Videos have been circulating of young bestial thugs—whites and blacks, women and men—shrieking in the faces of al fresco diners, commanding them to raise a fist in solidarity with BLM/Antifa totalitarians. To leftists nothing says freedom quite like coerced performative acts. See for yourself the future of the Democratic Party:

Maybe these young bestial thugs never learned about Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution and the Red Guard composed of young people that Mao used to intimidate, humiliate, and attack his political enemies. The New York Times described the Red Guard’s efforts:

Students who answered Mao’s call for continuing revolution … targeted political enemies for abuse and public humiliation. … Under a campaign to wipe out the “Four Olds”—ideas, customs, culture, habits—they carried out widespread destruction of historical sites and cultural relics.

Or maybe today’s totalitarian culture-destroyers are inspired by the Red Guard, whose salute they mimic.

Before Chairman Mao thought to use easily indoctrinated youth to advance political oppression, the Nazi Regime had mastered the tactic. Here’s an eerily relevant description of the Nazi Party’s exploitation of German youth to advance the pernicious Nazi cause:

Millions of German young people were won over to Nazism in the classroom and through extracurricular activities. In January 1933, the Hitler Youth had approximately 100,000 members, but by the end of the year this figure had increased to more than 2 million. By 1937 membership in the Hitler Youth increased to 5.4 million before it became mandatory in 1939. The German authorities then prohibited or dissolved competing youth organizations.

Education in the Third Reich served to indoctrinate students with the National Socialist world view. Nazi scholars and educators glorified Nordic and other “Aryan” races, while labeling Jews and other so-called inferior peoples as parasitic “bastard races” incapable of creating culture or civilization.

After 1933, the Nazi regime purged the public school system of teachers deemed to be Jews or to be “politically unreliable.” Most educators, however, remained in their posts and joined the National Socialist Teachers League. 97% of all public school teachers, some 300,000 persons, had joined the League by 1936. In fact, teachers joined the Nazi Party in greater numbers than any other profession.

In the classroom and in the Hitler Youth, instruction aimed to produce race-conscious, obedient, self-sacrificing Germans who would be willing to die for Führer and Fatherland. Devotion to Adolf Hitler was a key component of Hitler Youth training. …

Schools played an important role in spreading Nazi ideas to German youth. While censors removed some books from the classroom, German educators introduced new textbooks that taught students love for Hitler, obedience to state authority, militarism, racism, and antisemitism.

Since some Americans—particularly leftists—struggle with analogical thinking, let’s paraphrase that description to make its relevance easily comprehensible:

Millions of American young people were won over to socialism/Critical Race Theory/“LGBTQ” theory/feminist theory in the classroom and through extracurricular activities. By 2020 membership in or support for what became known as the Intersectionality Regime had increased dramatically. Dominant leftist cultural forces had persecuted youth organizations like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts into reinventing themselves to align with the Intersectionality Regime.

Education in America served to indoctrinate students with the socialist/racialist/feminist/pansexual world view. Race, sexuality, “gender,” and Marxist scholars and educators glorified people of color, homosexuals, opposite-sex impersonators, and Marxists while labeling whites, men, heterosexuals, conservative Christians, and capitalists hateful oppressors and bigots incapable of creating culture or civilization.

The race/“gender”/sexuality/class Intersectionality Regime purged the public school system of teachers deemed to be members of the oppressor classes or to be “politically unreliable.” Most educators, however, remained in their posts and joined the race/“gender”/sexuality/class Intersectionality Regime. In fact, teachers joined the Intersectionality Regime in greater numbers than any other profession.

In the classroom, corporate boardrooms, social media, the arts, the mainstream press, and organizations like BLM™ and Antifa, instruction was aimed to produce race-conscious, class-conscious, man-hating, sexual-deviance-supporting activists who would take the fight to the streets. Devotion to the Intersectionality Regime was a key component of cultural conditioning.

Schools played an important role in spreading Intersectionality ideas to American youth. While censors removed some books from the classroom, educators introduced new textbooks that taught students love for socialism, racism, feminism, homosexuality, the “trans” ideology, and anti-Christianity.

Co-founder of the Toronto chapter of BLM™, Yusra Khogali, once tweeted, “White ppl are recessive genetic defects. this is factual. … black ppl simply through their dominant genes can literally wipe out the white race if we had the power to.” She tweeted, “Please Allah give me the strength to not … kill these … white folks out here today.” In 2015, she tweeted, “whiteness is not humxness. infact, white skin is sub-humxn.”

