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Kaspersky Quits BSA Over SOPA Support
First time accepted submitter Cmdrm writes with an article about Kaspersky Lab quitting the BSA over their (now lukewarm) support of SOPA. From the press release: "Kaspersky Lab would like to clarify that the company did not participate in the elaboration or discussion of the SOPA initiative and does not support it. Moreover, the company believes that the SOPA initiative might actually be counter-productive for the public interest, and decided to discontinue its membership in the BSA as of January 1, 2012.'"
Didn't know The Boy Scouts of America had a dog in this fight.
Kaspersky, not fanatic/evil enough to fit in the BSA.
Might be counterproductive to the public interest? Wow, way to soft-peddle it.
Kudos to Kaspersky for having a spine. SOPA is a sick, twisted power grab by big media, and their quitting the Business Software Alliance over it is a good thing IMO.
Posted anonymously because I don't want the BSA on me. The BSA is a pack of lawyers who exploit vague legal definitions to extort people out of money. They destroy small businesses reguardless of weather or not they actually bough the software and they run some of the dirtiest campaigns I've ever seen. Just look up "BSA Rat out your boss"... Seriously? Anybody who destroys some company because they have a chip on their shoulder and are greedy should be blacklisted - if you don't like where you work you should quit not destroy someones dream and leave all your coworkers jobless.
Fuck the BSA and anyone who ever took their side, Kapersky included.
So would that make this a Sopa-Opera?
Looks like a PR stunt. They'll probably soon be back in.
Mostly because the scouts were raided by the Mormons to become a recruiting agency.
The Boy Scouts used to be a great organization. But recently it has became a utter mess pushing a religious agenda upon the kids.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Don't forget the bigotry! Boy Scouts of America loves them some hatin' on the Gays and Atheists, but I guess you covered that with the religious agenda part.
I got here through a series of tubes
Damn OSHA. We have so many problems with OSHA. Many of the buildings in my industry have standing orders that whenever OSHA shows up. They are to be stopped at the door until a manager can escort them where they want to go. In that time all work in the building ceases until OSHA has left. Years ago we had some new OSHA inspector tell us we had to put a safety rail on the front of a stage. WTF. suffice to say after we continually said no. Said inspector said if he had to call his supervisor we would be shutdown. Call your damn supervisor you idiot. In the end no rail and we got to teach an OSHA noob he was not god.
shut down the real antivirus companys? sue users who end up with the fake software? sue people who do a charge back after buying it?
use the DMCA to stop the real antivirus apps? Use the DMCA / SOPA to shut down sites telling you how to remove them?
It varies greatly in Europe too. Some Scouts are sponsored by church and leaded by religious people and they tend to lean towards the religious stuff.
Baden-Powell is also not exactly very neutral person and he is interpreted in many ways.
My scout times...yes, it was mainly about building contraptions and camping in the woods, and occasionally making things explode when thrown into bonfire (canned peasoup does make a nice boom when cooked right...). And sneaking out nightly to Girl Guides tents was part of the fun on camps :)
We have two different Scouts here: the religious, Catholic Church backed Scouts and the secular Scouts.
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That's the problem with applying a sectarian agenda to what's really a civic organization. You don't even have to be non-Xian to come up with a contrarian sectarian viewpoint.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Boy Scouts of America is a private organization and as such has the right to set requirements for membership. The Scout Law explicitly states that a scout is reverent. The Scout Oath states that a scout will "do my duty to God and my country." You can see how an atheist could not recite the Scout Law or the Oath with a clear conscious. The only way atheists could participate in Scouting would be if BSA changed the Law and the Oath, but neither of those things have changed since their adoption in 1911. To change them would be to compromise the principles on which Scouting was founded.
As far as pushing Mormonism, this is the first I've ever heard of it. I am an Eagle Scout and have been very active in the Scouting community for the last 20 years or so. While Scouting makes a big deal about being reverent, they do not push any specific denomination. There are no religious requirements for advancement through the ranks. My troop was filled with a hodgepodge of Baptists, Methodists, Catholics and a few others. Scout camp chapels were all non-denominational (though a few of the larger camps had chapels by denomination) and very general.
