My bad on posting the wiki on the british one. Here is the US one I meant:
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That sounds utterly awful.
I’m grateful that my 13 years of Scouting were, overall, pretty awesome. Sure, there was some dumb stuff that happened, but few and far between.
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credit due where credit’s due, the cub scouts was positive experience.
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Jumpin’-Jesus-Fuck-Womble! That is terrible! 
The tiny, fleeing “illegals” in the foreground really is the the icing shit on the cake. I scares me that there are people who could look at that image of the Border Scouts and see something positive and life affirming.
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No worries, Donnie-Two-Bibles is about to fix that.
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it’s just so sad that we can’t even trust the boy scouts anymore to drop off our kids safely.
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Yes.
(i.e., all three.)
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I was also lucky; the scout troops I was in were reasonably well run. Granted, the two troops were both run by the church my family was in at the time, and those were reasonably open-minded churches at that.
While it makes me sad that it’s happening, it’s one of those things where it needs to happen, so that the organization that comes after can (hopefully) learn from this and not make the same mistakes.
I also had a hugely positive experience in scouting. I came from a family that didn’t do outdoorsy things. I went on to work as a camp counselor and enjoyed it all until I had to leave when I turned 18. I wasn’t in it for the badges. I was in it to learn.
Regarding the religious part, my troop moved from a VFW to a church at some point. I wasn’t raised religious so when we voluntarily did flag ceremonies for certain holidays at the church, it was all very fascinating to me. At that young age I already knew that I didn’t believe but I always enjoyed the mythology surrounding the church.
Minding my manners I would lip the words to prayers but I wanted to make sure that I didn’t make a pact with their god. When everybody said “amen” I said “almond”. Ain’t nobody got nothing on me!
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Given the reason for their bankruptcy, I think there are probably better “peer bonding” opportunities out there…
There’s the argument that it toughens one up and teaches them to make their way in a group.
Then there’s the argument (to which I subscribe) that it teaches one that it is better to be the bully than the bullied, so get with the bullying!
I wouldn’t say “anymore.” If anything the organization is far safer today than they were decades ago. Most of the settlements were for cases of abuse dating back to the 1980s and earlier, before the BSA instituted new child protection policies.
The problem isn’t remotely new, just the public awareness of it.
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Ten Mile River in upstate NY – Camp Rondack (now closed). In our troop, one patrol (the one my older-by-one year brother was in) was punished for leaving their trash receptacle unsealed overnight. That morning, the receptacle was found overturned and the trash spread around the patrol’s campsite. “A bear” (we were told). Perhaps. As a result, my brother’s patrol was punished by having to go completely naked the rest of that morning and stay out of their tents. As expected, the punishment was decided on and imposed by the Assistant Scoutmaster, Dominic C., a much-hated, hard-ass guy… cruel, in retrospect. (I’ve checked for his name to pop up on any list of verified BSA pedos; nothing… yet.) On that same camping trip, members of our troop’s Wolf patrol were pelted with rocks (not pebbles) thrown from a cliff overlooking the lake that the Wolf patrol was canoeing on. I guess the other troop thought it’d be fun to do. A couple of our troop’s scouts were injured in that one. I learned a lot from scouting.
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