The BSA wasn’t Hitler Youth outright while I was in, but there is definitely a “God, Duty, Country” vibe that other scouting organizations around the world left behind or never adopted in the first place. Conservatives liked that, and they hated that they had been making a slow march towards more progressive and less nationalist policy that I bet only hastened after the sexual assault lawsuits bankrupted the national organization.
Hegseth is probably doing this to either pressure Scouting into regressing, or to weaken Scouting in order to spin up a Trump Youth later. There is no shortage of conservative dads unhappy with modern Scouting that would love either outcome.
This was really dependent on your troop. My troop did that stuff in a “yada yada yada, anyway let’s go play outside” kind of way. Yes it’s in all of the official shit, but I think our troop was mostly an excuse for my scoutmasters to take us along camping with their buds. They did their thing, and we basically went around terrorizing everyone and everything.
A lot of clubs feel culty, especially ones that have a behavioral component. There’s a world of difference between Scouting and a real cult (like MAGA).
Yeah, BSA was still real weird when I was in it (90’s-very early 00’s). The martial aspects, Christianity, and nationalism were sort of the assumed values. And there was a very disturbing I’ll just say Neo-confederate Mormon flavor to the top level national organization. It was built by straight white conservative men so that their sons would have a safe space, in other words.
The BSA wasn’t Hitler Youth outright while I was in, but there is definitely a “God, Duty, Country” vibe that other scouting organizations around the world left behind or never adopted in the first place. Conservatives liked that, and they hated that they had been making a slow march towards more progressive and less nationalist policy that I bet only hastened after the sexual assault lawsuits bankrupted the national organization.
Hegseth is probably doing this to either pressure Scouting into regressing, or to weaken Scouting in order to spin up a Trump Youth later. There is no shortage of conservative dads unhappy with modern Scouting that would love either outcome.
This was really dependent on your troop. My troop did that stuff in a “yada yada yada, anyway let’s go play outside” kind of way. Yes it’s in all of the official shit, but I think our troop was mostly an excuse for my scoutmasters to take us along camping with their buds. They did their thing, and we basically went around terrorizing everyone and everything.
Fuckinnn yikes. Gonna have to watch out for the shitler youth.
Yeah that’s why I never really got into the scouts - it felt culty (not that I could articulate that back then.)
It was thick with MLMs and reactionary evangelicalism. Didn’t hurt that the Mormon Church was heavily embedded in the national leadership.
A lot of clubs feel culty, especially ones that have a behavioral component. There’s a world of difference between Scouting and a real cult (like MAGA).
Yeah, BSA was still real weird when I was in it (90’s-very early 00’s). The martial aspects, Christianity, and nationalism were sort of the assumed values. And there was a very disturbing I’ll just say Neo-confederate Mormon flavor to the top level national organization. It was built by straight white conservative men so that their sons would have a safe space, in other words.