Boy Scouts, kinda politicky
The problem with scouts is it tries to instill you with both a sense of survivalist mentality (which is a good mindset to have camping/hiking, not so much in civilization) and tries to instill you with a set of morals that look good on paper but get twisted by people to mean what they want
I've talked about this on length on twitter - everything the boy Scouts taught me is something I hold very dear including the fact that people with those morals can still be shitty
Boy Scouts, kinda politicky
I have lots of feelings about the boy Scouts separately as an after school activity and as an organization
The org is a horrific beast of capitalism and conservatism. They're bad people
Boy Scouts, kinda politicky
I always put on my resume that I'm an eagle scout. I'm proud of what I accomplished and I'm proud of the positive impact I had in my little shithole town growing up.
But I'm not proud of most of the folks I was with. I got bullied a lot in my own troop despite time and again being the top competitor in non-physical activities. The boy Scouts instills a sense of dog-eat-dog in some folks and the org at large actively encourages that
Boy Scouts, kinda politicky
I'm so lucky to have the scoutmaster I did- I learned a lot about being gay and queer from him without really comprehending it until later but he was actively engaged in Sakura Con and invited me to go early on. He's basically genderqueer (feels like a woman a lot despite using he/him pronouns) and I learned so much from his experience and his mentorship
I don't know if I would have stuck it out if it weren't for him.
Boy Scouts, kinda politicky
Don't trust people on the basis that they're eagle scouts - the only thing it tells you is that they're a hard worker (though make sure you ask if they were involved in other things cuz not all of them worked hard they just got pushed into doing only scout achievements)