There was no religious agenda being pushed upon any of us.
As far as the gays issue, would you want your daughter going on an overnight girlscout trip led by a male leader? Its the same issue. I know most gays are good people who wouldn't harm anyone, but don't pretend they are all saints. There is, at the very least, a perception issue and at the worst there is a legitimate safety issue for the boys in the troop.
BSA is a great organization that does a lot for boys and for this country. Every Eagle Scout has to do a service project that benefits his community. These are no small things, they typically require a few hundred man hours and get the scout's whole troop involved. They can't be done for Scouts or on Scout owned land. Every boy, to advance in the higher ranks, must hold a leadership position in the troop for at least 3 months. They learn how to work together, how to plan a camping trip, how to prepare for emergencies, basic first aid. Many boys have found their vocation through merit badges such as Environmental Science, Radio, Emergency Preparedness, Music or even Computers.
You can disagree with BSA's morals or with their admissions requirements or whatever. But please, don't demonize an organization that has done so much good and that is well within its rights to determine these policies you find disagreeable.
penn/teller 'bullshit' show had an expo piece on the boy scouts.
mormons, sigh....
whatever religion touches, it ruins. so sad we still have to bow down to imaginary sky faeries. or, you get excluded!
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
As far as the gays issue, would you want your daughter going on an overnight girlscout trip led by a male leader? Its the same issue. I know most gays are good people who wouldn't harm anyone, but don't pretend they are all saints. There is, at the very least, a perception issue and at the worst there is a legitimate safety issue for the boys in the troop.
just to let you know, in case you weren't completely sure:
YOU ARE A HOMOPHOBE.
and, news alert: they are not out to get you. if anything, I'd worry about your own homosexual feelings. those who are most against it often are the closet cases, themselves.
the 'doth protest too much' issue is loud and clear with you. you'll find yourself in 20 or 30 years, and maybe you'll be more at home with your actual identity.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
God is nothing, I can very much do my duty to nothing and my country. My reverence is blasphemy against false gods and the contagious mental illness of faith and ignorance. I can very much follow those rules in my own way.
No.
I worked summer camps for the scouts for 12 years, and a scout for 7 years before that. What you are both saying is stereotyping, just like the ideas that all gay men talk and act in an effeminate manner, or that all religious people are crackpots, or that anyone who knows computers is a socially inept virgin. I know the following from first-hand experience:
- Yes, the Mormons use the Boy Scouts as there boy's youth program, and sometimes it almost feels like they have their entire own different type of scouting. They are such a large amount of the enrollment of the program that councils avoid stepping on their toes, but at the same time, they are far from the majority of scouts registered in the program.
- Some churches, etc. are very particular about having their denominations views strongly represented with the troops that they charter. However, there is usually another unit nearby to join, or as the case with my old troop, you can always just move your charter to be with an organization that fits you better.
- I find that some of the units that fall under the categories above have the leaders who are most dedicated to what Boy Scouts should be, and that they are very good at being scouts first when they are meeting or camping, and not just being religious indoctrination machines like the above comments claim. Then there are the majority of units which are not focused on religion, in which case you still have some bad apples where the leaders don't care, but your claims again fall flat.
- Bigotry: the Boy Scouts do not, "loves them some hatin' on the Gays and Atheists" - they do have religion, they do not approve of gay leaders, but at the same time, your comments sound like I should expect the Boy Scouts to act like the KKK. Almost every one of the people I know/knew or worked with in the scouts are very indifferent to someone being gay or agnostic (again, there are always a few exceptions). And there are quite a few people who expect that the BSA will one day in our lifetime include girls, gays and whoever, but that know that it will take time - remember, religious institutions and especially the Mormon church do make up a pretty good size of the registered units and scouts (and consequently revenue), and what organization would so easily shed a quarter (just a guess) of themselves?
- There is some fear about gay men being leaders and what that might mean for incidents of child abuse, but as it was pointed out year after year in the state-required training to recognize signs of child abuse, there is no such correlation. This was at times also noted by the instructor of the Scout's own Youth Protection Training (required for every person over 18), which usually depended on the instructor's knowledge and drive to cover more than just the bare minimum. It is worth noting that YPT, when properly followed, will eliminate pretty much all opportunity for child abuse to occur (but the "properly followed" is the catch).
