Hello Mike and Jeff.,

 -=> Quoting Mike Tripp to Jeff Snyder <=-
 
 JS> Since when was the Boy Scouts about teaching children how to use
 JS> guns and go into dangerous life-threatening situation and
 JS> apprehend people, and potentially even kill people?

Still a who did it?   Not here anyway.

 MT> Armies were hiking under backpack, living in tents under the stars,
 MT> gathering food and preparing it over open fires, etc a few thousand
 MT> years before the Boy Scouts. :) 

Which army?

 MT> The Boy Scouts were founded by an
 MT> active lieutenant-general in the British Army over 100 years ago
 MT> (pre-WWI).  

Not only was he an active, or perhaps honorary due to also known as 
Lord Baden-Powell.

 MT> Robert Baden-Powell also happened to be an author of books
 MT> on military reconnaisance and =scouting= techniques, which quite a few
 MT> boys were already reading.  He wrote "Scouting for Boys"
to relate the
 MT> skills into a non-military context. 

His mannual was also put together with other people, and I have no idea
if they were military or not.   It was not to mold the children of that
era to be military robots which that newpaper article seems to imply
they or some remote scout group is trying to do.

 JS> Blessed are the peacemakers, not the warmongers!

 MT> Where Boy Scout troops focus on general skills applicable to
 MT> well-rounded individuals, Explorer posts are specialized to focus on
 MT> skills applicable to specific vocational paths that are likely to be
 MT> available in just about any community.  There are medical posts,
 MT> law-enforcement posts, fire-fighting posts, etc. and the Scout, if
 MT> interested, chooses one that specializes in his area of interest.  It
 MT> might interest you to know that "warmongers" like your local police
 MT> department, paramedics, and firefighters have also received additional
 MT> "new skills" training recently regarding terrorism and
the aftermath of
 MT> terrorist attacks. 

Why are the police warmongers?  Or paramedics or firefighters?
Jeff never mentioned them.  Why did you?

 MT> Wonder why?  Ain't got nothin' to do with a "Hitler's Youth"
 MT> conspiracy...  You should be glad that somebody is raising folks to
 MT> serve and protect your ass, whether you know who they are or not, and
 MT> even if you protest the concept. They're prepared for that, too...

The scouting article has I think nothing to do with the Hitler Youth
as many of them have returned to normal , leaving only the fringe to
carry on as, perhaps neo-nazis in Europe to a large part and elsewhere
to the lessor part.   

Mike, given today children have to be given the tools for life and a
future, and we all hope for the best, I too find it disturbing that
there is some fringe Scout troop or group carrying on like this.

Take them young at ...mmmm...7 or 8 in cubs and by the time they
leave scouts for Explorers or what...Rambos ., They are model soldiers.  
How thrilling.  Just what we all need.  Defeats the whole idea of
the Scouting Movement.

I just hope this article was just sensational stuff to sell papers.

Regards

Peter





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