Random Politics

	PHB wrote:
	It's blatantly pro-Mormon. Which I guess is technically Christian.

Source?

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Wiki Article

Quote:

Religious organizations host/sponsor over 60% of the Scouting units in the United States and use the Scouting program as part of their youth ministration.[9] Officials from various religious organizations—including the Latter-day Saints (Mormon), Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian churches—are included on the BSA National Executive Board, its Advisory Council, and the BSA Religious Relationships Committee.

Keep scrolling down and remember that your tax dollars are going to this organization.

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We're Launching A Prop Into Space
This sort of news reminds me why I love this country. There are nations who are starving, war-torn, and full of radical terrorists, and we're launching a prop from a 30 year old movie into outer fucking space because we can. I can think of no better way to remind the rest of the world how insignificant they are in comparison than by everything detailed into the article.

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PHB wrote:

Wiki Article

Quote:

Religious organizations host/sponsor over 60% of the Scouting units in the United States and use the Scouting program as part of their youth ministration.[9] Officials from various religious organizations—including the Latter-day Saints (Mormon), Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian churches—are included on the BSA National Executive Board, its Advisory Council, and the BSA Religious Relationships Committee.

Keep scrolling down and remember that your tax dollars are going to this organization.

Yeah, that doesnt mean theyre run by the Mormons. Maybe its a regional thing, but most of the BSA in the midwest at least is heavy on the Catholic. Im not trying to say Mormons arent there, but considering this is the first Im hearing of them as an actual factor in scouts, they arent exactly in the limelight.

Wasnt there someone on AnRe/AnAp who was an Eagle scout? I want to say it was Yt, maybe. Perhaps he could shed some light on his experience?

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CALI-FUCKING-BRATIONS!!!!

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I remember watching a show that said the current organization is predominantly Mormon, though obviously I can't link that. I think it was on Penn & Teller's Bullshit?

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	espyes wrote:
	Wasnt there someone on AnRe/AnAp who was an Eagle scout? I want to say it was Yt, maybe. Perhaps he could shed some light on his experience?

Sorry, I was in the JROTC. Maybe it was MMS.

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espyes wrote:

PHB wrote:

Wiki Article

Quote:

Religious organizations host/sponsor over 60% of the Scouting units in the United States and use the Scouting program as part of their youth ministration.[9] Officials from various religious organizations—including the Latter-day Saints (Mormon), Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian churches—are included on the BSA National Executive Board, its Advisory Council, and the BSA Religious Relationships Committee.

Keep scrolling down and remember that your tax dollars are going to this organization.

Yeah, that doesnt mean theyre run by the Mormons. Maybe its a regional thing, but most of the BSA in the midwest at least is heavy on the Catholic. Im not trying to say Mormons arent there, but considering this is the first Im hearing of them as an actual factor in scouts, they arent exactly in the limelight.

Wasnt there someone on AnRe/AnAp who was an Eagle scout? I want to say it was Yt, maybe. Perhaps he could shed some light on his experience?

I was an Eagle Scout.

	PHB wrote:
	I remember watching a show that said the current organization is predominantly Mormon, though obviously I can't link that. I think it was on Penn & Teller's Bullshit?

Yes, it was on Penn & Teller's Bullshit that they brought up that the Boy Scouts had been more or less been "taken over" by the Mormons in the last 50 or so years. If I remember correctly the main problem that Penn and Teller had with this was that it changed the Boy Scouts from an organization that taught boys how to do various outdoor activities to any organization that did the same things but didn't want gay leaders. However, they are a private and Christian organization and that is their choice.
As for how strong the Mormon influence is within the Boy Scouts (in my expirience), I'd have to say that it is low. Every Troop that I came across in my time as a scout was sponsered by a church (which gave them a space to meet, helped with money on certian things, etc), but I never came across a Troop sponsered by a Mormon church (I do live on the East Coast though). However, it should be noted that 1) the relationship with the sponser church is volentary (it would have been quite possible for my Troop to get up and leave the Episipalian church that sponsered us) 2) the sponser church had no say in the way that we conducted ourselves (they had rules of what we could do in their building and when we could do them, but we could always find other spaces - we monthly played dogdeball in a gym because the church didn't want us playing where we might break their windows).
In my ten or so years in Scouts god and religion where rarely if ever mentioned (we did say the Pledge of Alliengence and the Scouts Oath:
On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

every meeting), but this is little more than saying the pledge at school every day. Religion was never made an important part of the program.