Kinda, sorta, maybe sounds like a Nazi talking about Jews.

Compulsory performance of the Sieg Heil/Red Guard/Black Panthers/BLM salute is part of the effort to compel freethinkers to pretend to embrace the ideas of slave reparations, systemic racism, and collective guilt, which hold individuals culpable for sins they have never committed.  The notion of collective guilt for the past sins of other individuals is both unbiblical and poisonous.

In a speech delivered in 1988 in Vienna on the 50^th anniversary of the Nazi occupation of his home country of Austria, Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl warned against the dangerous idea of “collective guilt”:

[M]y father … died in Theresienstadt Camp; my brother … did not return from Auschwitz; my mother … was killed in the gas chambers of the same camp; and my first wife[’s] …  young life came to an end in Bergen-Belsen Camp. And yet at the same time I will ask you not to expect to hear from my mouth a single word of hatred. For whom should I hate? I knew only the victims; I do not know the perpetrators—at least, not personally. And I categorically refuse to attribute collective as opposed to personal guilt.

There is no such thing as collective guilt. Believe me, today is not the first occasion on which I have said that. I have been saying it since the day I was liberated from my [fourth and] last concentration camp. It is my conviction that anyone who assigns collective guilt to every Austrian [or German] citizen between the ages of zero and fifty is committing a reprehensible and insane act. Or, to put it in psychiatric terms: it would be reprehensible if it were not insane–and it would be a relapse into the Nazi ideology of collective family guilt [the difficult German word Sippenhaftung here refers to the dangerous Nazi dogma of kin liability, tainted blood(line), or genetic guilt by association]. Let this be said to all those who believe they have the right to expect people to feel guilty or even ashamed of something they did not do or fail to do but something their parents or grandparents had to answer for. …

I’ll tell you I think there are only two ‘races’ of people: those who are decent people, and those who are not. That distinction goes right through every nation, and within nations right through every political party and every other group. Even in the concentration camps here and there we came across more or less decent people who belonged to the SS. And in the same way there were also scoundrels amongst the prisoners.

The decent people are in the minority; they have always been in the minority and, I think, always will be. But the danger lies elsewhere. The danger is to be found in a regime or a system which brings the scoundrels to the top; in other words which puts the reins of power in the hands of the worst representatives of the people. Therein lies the true peril. And no nation … can claim to be immune from such danger. Which is why I presume to say that in principle any country is capable of perpetrating the holocaust.

… In my view there are only two … types of politicians. The first is the politician who believes that the end justifies the means—any means, even terrorist means. The second type is profoundly aware that there are means that can desecrate even the most sacred ends.

[T]he need of the day … is that all men of good will should finally reach their hands out to each other across all the graves and divisions.”

One of my daughters once expressed disappointment that I hadn’t saved any of my clothes from the early 1970’s. I explained that although styles return, they never return in exactly the same form. Same goes for history, which explains why even remembering history doesn’t guarantee we won’t repeat it. Today’s cultural revolution has all the earmarks of past revolutions, and yet too few Americans recognize those earmarks because on the surface this one appears different.

Unless we tear the blinders from our eyes and look clearly at the big picture, the republic as we have known it will be gone in a short time. The children and grandchildren of Millennials will grow up in a world of oppression and depravity the likes of which America has never known but civilizations around the world and throughout history have.

Viktor Frankl points to the solution to evil in our midst:

[P]lease remember one thing: Resistance always requires heroism. And there is only one person of whom anyone has the right to expect heroic acts. And that is oneself.

Listen to this article read by Laurie: 

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/BLMs™-Totalitarian-Youth.mp3

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The Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA) has got a collective case of the vapors over their discovery of a “covert campaign to recruit girls into programs run by the Boy Scouts.”  How dare the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) even consider allowing girls in the BSA!

Does someone have a towel to wipe up the irony that drips from the brows of the conspiracy theorists who man the helm of the Left-listing GSUSA ship?

It’s ironic in that the GSUSA was the first of the two organizations to admit opposite-sex children into its program six years ago. Now, of course, the BSA does as well. GSUSA admits boys who seek to pass as girls, and BSA admits girls who seek to pass as boys.

A spokesperson for the GSUSA told BuzzFeed that the sexual integration of the BSA is a “‘potentially dangerous and bad idea,’…citing research supporting ‘single gender programming’ which says that girls learn best in an all-girls environment when it comes to scouting.”

