Unfortunately.
Back on April 21, you may recall, I posted:
I fully expect that the Boy Scouts of America, who have stomped on the key word in that name -- Boy -- by allowing people other than boys to join, will become just "BSA" in the next decade or so.
And yesterday, in the Chicago Tribune:
For 108 years, the Boy Scouts of America's flagship program has been known simply as the Boy Scouts. With girls soon entering the ranks, the group says that iconic name will change. The organization on Wednesday announced a new name for its Boy Scouts program: Scouts BSA. The change will take effect in February.
So it happened a lot faster than I expected. These people cannot wait to ruin everything for boys as fast and as brutally as possible. I wrote to them, I really did, to tell them of my dissatisfaction, and they referred me to their happy rah-rah Web page, which says,
By welcoming both girls and boys into the program, even more youth will have access to the character development and values-based leadership that Scouting promises.That's the opposite effect it will have; by catering to a wider audience the focus will be lost, if it isn't already.
Were they having trouble getting boys to join? Is this a Hail Mary (or a "Hey, Mary! Sign up here!")? I guess they never heard Kingsley Amis's dictum that "More will mean worse." Well, guess what, BSA? Boys will stop joining entirely unless they are forced to, and it will become essentially the Cookieless Girl Scouts. Why should boys join a co-ed activities group doing dumb co-ed things? They already belong to one and it's called "school." They've just once again proven to boys that they are second-class citizens, deserving of nothing of their own.
But completely driving boys away will take a little time. Meanwhile, they will keep hold of the initialism BSA, exactly as I predicted. Why? Let's check with our old friend Iowahawk:
What will the "BSA" ruin next? Well, this oath has to go:
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.
"Honor" is of course an outdated and dangerous male idea. "Honor" brought us World War I, right? So that's out. "Duty" is an entrapping idea, antithetical to freedom, as is "obey," and knowing that, this "Law" thing is out as well. "God" -- the less said the better. "My country" -- please! What is this, the 20th century? "Physically strong" -- more maleness -- strength is just one sign of physical fitness, you know. "Mentally awake" -- who even knows what that means, amiright? "Morally straight" -- you have GOT to be KIDDING me, people.
So, we have:
On my
Edited down, we get:
I will do my best to help other people at all times.
That's an oath for toddlers, unworthy of an older child. Just ditch the whole thing.
You know what we need? We need a scouting organization with actual guts. The girls can have their own wing, but the boys need to have a place where they can be boys. (It seems like every other group of people in the world is supposed to be able to hang out with their own kind, but never males, except in stupid Zac Efron-movie yo-brah ways.) I want a return to wildlife-loving, forged in battle scouts, someplace where boys can learn honor and dignity, and actually have to perform difficult tasks to get merit badges, not namby-pamby stuff.
We've said for more than a century that boys need things to make them into men, and what we're seeing around now--shootings, drug overdose, family abandonment--is not the horrific effects of too much manliness, but rather of boys in men's bodies. Taking manly things away from boys isn't turning them into sweet little girls; it's turning them into wild animals.
Thanks, "BSA." Let me know when you decide to have a cookie drive.
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