Posted on 03/04/2011 5:03:09 PM PST by SandRat
DALLAS, March 4, 2011 – Recalling his own experience as an Eagle Scout, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last night praised scouting for instilling principles, integrity and honor in tomorrow’s leaders.
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The secretary told the audience of 1,500 that he could fit everything he owned in the back seat of his car when he went to Washington, D.C., at age 22 to work for the CIA. At that time, he said, earning his Eagle Scout badge was the only thing he had done that made him believe he could make a difference.
“It was the only thing I had done that distinguished me from so many other high school kids,” he said. “It was the first thing I had done that told me I might be a little different because I worked a little harder, was a little more determined, a little more goal-oriented, more persistent than others. Earning my Eagle gave me the self-confidence to believe, for the first time in my life, that I could achieve whatever I set my mind to.”
Much has changed, and not all of it for the better -- especially for young people -- in the 50 years since he was a Boy Scout, Gates said.
“One thing, however, that has remained the same over the years is the positive experience of scouting on boys and young men,” he added, “and the ability of so many of them to surprise us and inspire us with their determination, their character, their skills, and their moral and physical courage.”
Good homes and good parents produce good boys, but scouting tempers the steel, the secretary said.
“At a time when many American young people are turning into couch potatoes and, too often, much worse,” Gates told the audience, “scouting continues to challenge boys and young men, preparing them for leadership.”
One way scouting creates leaders, the secretary said, is by presenting new challenges that build confidence, self-reliance and the spirit of adventure. Another benefit, he added, is that Boy Scouts learn the importance of service to others.
“The scouting movement shows dramatically that service -- public service -- still beckons the best among us to do battle with complacency, neglect, ignorance and the emptiness of the spirit that are the common enemies of social peace and justice,” Gates said. “Adults like you who support scouting are generously investing in our collective future –- in [columnist] Walter Lippman’s words, you are ‘planting the trees we may never get to sit under.’”
Caring beyond one’s self, the secretary added, is fundamental not only to scouting, but also to democracy and to civilization itself.
Scouting also prepares boys and young men to live lives based on unchanging values such as trustworthiness, loyalty, honesty, kindness, and the respect and dignity every person deserves, he said.
“We in scouting believe that personal virtues -- self-reliance, self-control, honor, integrity and morality –- are absolute and timeless,” Gates said. “There are in too many places too few people with scouting values -- people who say, ‘On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty,’ and mean it.”
The secretary noted that scouting allows adults who are leaders to teach boys to be leaders.
“In challenging boys to learn skills, to master challenges, to strive to live up to high principles and moral values, to find the greater beauty in a life of cheerful service, to build strong character, scouting tempers them into strong leaders for tomorrow,” Gates said.
Former President George W. Bush introduced Gates to the audience. Gates’ service as defense secretary dates back to December 2006, during Bush’s administration.
| Biographies: Robert M. Gates Related Sites: |
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Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE the Boy Scouts of America organization because it was founded under God (the Christian paradigm) unlike in other nations who rejected the Judeo/Christian ethic.
The Socialists want no sexual restraint and promote all perversion to destroy the family unit. That is why they want to include girls (deny God’s design is different between boys and girls so that they can redesign human nature into their obscene way which defies Natural Law).
Their inclusion of homosexuals and girls is also to destroy the latency period of boys....where they love to just hang out with boys—they want to make it a “gay” thing and label young boys who are doing what is natural for emotionally healthy development and pervert it by eliminating that joy and conditioning young minds into believing that they are “gay” because they have so much joy among members of their own sex.
It is why they want sex education in K....to pervert the minds of the young children and label them during the latency period when it is necessary for members of the same sex to identity with each other—to form a strong sexual identity. Examples of normal men are paramount to this development and homosexual men know to seduce boys, the earlier you start conditioning them into thinking certain abnormal behavior is normal the better and least resistance they have for choosing that lifestyle. It is a learned and is chosen behavior.
