Teaching Fascism To Kids -- The Rise Of The Blue-Shirts »
Posted By jaspersneed 5 months, 4 weeks ago in NewsIMPERIAL, Calif. Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor.
The responding officers — eight teenage boys and girls, the youngest 14 — face tripwire, a thin cloud of poisonous gas and loud shots — BAM! BAM! — fired from behind a flimsy wall. They move quickly, pellet guns drawn and masks affixed.
“United States Border Patrol! Put your hands up!” screams one in a voice cracking with adolescent determination as the suspect is subdued.
It is all quite a step up from the square knot.
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jaspersneed5 months, 4 weeks ago
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This is where we are now headed -- straight back to 1930's Germany. Creating obedient and unquestioning servants to the State is much easier if you can get 'em while they're young. Every government knows that.
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I'd be interested to know what Obama would say if this bit of news were brought to his attention and he was directly asked his thoughts on the matter.-

Beau78905 months, 4 weeks ago
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I'd be interested in what he'd say too. With so much uproar about the "Serve America Act" passed last month supposedly indoctrinating teens, it has nothing to do with paramilitary training. This, however, is the Explorers, a division of the Boy Scouts of America, and entirely separate from the government. (The Explorers used to be about camping and survival skills, by the way. I'm not sure when they changed direction.)
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FrankHummel5 months, 3 weeks ago
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Problem is --- some people evidently are basically yaa-hoos, who "get off" on "excitement" rather than concerning themselves much at all about the substantive underlying realities of what they are doing.
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SUCH are the FEEDSTOCK for the minions who STAFF operations like, for example, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. And they are NOT somehow any the less (or for that matter more) guilty than those who have been the "ARCHTECTS" of such obscenities by "virtue" of their simplistic OBLIVIOUSNESS to what they do. -

Natureboy5 months, 3 weeks ago
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teenage boys being taught to propegate a police-state.
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Here in New Mexico, in the public schools, the military sniffs around little kids like a bunch of pederasts in camo.
The schools let the military on campus to serve as babysitters when the schools would otherwise be closed for administration/faculty meetings. The GI Joes show up in full military camo drag with a "Rock climbing wall" so the kids can find out how FUN it will be when they enlist and go to boot camp. There is an anti-drug slogan at the top of the wall so they can say it's an anti-drug program, but give me a break, it is all about militarizing the schools and programming the younguns to be good little soldiers. And they are doing this with kids as young as second graders.
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jimdoze5 months, 4 weeks ago
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Better that the kids should be vegetating in front of a video game or hanging out on a street corner, right?
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Next up on the NY Times hit list... Pop Warner Football.
No doubt the Times will find some Pop Warner coaches who have had trouble with sexual misconduct with kids. It's a big country, they're out there somewhere.
Then they will offer up the notion of "excessive discipline" that football requires... picture what a coach would do if a pulling guard stopped in the middle of a play to ask the quarterback why he was supposed to block the defensive end.
Then we'll be offered up the notion of the brutalization of our little cream puffs as the coach repeatedly practices the "sheer brutality" of a good hard tackle.
Oh well... the Times needs to fill up space somehow. They're certainly not selling enough in the way of ads.-

jaspersneed5 months, 4 weeks ago
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Did you just utterly miss the point altogether, or do you actually favor indoctrinating children into becoming stormtroopers for a fascist police state, and have therefore introduced a ludicrous strawman argument about Pop Warner football and the general perfidy of the New York times?
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Desdamona5 months, 4 weeks ago
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Yes I think it would be better for the children to be vegetating in front of a vidio gam or hanging out on a street corner... Really just about anything is better then letting the kids be basically brainwashed with fear and hate of others. The border patrole belongs in the hads of government trained officals NOT young people equiped with guns and brainwashed about life in the US.
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scott42615 months, 4 weeks ago
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As someone who was a Boy Scout and who reached the rank of Eagle, this story offends me personally. Such "training" - if you can call it that - has no place in the scouts. Period.
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Explorers is supposed to be training for advanced life skills. IMO, this crosses the line. To be 18 and in the military is one thing, to be 14 and in these kind of exercises is quite another....
God, this infuriates me!-
libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned5 Replies
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jonmaverick5 months, 4 weeks ago
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Thank you Boy Scouts of America. For being the only ones with balls enough to teach our children what to do when some scumbag points a gun at them. BAM!BAM! Was that a double-tap? Way to go Billy!
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Mammas don't let your cowboys grow up to be babies. -

