UnScouting: An Alternative to the Boy Scouts

After years of prohibiting openly gay members, the Boy Scouts of America has changed its policy and will now accept openly gay scouts. I always respected the organization’s right to freely associate, and am glad to see that such a decision was not forced upon them by government. However, if I had a son, I wouldn’t encourage him to join the Boy Scouts. This has nothing to do with the recent decision regarding gay membership.

Michael S. Alford, author of Swindled, wrote a piece for LRC a few months back that painted the Boy Scouts in quite an unattractive light. He explained that for a brief time he and the other leaders were able to teach their scouts what interested them. They rewrote the book, so to speak, choosing to focus on what interested them. They did their own fundraising and included other family members in the activities.

Then corporate found out.

They weren’t happy with the way Alford and the others had tailored the program. It didn’t fit their mold, it wasn’t focused on fundraising. So the upper management took a greater role, and the result was, according to Alford, “an environment where risk-taking was a frightful prospect, and instead it was enough to simply read from the Scout manual about how to do dangerous things and then check the box….”

At some point along way, Alford and the others stumbled upon a book written by one of the founders of the Boy Scouts. Penned over hundred years ago, “[i]ts very pages ooze with rugged individualism and self reliance. This man taught his early Scouts to go into the woods and cut down trees to make their shelters (tents? Bah!), to hunt and kill their supper.” So rather than put up with this sort of thing, (he explains the Boy Scouts now give merit badges for video games) his family will take the handbook and teach themselves.

This is what everyone ought to do who isn’t happy with an organization like the Boy Scouts. Instead of filing a lawsuit, start your own club. Take all the time, energy, and money that would otherwise be spent on lawyers, and devote that to building an organization that is more to your liking. I can’t seem to understand why anyone would want to be involved with an organization that was forced by the state to include them.

Similar to the way that unschooling turns education on its head, this might be referred to as unscouting. Pick and choose how and where to hold activities, what subjects to study, and be as inclusive or discriminatory as you wish. No doubt there are plenty of people interested in some sort of scouting association that would be open to trying something new, and given the right circumstances, such a movement could do great things.

Additional News and Commentary

Maybe you’re new here and haven’t seen the economicharmonies Facebook page. Go check it out and “like” it for links to more stories and additional commentary.

Some People Cannot Be Convinced

Earlier this week Tom Woods was kind enough to link to my latest piece from the Tenth Amendment Center. Someone who calls himself ChrisMichaels was less than convinced that “the jig is up,” as Woods mentioned in his post. Here is my response, Chris’ comments are in italics:

Chris, thank you for the thoughtful reply.

I receive Google Alerts to stories on nullification daily; many are written by journalists and commentators with an ax to grind. The spam filter seems to prevent links, but at least I can provide quotes of some that are fairly representative.

“[T}ea-partyers seem to think they can again turn back the clock to 1832, when South Carolina came up with the nullification idea….” See Dick Polman. Now you can say you’ve read at least one such article.

Betters? I like using sarcasm too. Again, I’ve checked backpage after backpage of Abraham Lincoln Enthusiast monthly, and I can’t seem to find the plea to give Nullification supporters this reminder. I suppose I’ll need a source.

In a piece from a journalist entitled “Tea-Party Gets the Constitution Wrong” we learn that South Carolinians were “beaten back by President Andrew Jackson who threatened to deploy troops to South Carolina….”

Bernard Powers, a history professor, is quoted in another story and explains that “[u]ltimately, [nullification] was settled on the battlefield….” This an example of a might-makes-right argument.

The fact that Jefferson abused power as an executive doesn’t disprove nullification. If anything, it gives more weight to the argument in favor of restraining power by such means. The guy who first promoted nullification as a tool against the federal government overstepping its bounds was guilty of the same encroachment. This indicates that anyone is prone to abusing authority, and such limits as the separation of powers and a supreme court are often insufficient to restrain such a person.

Either way, I never held up TJ “as some Bastian of Constitutionality.” I merely noted that the events of 1798 occurred prior to those of 1832, which admittedly sounds incredibly basic, but is necessary nonetheless, as some authors seem to neglect this fact.

You may (or may not) be aware that a number of northern states, notably Wisconsin, refused to enforce the fugitive slave laws, effectively nullifying them.

“The states [ratified] a certain ‘We the People,’ not ‘We the States,’ document….”

Exactly – “the states” ratified the constitution, and the states may amend the constitution, as they are parties to it, not the people.

“In fact Six States even made a point to express the position that the constitutionality of acts of Congress is a question for the federal courts, not the state legislatures.”

I thought you were convinced that the states had no authority to interpret the constitution. If this is true, why should anyone pay heed to those six states; did something change along the way?

In practice it’s not necessary for a state to declare in a bill: “We’re using nullification to nullify federal laws that are hereby null in this state.” Merely ignoring the feds and allowing people to engage in otherwise lawful activity is a form of nullification. So is civil disobedience, which is a form of individual nullification.

“An article quoting a Rasmussen poll, by a Libertarian?”

I guess Rasmussen polls only hold weight when linked to by non-libertarians?

Author’s frequently reference their own work, particularly when they don’t want to rehash material they’ve already covered. Linking to relevant work allows a curious reader to explore additional content at his leisure.

This Chris fellow wrote four pages of rebuttal to my original piece, nearly double the words. Not surprisingly, he admitted to not reading the seminal work on the topic, Tom Woods’ Nullification. Certainly, some people cannot be convinced.

The Chodorov Solution

Tom Woods writes on his Facebook page: “Communists in government jobs? Eliminate the jobs, said the great Frank Chodorov in the 1950s. Corruption in the IRS? I favor the Chodorov solution.”

He Shot the Hostage

This is the necessary consequence of a policy that places officer safety above all other considerations. A veteran police officer shot a hostage in the head yesterday, killing her, when a kidnapper raised his weapon at the officer. In total, the cop fired eight rounds, also killing the kidnapper.

The police investigation is ongoing, and we can hope that more details will emerge in the near future. However, this much is true: you can’t be heralded a hero, selflessly putting your life on the line, while at the same time operating under the assumption that your life is more important than those around you.

If getting home at the end of the day is your primary concern, and not ensuring that the lives of others are protected first, you’re not a hero, and you should find another line of work.