So what it comes down to for me, is that your comments are are malicious as anything I ever heard from anyone I respected in the scouts ever say. Like I said before, you are taking stereotypes and running with them. Which is to say, the three parents to this comment are behaving as badly or worse (if they are just joking) as pretty much anyone in the scouts ever does. Or, if you are not joking, then I feel like you are the kind of person where I will just nod my head politely and then tell you I disagree, while thinking to myself you are a moron who does not know what they are talking about but who will gladly spout off about it anyways, and that kind of behavior is one of the worst problems in this world. (might be offensive, but so are the above posts if they are not jokes)
As far as pushing Mormonism, this is the first I've ever heard of it. I am an Eagle Scout and have been very active in the Scouting community for the last 20 years or so. While Scouting makes a big deal about being reverent, they do not push any specific denomination. There are no religious requirements for advancement through the ranks. My troop was filled with a hodgepodge of Baptists, Methodists, Catholics and a few others. Scout camp chapels were all non-denominational (though a few of the larger camps had chapels by denomination) and very general.
There is a rumor that National has been largely taken over by Mormons; I don't know if it's true--and so long as they maintain the relatively open nature of the program, I don't care. I've known some great Mormons.
You can disagree with BSA's morals or with their admissions requirements or whatever. But please, don't demonize an organization that has done so much good and that is well within its rights to determine these policies you find disagreeable.
This--very much this. The BSA gets a huge amount of negative press, and much of it is deserved--but it doesn't get anywhere near the positive press and credit for the good work it does that it deserves.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Calling someone a name very rarely helps, and you'll find that most people who are labelled "homophobes" simply have never known or interacted with publicly gay people for an extended period of time.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
This is more directed toward someone reading the parent's post as opposed to the parent himself:
Despite the BSA's claims, the traditional Scout approach to religion (from what I have read) is a weak pantheistic or deist stance, not explicit endorsement of organized religion as the BSA does today. Furthermore, most Scouting organizations are officially secular (including the Girl Scouts of America) and leave in "loopholes", for instance Scouts Canada creating a substitute for its Religion in Life badge which anyone, atheist or otherwise, can qualify for (it's mostly related to cultural tolerance and ethics). In general, it makes much more sense to have it due to people whose religious belief is simply not categorized by a single organization, such as the Catholic Church. It discourages territorialism and clannish behaviour, something religious groups are almost absurdly inclined to partake in.
The BSA, on the other hand, stands alone in more or less forcing members to be a member of an officially-approved organized religion (and, yes, unapproved ones are banned, meaning that Unitarian Universalists are discriminated against). Anyone within the non-religious spectrum of belief/non-belief is simply ignored. This is almost unique and is representative of the BSA being thoroughly taken over by fundamentalist Baptists and Mormons. Many groups are explicitly run by churches and discrimination is intense.
The BSA's stances in general are unique -- gender segregation, for instance, is really only upheld by the BSA and a few officially Muslim Scouting organizations run in backwards places like Indonesia, which perfectly characterizes the BSA's rule by social regressives.
If you live in the USA, do not join the Boy Scouts of America. It is a hateful and discriminatory organization which forces swearing of religious fealty and allegiance to a pre-approved religious group. If you do not live in the USA, investigate your local Scouting organization -- some are more moderate than others. If you live in Europe or Canada, it's a pretty safe bet it's fine. Asia is a crapshoot and in Africa groups are mostly run by missionaries.
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How do you reconcile this statement:
The Scout Law explicitly states that a scout is reverent. The Scout Oath states that a scout will "do my duty to God and my country."
with this one:
There was no religious agenda being pushed upon any of us.
?
As far as the gays issue, would you want your daughter going on an overnight girlscout trip led by a male leader? Its the same issue.
Yes, I'd be just fine with that. Everyone should be just fine with that. Pedo paranoia stops kids from forming good relationships with adults. You should be ashamed of yourself.
