Boy Scouts Introduce Merit Badge For Not Pirating

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Boy Scouts Introduce Merit Badge For Not Pirating

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Friday October 20, 2006 @08:21AM from the think-of-the-children dept.

The_Slaughter writes "The MPAA has recruited the boy scouts of America to do their dirty work. Scouts will now be able to learn a merit badge for anti-piracy related activities, including creating public service announcements urging others not to steal movies or music. No word yet on if that includes helping the MPAA file lawsuits against 80-year-old grandmothers."

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Scouts Honor.... by MECC · 2006-10-20 08:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

"Scouts also must choose one activity from a list that includes visiting a movie studio to see how many people can be harmed by film piracy. They also can create public service announcements urging others not to steal movies or music." And complete a lobotomy.

Do they also have merit badges for not thinking independently? Or one for having your IQ reduced to a single digit and being converted to a near-mindless automaton?

--
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
1. Re:Scouts Honor.... by MattGWU · 2006-10-20 08:33 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Yes, it's called the "You don't HAVE to do any merit badges you don't want to do." merit badge. The one requirement is you DON'T DO THE BADGE. It's a total gimmie, it's great. Nobody is holding a gun to some kids head to do the badge.
  
  My prediction: If it's easy, scouts will do the badge. You don't have to believe in it, you just have to do it, and damn if there's nothing better than an easy merit badge for that extra Eagle palm or whatever.
  
  --
  "These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
2. Re:Scouts Honor.... by Mateo_LeFou · 2006-10-20 08:55 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  So do you think there should be a merit badge about not-breaking every law, or just the most important ones (murder/rape/filesharing)?
  
  --
  My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
3. Re:Scouts Honor.... by 644bd346996 · 2006-10-20 09:01 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Your comment almost perfectly hits the mark. The only thing is that there are still a few troops that accomplish the original purpose. They are actively being repressed by the higher levels, but there are ways to deal with them. It is only through the efforts of a few extremely patient and caring men, mostly Eagles, that some troops can stick to BP's ideals. Unfortunately, these men are almost entirely absent from the organization above the troop level.
4. Re:Scouts Honor.... by Maxo-Texas · 2006-10-20 09:05 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Actually, more likely to be like the kids in "Jesus Camp".
  
  You get to people young enough- you define who they are and what they feel is right and wrong.
  
  --
  She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
5. Re:Scouts Honor.... by swillden · 2006-10-20 09:10 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  However, I feel that the scout organization has fallen so far from its original intended roots that it's nothing but a special interest shadow of its former self
  I was a boy scout, got my Eagle, have been a Cub Scout leader for the last few years and just recently became the Varsity Team Coach (Varsity is the 14-15 year-old boys), so I have a very good view of what Scouting actually is, as opposed to what it appears to be in the press.
  My take is that your perception is driven primarily by the special interests who have decided to attack scouting based on the two tenets of the program they don't like: homosexuality and religion. The scouting organizations actually have very little problem with either of those, and spend no time at all worrying about them. The prohibition on homosexual and pedophile leaders is very sensible, in my opinion, and the religious position is both open (must profess faith in *some* god) and not really enforced.
  Scouting is a great program that does a tremendous amount of good. It's precisely because it's such a valuable program that people who object to a couple of its tenets like to attack it. Don't take their attacks to mean that the program has changed.
  Anyway, I need to get back to planning next year's High Adventure camp. We're going to do a week-long, 100-mile rafting trip, most of it through the inaccessible canyons of the Colorado River above the Grand Canyon. I'm actually not so much planning it as putting together the framework for planning it, because the boys will do the real planning themselves.
  That's what scouting is about. Self-sufficiency, outdoor skills, teamwork, preparedness and the moral strength and integrity that are developed by doing hard things in a place that no one can cover for you. Oh, and fun. Lots of fun.
  Doesn't stop people from trying to use Scouting to score political points, but we try to ignore those people.
  