I suspect the spokesperson meant to say “single-sex” programming, rather than “single-gender” programming, but he/she/ze/they should be forgiven for his/her/zir/their error. It’s hard to keep up with the shifting definitional sands upon which the Leftist sexuality/gender ideology is built.

If the sexual integration of scouting is at minimum a “bad idea” and “potentially dangerous,”—as the GSUSA claims—why the heck has the GSUSA been admitting boys for six years?

Now that both clubs admit opposite-sex children, what possible justification could the GSUSA offer for opposing a decision by the BSA to admit all girls who want to join? If a club for boys allows girls to be members based on nothing more than the desire of those girls to be boys, why not admit other girls based solely on their desire to be boy scouts? What if these girls internally identify as boy scouts? What if they need to be boy scouts to live authentic lives?

The GSUSA determined six years ago that being objectively, immutably biologically female is not a requirement for membership. Subjective, internal desires supersede objective biological sex when it comes to membership. So why can’t subjective, internal desires about which club a girl desires to be a member of trump biological sex?

Isn’t the GSUSA arguing for discrimination based on sex when it seeks to prevent objectively female children from joining the Boy Scouts?

Or since the GSUSA is hunky dory with objectively female children who “identify” as “trans” joining the BSA, maybe the GSUSA is arguing for discrimination based on “gender identity” when they seek to prevent “cisgender” girls from joining the BSA.

Either way, it seems that the GSUSA has been hoist by its own petard. Its perverse sexuality ideology applied consistently permits no sex-segregation anywhere for anyone.

Either objective, immutable, biological sex as evidenced in anatomy is profoundly meaningful and should be recognized and respected—or it isn’t.

The “trans” cult, borrowing tactics from homosexual activists, exploit the historical plight of blacks, repeatedly claiming that single-sex private spaces constitute the same kind of invidious discrimination that blacks experienced during the slave era and era of Jim Crow laws.

Of course, such a claim is absurd and invidious.

While there are no ontological differences between people of different skin colors, there are significant differences between males and females, which even homosexuals tacitly acknowledge when they say they are romantically and erotically attracted to only persons of their same sex. So, too does research that demonstrates that single-sex educational contexts serve the needs of boys and girls best.

When I worked at Deerfield High School, even “progressive” teachers inadvertently acknowledged these differences when they would good-naturedly gripe about having classes heavily weighted with students of one particular sex. Take a stab at which students—male or female—are generally more disruptive and harder to manage en masse in a classroom context (PE excluded).

The differences between males and females include–but are not limited to–anatomical differences, and it is anatomical differences that account for natural and good feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy. If anatomy has no meaning relative to modesty and privacy and if segregating humans based on objective, biological sex constitutes unjust discrimination, there should be no sex-segregated spaces anywhere for anyone, and that’s exactly what “trans”-cultists seek.

The BSA claims it will continue to allow girls to join only certain of its programs but not all. Remember when it claimed it would not change its membership policy on homosexuality and on girls who wish they were boys? Remember when it took seriously its oath to honor God? Does anyone really believe the Boy Scout leadership will stand firm in the face of pressure from the National Organization for Women to allow girls to join all BSA programs and the Change.org petition started by a young “activist” who is determined to be an Eagle Scout? What reason could the BSA have for allowing girls who wish they were boys to join the Eagle Scouts but not this young activist?

It’s only a matter of time.

Remember, “trans” cultists do not believe that surgery, cross-sex hormone-doping, cross-dressing, a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, or even the experience of gender dysphoria is necessary to identify as “trans” and access opposite-sex spaces and activities. All that’s necessary is their claim that they identify as the opposite sex.

If conservatives don’t speak up as loudly and persistently in defense of the meaning and value of sexual differentiation as Leftists do in defense of their cultic, science-denying “trans” ideology, we will witness one of the most profound cultural revolutions the world has ever seen: We will see the eradication of all public recognition of sex differences everywhere for everyone. This will not result in a handful of gender-dysphoric persons accessing opposite-sex private spaces—which is pernicious enough.

Rather, it will mean all restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, saunas, steam rooms, semi-private hospital rooms, shelters, athletic teams, nursing home room assignments, and clubs will be co-ed.

We’re just one step closer to the phantasmagorical “progressive” world that pretends that sex differences are meaningless.

I wonder, which scouting club should “gender-non-binary” and “gender fluid” kids join?

