagle Scout Congressman J.D. Hayworth (R-Arizona) wrote to Secretary Rumsfeld seeking a reversal of the Defense-ACLU settlement. And Jo Ann Davis (R-Virginia) is co-sponsoring legislation in the House to cancel the capitulation.
However the issue is resolved, it is not a battle that we can afford to lose. There is too much at stake here to give up on the Boy Scouts. Our very capacity for self-government is at risk when we allow the ACLU to deny a boy’s opportunity to learn to be, “trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”
Congress must follow through to protect the Boy Scouts, and ultimately to protect our courts from becoming a permanent tool of the ACLU. Americans who care about the protection of the Scout Oath and Law ought to contact their member of Congress immediately with the message of Senator Frist’s bill: “Save Our Scouts!”
The ACLU considers this a fight to the end. Well, let’s put an end to the ACLU.
Hans Zeiger is a columnist, political activist, and student leader from Puyallup, Washington. At age 18, Hans is an Eagle Scout and president of the Scout Honor Coalition. He is the past chairman of Washington Young Americans for Freedom and a former research analyst at the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. He is a freshman at Hillsdale College in Michigan.
Let's give the ACLU "fresh evidence" that we RED STATERS intend to end all taxpayer support for the ACLU!
Char
And if the Pentagon told the ACLU to pee up a rope, how would they enforce the ban?
I'd get even more active if I were Rummy. I'd rub their nose in it. I'd have scouting events on every base in the US. I'd saturate them...
The ACLU is NOT the arbiter of moral judgement in this country.
We should all get together and just say, "Hey, you don't like it?, Screw you. We're doing it OUR way."
Kind of like Jury Nullification on a larger scale..
Let some liberal judge defend that.
BTTT
That's the problem. There's lots of 'humanist' ACLU goofballs around - lawyers will no clients and nothing better to do. The problem isn't such groups - it's the courts. These groups shouldn't even see one day before the bench. The problem is with the judges who conspire with these groups against the interests of the nation.
Frankly, while it would be symbolic, it might be nice if the PC Girl Scouts would every now and then stand shoulder to shoulder with the boys, in support.
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If Dan Coats were SECDEF this would not be happening. Don Rumsfeld = Arlen Specter. Check out Rumsfeld's voting record as congressman. He was as bad as Pete DuPont.
BUMPMARK
Can we get a statewide ping for a local boy, cybercowboy?
King County is in desperate need (imagine that) of some support for the scout troops there. Merit Badge counseling is fun and easy, and not very demanding in terms of time. Share your hobby with a Boy Scout. Freepmail me if you can help or have questions.
Sionnsar, I have my eye on you. What say you? Or your wonderful wife? Can you guys help out a very new and struggling Orthodox troop by giving a small amount of time? Let me know. We know you like us. :-)
Too bad you two can't make it to our Scout Sunday liturgy this coming Sunday. Feel free to come over and say hi, and eat.
The late Stephen Ambrose has written that World War II in Western Europe was, in its greatest essence, the Boy Scouts versus the Hitler Youth. I thank God we won.
Please keep our new parish troop in your prayers.
I would welcome full Congressional debate on the issue of the Scouts, as long as conservatives (and other republicans) have the majority I see no reason the scouts can't hold what federal support is good for the country. And no, I don't see this as support for a religiou, since the scouts represent many religions. And I also believe the government provides the same support (use of facilities, parks, Etc. to other groups who request it, so I don't see it as exclusionary.
The communist founded ACLU, also has a cadre of law students to do the grunt work for their oppression. Law school have clinics which give law students credit for working on ACLU cause and in particula anti-boy scout causes. There are no known programs for pro-scout law student work.
The clinic are often the only class for the whole semester. They allow law students to essentially be lawyers as long as supervised by a licensed lawyer. Usually this is the professor of the class.
A good place to start to dismantle the communist founded ACLU is to take away their law student grunts. This can definitly be done in state funded law schools, and the rest can be accomplished by not allowing the credits for purposes of sitting for the bar exam.
The ACLU lives on a USC provision that pays attorneys fees when a "civil rights" case is involved. That section needs to be repealed. It will effectively end the taxpayer funding of the ACLU via endless "civil liberty" suits. If they wish to continue filing "civil liberty" suits out of principal, they will have to find alternate financing. Remove the fuel (taxpayer money) and the fire (civil liberty suit assaults on the Scouts) will end.
That is a great idea. We should have a freeper thread on just getting rid of the ACLU and, God willing, let it become a grassroots activity.
Wish I could come. I'll be thinking and praying for all your boys this Sunday.
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