There is, at the very least, a perception issue and at the worst there is a legitimate safety issue for the boys in the troop
Yes, there is a perception issue. The perception is that the Boy Scouts are bigots. There is a safety issue too. You're sending your kids off to be indoctrinated by bigots.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Moderators: This is not "interesting" or "insightful." It's off topic. I didn't click the article for this. The jokes were funny and fine but this Boy Scouts are evil discussion goes way to far off topic for a positive moderation. Please spend your points more constructively.
I want this account deleted.
As far as the gays issue, would you want your daughter going on an overnight girlscout trip led by a male leader? Its the same issue. I know most gays are good people who wouldn't harm anyone, but don't pretend they are all saints.
Most child molestation is done by heterosexual men. People that self-identify as homosexual (the very ones that are barred) have a much lower rate of being involved in child molestation. So while most heterosexual men wouldn't harm anyone, don't pretend they are all saints.
There is, at the very least, a perception issue and at the worst there is a legitimate safety issue for the boys in the troop.
Because it's believed true by some, we should act as if it is true rather than educating people. With that approach we would still be back in the dark ages.
"Would you want your daughter going on an overnight girlscout trip led by a male leader?"
How is this different from letting my daughter to spend the night at a friend's house? Oh my God! Her friend's dad will be there. And we all know that anytime a male is around people weaker than himself, he will always commit sexual assault! That's a pretty fucked up way to go through life. You must be terrified to be left alone with children for fear that you won't be able to contain yourself.
If it's not true for you, why would it be true for your daughter's friend's dad? If it's not true for him, why would it be true for a gay scout leader? I have a better idea. How about getting to know people before assuming they want to canoodle your kids? Your children are a lot more likely to get molested by a family member than a scout leader.
Holy crap, this thread has been totally derailed. I completely forgot we were talking about the Business Software Alliance. Those fuckers would probably rape all our kids, if they thought it was in the best interest of their clients.
You know you've taken your censorship too far when the Russians are telling you to dial it down.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
This pretty much sums it up Thanks Hatta!. Be as angry as you like. My opinions of scouting are based on first hand experiences. The scouts, for as much good as they do are little more than a hate group and their core values are reflective of that. I'm sure the Hiter Jungen did a great deal of good for their members as well, but when you indoctrinate children with a narrow world view, bad things will eventually happen.
I got here through a series of tubes
whatever religion touches, it ruins. so sad we still have to bow down to imaginary sky faeries. or, you get excluded!
Indeed guess we better get rid of the Big Bang Theory and Al Gebra. Filthy bigots and their tainted knowledge!
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
If you live in the USA, do not join the Boy Scouts of America. It is a hateful and discriminatory organization which forces swearing of religious fealty and allegiance to a pre-approved religious group. If you do not live in the USA, investigate your local Scouting organization -- some are more moderate than others. If you live in Europe or Canada, it's a pretty safe bet it's fine. Asia is a crapshoot and in Africa groups are mostly run by missionaries
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Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
You can disagree with BSA's morals or with their admissions requirements or whatever. But please, don't demonize an organization that has done so much good and that is well within its rights to determine these policies you find disagreeable.
BSA is well within its right to define discriminatory policies for their membership, but if they do, we're well within our rights to "demonize" them for it. Evil is evil, and deserves to be called out as such, and freedom of speech and conscience cuts both ways.
I haven't been involved in BSA for about 20 years now (which is when I achieved Eagle and then went to college), so things have probably changed a lot since then, just as American society has changed a lot since then. When I was in Scouts, each troop was very different. Contrary to what the guy above said about troops being a hodge-podge of people of different religions, I didn't see this at all. Instead, what I saw was that each troop was tied to a certain church, so most of the members tended to be members of the church where they held meetings. There were generally non-members too, as some Scouts would join a troop because it had a good reputation, or leave a troop because the leadership was poor; this happened to me, I was Catholic (at the time), but left my Catholic church troop because of poor leadership and went to a Methodist church troop down the street that had a great reputation for producing lots of Eagles. It worked out well, since I did achieve Eagle and I'm sure I wouldn't have with the previous scoutmaster.
