pissed off

[low_delta]

i'm really getting pissed off at some people's attitude towards the Boy Scouts. Not about the homosexual thing - that's understandable - but about their attitude of see? They are all perverts!

I just read a comment by some guy who predicted this on the basis that an organization would not be so paranoid about child molesters if they weren't child molesters themselves. WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? You get years of jokes about guys going out into the woods with boys, and also the threat of lawsuits over any possible impropriety, of course that's what you get. Paranoia. But it's not a bad thing. Not only is it leader protection, it's youth protection. Sure, you can say that it's in self-interest - not only for protection from lawsuits, but to assure parents that their kids are safe, thereby keeping membership up. So what?

I know from my time with the Boy Scouts that they move swiftly on allegations of abuse. They may not always take the action most favorable to the victim, but this is no Catholic Church which sides with the accused, against lawsuits.

Am I taking this personally? Probably. I'm getting pissed off at the statements that people are making that have no basis in logic, but not only that, a lot of the statements some people are making are rather broad generalizations about scouting and scouters in general - and I consider myself to be one.

Besides that, lately, I've not been in a mood to take any shit.

Comments

[ghostofzuul.livejournal.com]

that dude who got busted has some ties to portland so it's a really big story here... but they keep saying he didn't even have any direct contact with the kids so what's the big deal?

i was never in the boy scouts but had i not played sports all the time i probably would have been down with it... most of my friends who were in boyscouts weren't atheletes but i don't think the two are related... that's just how it was... some kids did sports some kids did 4h...etc... i grew up in a pretty rural area but also really liberal and crunchy so i don't think boy scouts was as big as it was other places... no clubs and shit like that that would be considered conformist by our parents were really popular... growing up in the 70's in new england i guess... just a sign of the times.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I never knew of the conformist, right-wing, paramilitary reputation of scouting until I had been in it for quite a while. And naturally, I think those aspects are exaggerated.

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

I have at times been guilty of broad generalizations like that.. most with a little to a lot of tongue in cheek. However.. what that comment tells you about is the thought process of the person saying it....


HE KNEW? KNEW????? right.

I do agree with the spark of his comment, but not the application. You can tell a lot about a PERSON by the paranoia they express, someone who is constantly looking out for cops does so for a reason .. etc... but I just don't see how LARGE ORGANIZATIONS can be held to the same clue tags. Perhaps one that has ONE leader, who makes the rules/choices and has a very tight hands on control etc.. Most organizations are made up of multiple people with different ideals, goals, issues.. The boy scouts is too wide spread, has too many separate hives so to speak satellites to have one cohesive communal thinking acting brain. Even with the same set of rules in place to follow.. the application will be different with each person.

*shrug*

I don't my brain is awake enough to make this comment clear. Eh.. what can you do?

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I know what you're trying to say. I could say the same thing.

[aki-dreaming.livejournal.com]

I can't say anything about the reasons other people say things like that. Bitterness most likely. When I say things like that I know I'm just being bitter. Odds are against that kind of mass impropriety, honestly. Still, it grates that they have such an absolutist attitude about homosexuals and this kind of thing still happens. Pedophilia isn't about sexual preference. It's about desiring children. It's unfair to the hundreds of thousands of good scout leaders in the world to classify them all as perverts, but it's so assinine that the organization insists upon maintaining a policy of prejudice that simply eliminates more potentially good scout leaders and this kind of thing STILL HAPPENS. It says to me they don't understand the issue and they don't want to.

Personally, I hope this is as isolate as it should be. Sexual abuse is nothing to laugh at.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Well said.

I've seen a lot of people say things that sound like, "see? They don't let gays in, but they do let pedophiles in!" Which doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I think what's happening is that people are angry about both issues, and can't resolve their feelings into coherent thoughts.

[aki-dreaming.livejournal.com]

It's such a sensitive issue and people on both sides of it are completely boneheaded. A lot of people can't tell the difference between a homosexual and a pedophile. I find this curious because while it's true that adult males have abused male children, it's also true that adult males have abused female children and no one, no one AT ALL ever insists that all adult males are perverts.

But there are people who are only too willing to assume all adult homosexuals are abusers because a guy once raped a little boy. That's the worst, and the stupidest, double standard in the world. It's unfair to homosexuals and it's unfair to little girls.

And really, we're talking about individuals, individuals with scary tendencies and poor impulse control, who probably have a history of their own abuse and are usually straight as they can be and "fine upstanding citizens". Until we start seeing people for who and what they are and stop projecting our fears onto then, things like this will continue to happen, because we are assuming too much about the wrong people and taking the "right" ones for granted.

[kingseyeland.livejournal.com]

I was a Scout for 2 years. At first, I was in a bad troop and our Asst. Scoutmaster was a pervert (walking up behind us and trying to yank our pants down, standing next to us in bathrooms and looking down at us, etc.). My perception of Scouts is admittedly a little skewed.

However, my parents pulled me out of that troop and put me in another one with a great Scoutmaster who was very generous with his time and a bunch of kids who were great to me. It made up for a lot of the crap that had happened. Put that way, I can definitely see the positives (I still know how to tie a clove-hitch -- not that it's hard).

I apologize if my comments were insensitive, inappropriate, uninformed, or all of the above (though I'm not the one who said that shit about child molesters -- that would've set me off too).

I know it's not the whole organization. It's a few bad apples ruining a great organization. And the way the media plays it, it can easily skew public perception. I try to ignore a lot of that but it's hard because I've seen both sides firsthand.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I've heard a lot of stories from friends about bad experiences in scouting, but nothing like yours. That's horrible. As a scout leader, I would hope that someone filed a complaint against the guy.

No, aside from the vagueness of your original statement, I have no problem with anything you said (even if I might have disagreed with any of it). Certainly not insensitive or inappropriate.

[sunshyncat.livejournal.com]

I am getting very annoyed about the same thing. The girl scouts (I was in from 2nd to 6th Grade) enriched my life in so many ways. *frustrated sigh*

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of trouble with the generalized accusations. I'm a big fan of justice and of seeing both sides of an issue. this had been very difficult for me.