53percenter's Blog

As you may have heard, as of this year, the Boy Scouts are no longer the “Boy Scouts.”

“The Boy Scouts of America, in its continued effort to appeal to girls, announced on Wednesday that it would drop the ‘boy’ from its namesake program next February. The century-old organization also said that it would start welcoming older girls, opening a door for them to earn the organization’s highest rank of Eagle Scout,” The New York Times reported in May.

The new organization celebrated the change with a campaign called “Scout Me In,” which, according to a statement from the organization, “celebrates the BSA’s expansion to serve families and welcome girls and boys into Scouting in communities across the country.”

“It reinforces that the mission and core values in the Scout Oath and Scout Law are welcoming, inclusive and foundational for both young men and women.”

“As we enter a new era for our organization, it is important that all youth can see themselves in Scouting in every way possible. That is why it is important that the name for our Scouting program for older youth remain consistent with the single name approach used for the Cub Scouts,” Michael Surbaugh, chief scout executive of the Boy Scouts of America, said in the statement.

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“Starting in February 2019, the name of the older youth program will be ‘Scouts BSA,’ and the name of our iconic organization will continue to be Boy Scouts of America.”

Sound confusing enough to you? Well, um, scout me in! Last I checked, there was a similar program called the Girl Scouts which did all of these things for young women.

And, in fact, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, currently one of the country’s most famous members of Congress, was a part of it.

“@girlscouts is how I first practiced how to change brake fluid, start a fire, practice self-defense, recreate the NASA Challenger mission, and v importantly: learn to teach myself new skills + navigate ambiguity,” she tweeted on Friday, along with a rocket emoji.

“There’s a reason a large of Congresswomen are former scouts!” she declared.

There’s nothing necessarily to criticize about this. The Girl Scouts do a commendable job of bringing up conscientious citizens, even socialist ones. I’m kind of confused why one would want to recreate the Challenger mission.

(Is there a merit  badge for recreating national disasters? I didn’t stick with scouting too long, regrettably, but I don’t remember ever hearing about this award).

But other than that, that’s great for Rep. Ocasio-Cortez.

However, conservative actor James Woods noticed a little incongruity here:

So, why was it necessary to take the Boy Scouts away from boys? https://t.co/Y8XkaDFguK

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) March 11, 2019

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“So, why was it necessary to take the Boy Scouts away from boys?” he asked in a Sunday tweet.

Yes, why?

By changing the name of the Boy Scouts and allowing girls in, there’s the tacit acknowledgement that an all-boys organization is patriarchal and an all-girls organization is empowering. The logic here eludes me but I’m sure a lecture on intersectionality and histories of oppression would straighten me out nicely.

Perhaps the new Scouts will help members “navigate ambiguity” and recreate disasters in a more equitable manner. However, I don’t think that there’s anything necessarily wrong with a single-gender organization for youths that helps build character and an appetite for adventure.

My evidence for this position? The Girl Scouts.

The Girl Scouts do tremendous work. In fact, they do much the same work that the Boy Scouts — sorry, Scouts BSA — does.

If the opportunity already exists for young women to do this, why exactly do the Boy Scouts need to subsume the role in the name of liberalism?

The Boy Scouts may have bigger problems than conservative backlash, mind you; it was reported late last year that bankruptcy was on the table for the organization due to numerous claims of sexual abuse.

Its problems go far beyond that, however.

As an institution, it’s a watered-down version of what it used to be. Its leaders seem more concerned with appearing modern than with doing the work the organization has done for a century.

Going forward, that could be a far bigger problem than financial liability — particularly given parents who aren’t interested in inclusivity for the sake of inclusivity.

That’s what James Woods’ question was pointing out.

And the Scouts are going to have trouble answering it.

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Apparently, those who want to seriously regulate guns also include those who would want to use them in a violent manner.

That’s at least the takeaway from a hearing Monday in Connecticut, where a woman was thrown out after she was caught texting that she would kill Second Amendment supporters if given access to a firearm.

According to WTNH-TV’s Mark Davis, the woman was spotted at the state capitol in Hartford texting that she would kill National Rifle Association members and a Republican lawmaker known for his conservative view on the Second Amendment.

Woman expelled from gun hearing after being seen sending this text about a state lawmaker. pic.twitter.com/ySVc9Zm9x5

— Mark Davis (@markdavisWTNH) March 11, 2019

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“If I had a gun, I’d blow away Sampson and a large group of NRA…” the text message read.

According to the Hartford Courant, the woman was texting her daughter

“Lt. Glen Richards of the Capitol police said the woman’s text message was spotted by another person in the hearing room,” the Courant reported. “She was removed from the room, was not arrested and departed from the building without any further disturbance.”

The removal was captured in a video that was uploaded to Facebook.

The unnamed woman was referring to state Sen. Rob Sampson, a noted Second Amendment supporter in the Connecticut legislature.

On his Twitter page, Sampson describes himself as a “Leading Constitutional Conservative Republican in the Connecticut General Assembly” and a “NRA Defender of Freedom Award recipient.”

According to Newsweek, he also has an A+ rating from the group on Second Amendment issues.

So, apparently, given the opportunity, this woman would kill both a state senator and members of the National Rifle Association. Well, I guess we can tell why she doesn’t want guns around.

The occasion where the texting took place, according to The Daily Caller, was a Judiciary Committee hearing that looked at several new gun control measures under consideration.

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On the agenda were an update to the state’s safe gun-storage laws, regulations on 3-D printed guns, open carry permit restrictions and a bill that would disallow cities from enacting their own firearm regulations.

The hearing was a contentious one, with both pro-Second Amendment activists and gun control supporters present.

Among those in attendance were the parents of Ethan Song, a Connecticut teen who died after accidentally shooting himself with a gun at a friend’s house, according to the Danbury News-Times.

The Connecticut teen who fatally shot himself while playing with a gun at a friend’s house would likely still be alive if the state had a law requiring the safe storage of firearms, his parents told lawmakers today. https://t.co/asfl2Ei3mB

— The News-Times (@NewsTimes) March 11, 2019

Contentious though the hearing may have been, I fail to see the reason why anyone would threaten a state senator and members of the NRA.

This might seem harmless until you consider animus behind the individual who shot Rep. Steve Scalise and several other Republicans during what could have been massacre in the summer of 2017.

I understand that this was probably a very bad joke, but that doesn’t fly in the current environment.

After all, these are people who are lecturing us about gun violence and then joking around about it in a public forum where people can apparently see your text messages.  It’s also such arrant hypocrisy that it beggars belief.

And yet again, this demonstrates why conservatives demand the right to be armed. Regardless of whether this woman was joking, plenty of nut jobs aren’t.

The best form of protection isn’t disarming law-abiding citizens in the face of threats. It’s citizens being able to counter them.

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