Anyway, at all the troops I was in (I was previously in a different Catholic troop in a different city), I don't remember much religion being pushed. They encouraged people to attend that church's services once in a while, but generally it wasn't a big deal. It would have been quite easy for an atheist or agnostic to be in those troops and no one pay much attention, as long as they didn't go around trying to convert everyone. However, as I said before, each troop was tied to whichever church they met at, and troops were very different from each other; so if you joined a troop at a Mormon church, for instance, you might find a very, very different experience with religion being a big deal. Or if you joined a troop with a highly religious scoutmaster at a fundamentalist church for instance, you might find religion to be a major component. It's really all up to the leadership, and since the leadership mainly consists of a scoutmaster and maybe one or two assistants, with no real oversight by anyone higher in the organization, there's no telling what you'll find in any given troop.
How things are now, I don't know since I never had kids and never got involved in Scouts after going to college. But America in general seems to have gotten much more religious since 1990, and a lot more fundamentalist and evangelical too, so I wouldn't be surprised if that facet of our overall culture is also seen in the BSA. With the greater religiosity has come a lot more hatred towards homosexuals, so while I just don't remember it being much of an issue 20 years ago (they were arguing about whether girls should be allowed to join the BSA back then as I remember), I can see how all the religious extremists would make it a big issue now. Also, my experience may have been colored by the fact that I was Catholic and later joined a Methodist troop. Back then, American Catholics (particularly in Tennessee, where I lived; it was probably very different among the Irish Catholics of the NE) were about the most non-religious religious people around. Most of them only showed up for Easter and Christmas Masses, and the rest showed up weekly but would leave after 1 hour exactly, even if the Mass went over. All that stuff about birth control being verboten? They never listened to that stuff (and I don't remember it being talked about much in sermons either). These days, it's probably different since Hispanics have grown in numbers so much, and their brand of Catholicism seems to be much more devout, with so much focus on Mary etc. that I don't remember hearing much about when I was growing up (I stopped being a Catholic in college). And Methodists weren't exactly raging fundies either, being a pretty mainstream Protestant denomination. So again, I think anyone's experience in Scouting will be massively affected by what troop they join, and what church that troop is affiliated with. Join one that's in a liberal Protestant church like a Presbyterian, Lutheran, or Episcopal church and you'll probably have a pretty good experience without all the gay-hating (the Presbyterian church, for instance, now allows openly-gay ministers).
How is this different from letting my daughter to spend the night at a friend's house? Oh my God! Her friend's dad will be there. And we all know that anytime a male is around people weaker than himself, he will always commit sexual assault! That's a pretty fucked up way to go through life.
Welcome to life in modern America. This is exactly how most Americans think these days.
I don't remember any religious indoctrination during my time as a scout. We had jews, muslims, and a wide variety of christain demoninations. Scouts could optionally persue medals from these groups and were authorized to wear them on the uniform, but they were not conducted by the BSA themselves and there was never any pressure to do so. Perhaps 10-20% of the scouts in my troop went for them.
We spent time learning how to build fires, tie knots, basic first aide and doing service projects, the only time religion was mentioned was in the scout oath. The clergy from the church that sponsored our troop never made an appearance. Alternative lifestyles were never really mentioned by the scoutmasters, but plenty of jokes about them were made by other scouts, as boys of ages 11-17 are likely to do.
Some people seem to view the BSA's affinity with religion as indoctrination, and some seem to have the same view of catholic schools. My friends who attended catholic schools did have religious classes, but they were more along the lines of comparative religion (covering judiasm, christianity, islam, buddism etc) than preparation for confirmation/sunday school.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
The problem here is you have an inability to understand that not everyone sees things your way. Your sig is a perfect example, you make blind statements of massive scope that are just utterly ignorant and then call others ignorant for not agreeing with you.
You seem to think that it is impossible for someone to have an opinion without pushing it on the rest of the world JUST because you have no ability to have an opinion without trying to push it on the rest of us.
You are the exact type of person you're trying to call the scouts. You're the one with the issues.
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SOPA censorship is a fascist attack, and internet damage. It won't be too long before most of the world simply routes around the USA as an irreparably damaged internet zone in a "Running Man" type police state.