	Ytoabn wrote:
	Over the last 60 years, 5,100 Boy Scout Leaders have been removed for abuse

As for the article that caused all this, lets take a look at the facts: as of 2005 there were 1,146,130 registered adult leaders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America), I would be willing to bet that over the past sixity years there have been more than double (I'd even say more than triple) that number of leaders (in my Troop there has been a complete adult turnover twice in the past 10 years). I really doubt that the resulting percentage of bad leaders is much higher than your normal amount of bad people.
Don't blame the Mormons blame the creeps and get them in jail.

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Their problem was that they act like a private organization but get grants from the government like a public one, ergo they have no right to exclude members based on religious ideology or sexual preference. Their whole statement was that if they wanted to exclude gays and atheists fine, but stop getting money from the government.

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	PHB wrote:
	Their problem was that they act like a private organization but get grants from the government like a public one, ergo they have no right to exclude members based on religious ideology or sexual preference. Their whole statement was that if they wanted to exclude gays and atheists fine, but stop getting money from the government.

I'd forgotten that. And I agree, they really should make that choice, but of course they aren't going to until someone forces them to.

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"We are the challengers of the unknown."

They also did an experiment with all gays and all straights doing the same camping activities I guess to prove to the viewers who don't believe that sexual preference has no bearing on skill level. And the retired scoutmaster that taught them turned out to be gay and left of his own accord. I don't know why I'm remember details about this all of the sudden.

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Not that I think such discrimination is ok but as far as I know the federal anti-discrimination act doesn't say anything about sexual preference. Maybe that has been added - I haven't been paying that much attention.

As far as I know the Scouts don't have any preference about religion. When I was a Scout there were religious awards - greater than mere merit badges - you could earn for work in whatever religion wanted to. I remember that I wanted to get the Buddhist one because I thought it looked cool.

Papers Please; Arrested at Circuit City

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God for fucking bid you open your bag for two seconds to let this guy take a peek. OH NOES MY SIVEL LIBARTYES! If you seriously think the company is actively accusing you of stealing instead of merely enacting a passive policy to cover their own ass, don't shop there anymore. Buy everything on Amazon and shut the fuck up.

_________________
"Anyone existing in this planet eagers to do something distinction"
- a robot

	PHB wrote:
	God for fucking bid you open your bag for two seconds to let this guy take a peek. OH NOES MY SIVEL LIBARTYES! If you seriously think the company is actively accusing you of stealing instead of merely enacting a passive policy to cover their own ass, don't shop there anymore. Buy everything on Amazon and shut the fuck up.

I can see why people might think this was over-the-top, but I see his point. You shouldn't have to provide "papers" to the police, and there's no law that says you have to. The police officer's stance reminds me of loitering laws, blanket laws which allow police officers to arrest you (in theory) because they don't like your face. Furthermore, NO ONE, not even the police, have the right to search you without just cause. The founding fathers found that so important that it's right there in the fourth amendment. So is there such a thing as a "minor" constitutional breech? Depends on your point of view, I suppose.

I think before he's been able to simply say no and walk away, which would justify him continuing to shop there as long as he hasn't been hassled. I doubt he'll go back there again. It's the part where they don't let him even leave the store that gets scary. Also, I can't count how many times I've said no thanks to the receipt or just thrown it away before I walk out the door. I'd love to get stopped then. And of course the whole insult of the situation.

Here's an earlier, yet similar story

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