That is why Christianity is so loathed by Marxists....God decides right and wrong, and they are trying to erase God so they can dictate what is good and evil.
savagesusie, the author of the Pink Swastika no doubt has many excellent facts and points to make. But you'll notice that this group became the "equivalent' of the Boy Scouts. While this group became the equivalent, Dr. Alexander Lion started the first real German Boy Scouts in 1909, using a translated copy of Baden-Powel's "Scouting for Boys", in the mad rush of countries to adopt the Baden-Powel Scouting program (the USA did in 1910).
After WWI, the Wandervoegel (which, by then, emphasized freedom, self-responsibility, hiking, adventure - and Germany's Teutonic roots), the German Scouting movement, and the Bündische Jugend (another German youth movement), cooperated together as the German Youth Movement, but stayed three separate groups.
That's why the author says that the Wandervoegel was among among the "other youth organizations" that the author mentions as being merged into the Hitler Youth were the different Scout organizations of Germany that began to spring up after Dr. Lion started the German Scouting movement.
Scouting in Germany was started by Dr. Lion; Wandervoegel may have been started by homosexual fascists. The two organizations are not the same.
I'll write later about my experiences with Venturing, and as a Scoutmaster viewing International Scouting and serving as a Scoutmaster of International Troops.
Some quick questions: If your church has a youth group, is is coed, or segregated by sex? IF your church youth group goes on retreats or choir tours, are the retreats/tours coed or segregated by sex?
I think in the latency period it is important to have all boy groups.....I raised 4 boys and one girl and majored in Child Development for years and see the need between the ages of 4 to 12 to have all boy or all girl groups. After that, I think it is beneficial for some classes to be all boy and all girl (that has been documented on the improvement in grades and concentration) BUT yet, it is imperative that there be places for boys and girls to do things together. Absolutely. Coed groups create unity of the sexes and they learn about each other.
In this society where we are forcing girls into boy activities and visa versa===it is Marxian ideology that there is no biological difference which is a lie—Boys are suffering in all aspects even education—large part of no father figure. But feminization happens if there are no exclusively boy activities. They need to have comaraderie with other boys in the latency period and feel accepted and admired by boys (and men) to develop a healthy male sexual identity. All boys soccer team-—all boys something!
Now, I do NOT say to segregate boys from girls in those ages. THey must interact and not be like Afghanistan or some unnatural situation which keeps them from any interaction. That creates abnormalties also. If you don’t know, Afghanis are homosexual and hate women and the boys dream about having a stable of boys to sodomize when they grow up....it is what is done to them—it is a learned behavior. I was not for all boys and all girls schools but I think that there can be classes where they are separated according to sex. In fact, I think it acknowledges God’s design. We need to acknowledge the difference between boys and girls for sexual identities. Today the androginous society is causing confusion in young children. There is no clear dfferences in the sexes like 60 years ago....and it is feminizing men....Cicero wrote about it in the destruction of the Roman Republic....the effects of a feminized society—it destroyed Rome. But then our destruction is what cultural Marxist ideology (men and women are the same) is all about—to make them interchangeable and destroy the family unit where men and women have no problem going against nature.
Schools are getting rid of the words spouse and wife and husbands for decades now==(partners!!!!!!!!)...Marxian idea to destroy the family unit—destroy the natural “roles” assigned to man and woman. Make the Bible hate speech. Go against nature so they can redesign and play god. Marx hates biology attachments and wants them destroyed. They create individualism and self suffieciency. Happiness in man as our Founders and all men for thousands of years have understood, is that if you go against natural law and God’s laws you will never be happy.
Catholic schools always separated the boys and girls when they discussed sex. That is for the dignity and respect of modesty of the women. It was much more successful than what is happening now. Schools have removed morality from the sex act, along with mystery and beauty and respect which the Catholic schools used to give it, and have made it nothing more than a commodity. (Marxian we are all animals) You see that idea in everything now.
Got to go to church! Will love to discuss further. I have read extensively on this topic and of course, worked with children and in the classroom for 25 years as a volunteer.
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