I'm not sure it's going to come to that; the US economy is a house of cards now, and before turning into a police state, I think it'll probably break apart into separate countries, much like what happened to the Roman Empire or the Soviet Union.
The problem here is you have an inability to understand that not everyone sees things your way.
There's really only one way to see things, the correct way. The way I see things may not in fact be the correct way, in which case I invite you to correct me.
Your sig is a perfect example, you make blind statements of massive scope that are just utterly ignorant and then call others ignorant for not agreeing with you.
What in particular are you talking about? "Censorship is obscene" is as well supported as any other statement that "X is obscene". It's an opinion, and my opinion isn't any less valid than anyone else's. If you belive that the state should ban things that people find obscene, then you must believe that the state should ban censorship. What exactly is ignorant about this?
"Patriotism is bigotry", maybe could be better stated as "patriotism is prejudice". Which it literally is. Patriots pre-judge their country as favorable by definition.
"Slashdot is unusable without noscript."? OK, that one is hyperbole. /. is usable without noscript, because people do in fact use it without noscript. However, disabling javascript is a big improvement, and I've had several people thank me for that information so I think it's justifiable hyperbole.
You seem to think that it is impossible for someone to have an opinion without pushing it on the rest of the world JUST because you have no ability to have an opinion without trying to push it on the rest of us.
What have I done to push my opinion on you? Posted on /. where you have every opportunity to rebut? Get a grip. You act like I'm after your children. On the contrary, I want nothing to do with them. The scouts on the other hand...
You are the exact type of person you're trying to call the scouts.
You're right. I'm intolerant. Specifically, I'm intolerant of intolerance. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. Do you claim that the police are hypocritical because they lock people up for kidnapping?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Then again, if people were to go around saying 2 + 2 = 5, or that the world is flat, and if acknowledgment of these positions was taught to children and practically required by politicians running for office, and historically used to enforce dogma on others and hold back science...
Then wouldn't people be justified in speaking out? For fuck's sake, it's 2011, and we've got people killing and enslaving each other over mythology. I say it's about time that we grow up and kill and enslave each other over legitimate reasons.
This bigoted tripe got modded "insightful"?
How do you know your nice straight scoutmaster isn't going to butcher your kid and eat him? I know most straights aren't cannibals, but don't pretend they're all saints.
I too was an Eagle Scout. Boy Scouts was hugely important to me for my teen years. But no longer.
You know when that stopped? When the BSA started selling off land to fund it's legal fight in the name of bigotry. Donated land, long held as fundamental to the teachings and skills that were a part of scouting, being lost to discriminate against gays, and non Christians.
You can claim that there's no religious bias, and amusingly go on to say that you had three different kinds of Christians in your troop as evidence, but that doesn't change facts. Because of all the lawsuits they've had to define things more clearly and now brag that they even have Jews and Muslims! Yeehaw, that is enlightened! And, the Atheism part - well, the charter says that anything goes, including individually defined spirituality, to which I'll say not believing in sky magic is well defined. But then, my troop was like yours, and every "non-denominational" service we were required to attend had bible readings. But, it is true that they were not as pushy as the Jehovah's Witnesses that knock on my door. Maybe we should call that "institutionalized".
Going to simply dismiss your straw man that all gay men are perceived as pedophiles.
Now, I got a lot out of Scouting. I learned great skills and leadership. I was a counselor for a few years at a leadership camp for older scouts. I gave a huge amount of time to Order of the Arrow. I gained confidence in my ability to do anything in the mountains I would want or need to do. My Eagle Scout project literally changed my life.
But, I see less of that when I look now. I see a lot of lame, half assed Eagle projects. Really, you built a fence around a shed behind your church? That's of great benefit to the community? I see a lot less emphasis on learning survival and wilderness preparedness, and a whole lot more practicing talking points on bigoted rhetoric. You want to pretend that there are people that don't believe in a God, fine, but when you're removing a social outlet and developmental resource from a child simply for having conviction in his own understanding of the universe, you're no longer a great service organization, you're just an individual asshole. Sure, they're within their strictest legal right, and have payed fortunes to defend that, but I refuse to pretend they're a great organization for boys.
