Give me a break. You would think by now that enough storied American traditions and institutions have been eliminated by political correctness, but nooooo. Bringing down the Boy Scouts of America merely increased the blood lust. The Girl Scouts of the USA is now in the crosshairs.
How can that be?
Answer: The former Boy Scouts of America—now Scouts BSA—committed organizational suicide. It shot itself in the foot by opting to knuckle under to political correctness. The wound turned out to be mortal. The unfortunate decision alienated and lost the Boy Scouts of America its biggest sponsor and more than 400,000 members. Consequently, the Boy Scouts organization opened its membership to girls in order to recoup the severe financial and membership losses it incurred. Hence the name change to Scouts BSA.
You’ve got to be kidding. Scouts BSA? They took the Boy out of Boy Scouts? How pathetic is that? Seriously, folks. In what parallel universe can such a lunatic farce occur?
As a former Girl Scout, and as the mother and grandmother of Eagle Scouts, I have an answer to the Boy Scouts’ raid on the Girl Scouts’ membership. I say: No way! Leave the Girl Scouts to do their own thing in their own space. Don’t bring down the Girl Scouts with you. Beat it! Scram! Own your foolish mistake and deal with it. Clean up your mess of failure yourselves. Don’t put it on Girl Scouts to save your sorry butts. Boy Scouts should be for boys only, and Girl Scouts should be for Girls only. Period.
I’m certain Girl Scouting isn’t considered cool by the progressive crowd. Unlike rabid feminism, scouting does not encourage girls and young women to perceive themselves as victims and weak. Girl Scouting does something rabid feminism and liberal academia doesn’t do for girls and young women. Girl Scouting builds inner strength, self-reliance and self-confidence, encourages courtesy, tolerance, love of country, initiative, self-motivation, responsibility, accountability, dependability, and promotes service to others. (They don’t demonstrate, protest, or cuss at people; they just go out and do what needs to be done to help.)
I was an extremely shy child. Girl Scouting helped me to shed my shell and be more outgoing. I gained enough confidence to sell Girl Scout Cookies door to door without shaking in my shoes. I gained new skills by working to earn activity badges. For example, I earned: reader; writer; photographer (I developed my film and photos with my dad’s help); pen pal; skater; first aid; hostess; sewing; stamp collector; and outdoor cook (I learned how to make a camp stove from wax candles, corrugated paper, and a large coffee can).
A number of years ago, I remembered that little camp stove during a nasty winter power failure, pre-whole-house generator. MG was away on a business trip, of course, and I was home alone to fend for myself.
After I made a fire in the fireplace with one of those easy starter logs to keep warm, I yearned to cook something hot. I was getting hungry, after all, and my electric range was MIA thanks to the power failure. I had an unsuccessful and unpleasant experience cooking over fire in an indoor fireplace several years earlier during an ice storm in Virginia. It involved hot dogs that tasted like burnt wood and coating the walls of the family room with soot. I did not wish to repeat that disaster, so I set about making the coffee can camp stove.
I foraged through MG’s workroom and found a large coffee can filled with nuts and bolts or screws and some such. I dumped them all out. I found corrugated paper, cut it to the size I needed, rolled it into a coil, and inserted it into the can. I then gathered up a bunch of partially used wax candles and melted them into the can using a firestarter wand. When the coffee can was nearly filled, I let the wax harden around the corrugated paper coil. Voila! I had a handy-dandy camp stove.
As a former Girl Scout, I felt duty-bound to share my homemade appliance with other unfortunate cabin fever sufferers. I invited my next-door neighbor and her two young children to join me for lunch. I lighted my camp stove to the awe and delight of the little kids. Their mom marveled at my ingenuity and skill. (Humble person that I am, I gave all the credit to my former Scout Leader.) I boiled water in a kettle and made vegetable soup with a dry soup mix. We had hot soup and PB&J sandwiches for lunch. Later on, we had hot cocoa and cookies for a snack. I was a hero and acknowledged genius for quite some time after that, thanks to my Girl Scout training.
It would be criminal if Scouts BSA is allowed to absorb and thereby put an end to Girl Scouts of the USA simply because the Boy Scouts failed to live up to their own ideals, standards, and traditions, and because they failed to protect their own organization from the blight of political correctness. It pains me to think that young girls in the future may miss out on the kinds of experiences I had as a Girl Scout.
Former and current Girl Scouts and Leaders, will we stand idly by and permit that to happen?
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