  --
  Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
6. Re:Scouts Honor.... by Score+Whore · 2006-10-20 09:13 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Without getting too political, Bush has lied under oath as well. He swore to uphold the constitution, but then ordered that people be held without access to courts, attorneys, etc. It went to the Supreme Court and was deemed that those orders violated the constitutional rights of the people being held and the Bush administration then said "ok, we'll stop doing that." But the thing is, just because Bush felt that it was constitutional doesn't mean that it's OK until a court says otherwise. It means that he was in violation of those constitutional rights all along. Bush should be impeached for breaking his oath.
7. Re:Scouts Honor.... by monoqlith · 2006-10-20 09:25 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I can't let this one go. Republican strategists tried for all 8 years of Clinton's presidency to nail him, they hated him so. The fact that the most credible charge they could come up with was lying about the Lewinsky affair(which was, I admit, stupid and unnecessary) is a testament to his relative integrity as a politician. He was under such heavy scrutiny from the Republican congress that they would have nailed him to the cross had he done something else even remotely as morally reprehensible. But none of preceding accusations levied against him held water, so they were left with the stupid Lewinsky tapes. This is not to excuse him, but to simply show that we once had a competent and relatively honest creature for our president.
  
  This all lies in contrast, of course, to our current president, whose resignation you apparently aren't calling for. He hasn't been held accountable for a single false, misleading, or outright deceptive public statement, of which there are plenty to cite. Some say that these lies have directly resulted in as many as half a million deaths. The only reason he has gotten away with them is because he has encountered virtually no resistance or scrutiny from Congress, and has skillful deceptive tactictians who, in a very real, cynical, Machiavellian sense, have artfully deceived the entire world, America included, into turning over as much power as possible to them and their cronies. Heavy accusations, I know. But unlike many of the Republican accusations against Clinton, these hold water.
  
  So what I suppose you are really complaining about is that Clinton got caught.
8. Re:Scouts Honor.... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-20 09:26 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Why do people lump homosexuals and pedophiles into the same group?
  
  As an adult hetrosexual male, do you have the desire to fondle a female child?
9. Re:Scouts Honor.... by jZnat · 2006-10-20 09:41 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  One is a deliberate lie, and the other has set us back hundreds of years.
  
  Yeah, I completely see how perjury is far more severe than shitting on the US Constitution on a daily basis while in the federal government.
  
  --
  'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
10. Re:Scouts Honor.... by sfjoe · 2006-10-20 10:19 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  It seems rather obvious to me... because the potential sexual interest, particularly between the leader and the older boys, may interfere in a variety of ways, some mild, some severe.
  
  I think this statement illustrates the homophobia in our society in general and Scouts in particular. For example, few people would raise an eyebrow at a heterosexual male coaching a high school girl's basketball team. Yet somehow gay men are supposedly unable to control themselves when around young men. I am reminded one time when a gay friend of mine was presented with this issue by a homophobe who was deathly afraid he would get cruised if he was arounf gay men. My friend told him, "You know, none of you straight men are nearly as hot and irresistible as you think you are".
  
  --
  It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
fair use by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-20 08:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm guessing that fair use won't be part of the learning experience.
Positively Orwellian ... by gstoddart · 2006-10-20 08:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

This reminds me of the children in 1984 who were trained to turn anyone who may have comitted a thought-crime.

I realize the Boy Scouts like to try to teach morals and the like, but it doesn't sit well that the *AA's would be able to create a new merit badge and start indoctrinating them.

Errie.

--
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
1. Re:Positively Orwellian ... by User+956 · 2006-10-20 08:33 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  it doesn't sit well that the *AA's would be able to create a new merit badge and start indoctrinating them.
  
  The boy scouts of today are the politicians of the future. I can see where the RIAA is going with this.
  
  --
  The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Re:I bet they got a better deal from the RIAA... by gstoddart · 2006-10-20 08:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

I once heard a gay activist emphatically state that almost all child molesters were heterosexual

I don't have any statistics one way or the other on that. Certainly, I often hear that these people are married and have children. Who is gay or not is up to them. If some people have an agenda whereby they want to define as many people as possible (or as few) as gay, that's their problem.

My point is, this is not something which is representative of the community any more than the actions of a few priests are representative or Catholics, or the actions of Foley are representative of congress, or that blacks are more likely to commit crimes, or that Hispanics are probably illegal immigrants who are in gangs, or that all Muslims are terrorists, or that all Americans are gun toting fundamentalist rednecks. None of the preceding are fair generalizations to any of those communities.

You can't go about painting an entire group of people with the same brush. But, this is slashdot, where it's more expedient to do so.

Cheers

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Lost at C:>. Found at C.