You know what is not a compromise? Realizing that a 1911 version of the world isn't the ideal case and perceptions change.
It's been 10 years since Steven Spielberg took a stand, and you're still repeating the bullshit.
http://www.hollywood.com/news/Spielberg_resigns_from_Boy_Scouts_board/386418
Getting diabetes AND salmonella would be a bad weekend.
I am not an american, but I don't think there is enough regional identity for this to happen.
I guess there is still a north/south and a little east/west division, but not enough to split into separate countries.
What I see happening is that over the next 15 years, things will get worse, until when oil prices skyrocket agin, the economy will collapse. Because people are restless now when things aren't too bad, they will actually revolt and riot then. That's when the government will use the powers they have been building up recently on a large scale against the citizens, to attempt to keep order. I can't really guess at how that will turn out, but I can't see the government backing down and reducing control.
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
You must have missed all the secession talk by various states like Texas, Arizona, etc., and states suing the Federal government and vice versa. Plus, the entire Southeast region attempted to secede 160 years and failed, but the people in that region still have negative feelings towards the rest of the country. Heck, the entire Republican party was basically banned in the South up until the mid-to-late 1970s because of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln. (It wasn't "banned" per se, but it was absolutely impossible for anyone to be elected on that ticket. So, the only candidates were Democrats, and instead of Reps vs. Dems like in the rest of the country, all the elections were Dems vs Dems, with an occasional Rep in there who never got any votes. This is where the term "Southern Democrat" came from. They finally gave up on this towards the late 1970s because the rest of the Dems had gone so far with their social programs that it was pretty ridiculous they were in the same party as the ultra-conservative people from the South who called themselves Dems but their platform was the same as Reps in the rest of the country.)
This country may look homogenous, but it isn't. The South in particular absolutely has a strong regional identity, and there's a lot of people who don't like what the Federal government's been doing lately and probably would be very happy for their state to secede. If a group of them got together and did so during an economic collapse, there's probably not much the Federal government could do to stop them.
I also forgot to mention, there's already been a bunch of mini-revolts by various states over various issues. You talk about the government using powers they've been building up. One thing they tried to do recently was pass a "RealID" act, requiring all citizens to have Federal identification (state-issued, but meeting Federal standards). A bunch of states passed laws forbidding those states to follow the Federal law. In what other country do you have a situation where the regional governments pass laws directly and intentionally contradicting the national government, and absolutely refusing to follow the national laws? Then there's states like Montana, which have passed laws again directly contradicting the Federal government saying that companies inside that state are allowed to make any kind of guns they want, without regard for BATFE (Federal firearms agency) rules, as long as those guns are sold within state lines, and all the Federal laws about what kind of guns are and aren't allowed to be manufactured (basically forbidding any new fully-automatic weapons to be manufactured and sold to civilians, so only those made after some particular date in the 1980s are allowed) are null and void inside that state. Then there's various southern states like Arizona suing the Federal government over not enforcing immigration laws, and the Federal government suing them back. I don't know how many countries would survive for long when there's this much infighting.
Try, "absolutely fucking beyond a hint of a shadow of a doubt WILL actually be counter-productive for the public interest".
The Boy Scouts have always been explicit about requiring their brainwashees to sign up for indoctrination in support of Queen, Country and God. They are, after all, a recruitment service for the army. Baden-Powell set them up explicitly to try to improve the average fitness and skill set of squaddies after his abysmal experiences with regular troops in the Boer War. In contrast, he had relatively good service from local Boer youths who formed a reconnaissance and sabotage corps for him : skills and tactics that he learned from them formed the basis for "Scouting for Boys".
The Scouts were not quite as God-sucking and militaristic as the Boys Brigade though. They really were the Hitler Youth in the making.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Try being a Scout in Idaho or any other predominantly mormon area.
I got here through a series of tubes
Where did you guys participate in scouting that had all these religious services? I was in the scouts and religion was never a part of it other than the occasional prayer. I never had "required" service or anything like that, and the local churches might have assisted but we got far more support from business and the local military than we ever did religions.