NoWayMan5 months, 4 weeks ago
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remember when all the obama haters said we should be scared of some inner city kids who were merely step dancing and singing a song praising obama? (they had no weapons)
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remember when the obama haters were trying to convince us that americorps funding would lead to armed teenaged armies roaming the streets? (totally ridiculous)
are they okay with this?
I'm all for proper firearms training. but this wannabe hero crap is going to get one of these kids killed.-

jaspersneed5 months, 4 weeks ago
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Likely more than one, and just as likely others as well, in addition to the kids dragooned into this ludicrous farce. Imagine some 14, 15 year old "graduates" of this insane hate fest, teaming up with some 17 year old with a driver's license for a little impromptu "border patrolling" all on their own one dark and perilous night, with some of daddy's firearms and a couple of six-packs. Do I even need to paint a picture of how tragically what happens next could turn out?
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KISA452a5 months, 3 weeks ago
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A private organization doing things with kids according to parent's agreemnt vs gvt with Barry's plans. Sorry if you dont' see the difference...
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If you trust Barry, his plans are fine. If you odn't like him, you probably dont' like his plans. If you like/trust BSA or you like "personal choice", you probably don't disagree with this.-

jaspersneed5 months, 3 weeks ago
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"A private organization doing things with kids according to parent's agreemnt vs gvt with Barry's plans. Sorry if you dont' see the difference..."
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Of course I see the difference. The first is a private organization proposing, and doing, evil things with and to children. The second is Barry and the federal government proposing -- and likely soon to be doing -- the very same thing.
I may criticize government as being uniquely, inherently inclined to commit evil, but that doesn't mean i don't believe private individuals or organizations can't also take out an option on the practice.... -
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Georgia505 months, 3 weeks ago
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Why can't these kids do something more constructive like join a gang in Chicago or DC and do drive shootings? Then liberals can sit around and whine about how unfortunate they are and how their environment caused them to be violent.
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Natureboy5 months, 3 weeks ago
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The flip side -
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In Shiprock, Arizona, a Navaho res and one of the poorest areas in the nation, Gino Antonio is working with at-risk teens.
Gino takes the youths, and they go out to the hogans of elders who are having troubles taking care of themselves. The young folks replace the broken windows, fix the cracks in the walls, and generally take care of the deferred maintenance for the elders during that day. In the evening, the elders repay them by teaching them Navaho traditions and lore, much of which would arguably be lost without a program such as this.
Thus, the cultural knowledge is preserved, the gulf between young and olds is mended, the young people gain a sense of identity and self-worth.
As contrary as I am, and as much fun as it is to lambast and ridicule the follies of the fascists, I must confess that it is not the most productive use of one's energies. At the end of the day, one has only negated the negative, leaving nothing. Far better to find something good, and sane, and decent to do and just go forth and do it, as Gino does. -

ForrestPhelps5 months, 3 weeks ago
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I'm posting a repeat of an above post here, for informational purposes.
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My advice to anyone concerned about law enforcement Explorer posts is this: find one or two or three in your area,
http://www.learningforlife.org/exploring/index.htm...
(and they have a "Enter your zip code here" bit)
Call one and ask to "check them out". Tell them you have a son/daughter/niece/grandchild interested and you wanted to learn more.
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I agree the article was a bit disturbing, but I'd need more information before I condemned an entire program that had its roots in Boy Scouting.
Yes, there is a reason the BSA separated itself from Explorer posts run by Law Enforcement (and Fire Departments), but when it occurred (and I was, at the time, an Explorer Post Advisor), it was more along the lines of separating out "career oriented" groups since the BSA wanted a less restrictive co-ed program - ie, one not tied to specific careers. There was also the whole "God" issue, since by law, a Police Department sponsoring a youth group can't legally require a belief in "God" as a central tenet of their group, and the BSA still wants the ability to do that.
Please, anyone who has any further questions or concerns, feel free to send me a private message and I'll do what I can. I'm not an official BSA spokesperson, but I'm very much involved with them and I can direct any questions or concerns to someone who could help.
Thanks. -
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