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Boy-Scouts-to-Go-Co-Ed-Yikes.mp3

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The Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA) has got a collective case of the vapors over their discovery of a “covert campaign to recruit girls into programs run by the Boy Scouts.”  How dare the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) even consider allowing girls in the BSA!

Does someone have to towel to wipe up the irony that drips from the brows of the conspiracy theorists who man the helm of the Left-listing GSUSA ship?

Read more…

Under the radar, near a campfire, a counter-cultural force is rising.

Only three years old, Trail Life USA, the Christian answer to the politically correct Boy Scouts of America, is operating 700 troops in 48 states, with nearly 30,000 troop members.  It’s still small compared to the BSA, which began in 1910 and claims more than two million members.  But Trail Life could be on the verge of far more growth as the culture descends into madness and parents seek a haven for their impressionable sons.

Chartered in 2013, shortly after the Scouts held a Soviet version of a national delegates vote to open their ranks to openly homosexual boys, Trail Life is modeled after the American Heritage Girls.

That’s the group founded in Ohio in 1995 by former Girl Scout leader Patti Garibay, who left the cookie-selling empire in disgust after they embraced their inner liberal selves, slipping feminist ideology into materials and allowing the girls to redefine God in the oath any way they wanted.

I was a Boy Scout myself for many years, reaching the Eagle rank.  We recited the Scout Oath and meant it.  I take their betrayal quite personally. Today, if we had a son the right age, we’d enroll him in Trail Life USA, where he’d get Scouting-type adventure plus appreciation for not only Creation but its Creator.

Trail Life, for which Mrs. Garibay was an advisor, took off rapidly.  In the first year or two, half of the troops comprised former Scout troops sponsored by churches or home schoolers that broke away after the Scouts chose political correctness over being “morally straight.”

The group’s colors correspond to the age levels of the boys, evoking Mt. Rainier, with green for grass at the base for the youngest (Woodlands—K through 5^th grade), gray for rocky terrain (Navigators—6^th through 8th grades), and blue for the sky (Adventurers – high school).

Boy Scouts who transfer can convert their BSA badges and credentials into equivalent awards, but Trail Life is markedly different in a couple of ways.

First, as they make clear, they are unabashedly Christian.  Trail Life is open to all boys, including those with different faiths or no faith, but adult leaders must sign a faith statement and incorporate spiritual lessons into activities.

Second, the program is “more robust, and outdoor-oriented,” Trail Life Chief Executive Officer Mark Hancock told me over lunch at the Army-Navy Club in downtown Washington.  “You won’t see a ‘video game’ merit badge,” which the Cub Scouts now offer.

Ah, if only they’d had that in Boy Scouts when I was trying to rack up 21 badges for the Eagle award. I had to settle for “basket weaving.”

Trail Life’s headquarters, just south of Greenville, South Carolina, is on 107 acres. It has a building housing the small, full-time leadership staff, and a camping area.  Provided by a donor, the campus had been a home for boys for 50 years, Mr. Hancock said.

John Stemberger, an Orlando attorney and one of Trail Life’s founders, was among those who tried mightily to save the Boy Scouts. He started On My Honor, which lobbied to keep the Scouts’ traditional moral standards.  Even before the BSA changed its policy in February 2013, Stemberger met with other men to plan a Christian version of the Scouts in case the BSA went bad.  They asked for help from the Heritage Girls, who now work alongside them, often meeting in the same churches at the same times, when entire families participate.

One of Trail Life’s best byproducts, according to Mr. Hancock, is the camaraderie of the Christian men who volunteer as leaders.

“There is this guy who did four tours in Afghanistan, and he works with the boys on archery and other outdoor skills, and the kids love him,” Hancock said. “I heard so much about ‘Mr. J.P.’ that I sought him out to thank him.  This gruff, special-ops guy teared up, and told me, “When I came back from Afghanistan, I never thought I would find a band of brothers again.”

At a Trail Life bonfire outside Immanuel Bible Church in Springfield, Va., Hancock said, a woman walked up and told him that her husband had died 10 years before when they had a two-year-old son. She had despaired for his future without a father. “Now, he’s surrounded by these godly men, and I can’t thank you enough.”

“We’ve got a heart for fatherless boys,” Stemberger said, noting that he was mentoring a 14-year-old from the inner city whose father had been shot.

I asked Hancock what really sets Trail Life apart from other youth organizations, and he said, “We were forged in the fires of the cultural struggle, and we will not bend or bow.”

He noted that his son, who earned his Eagle badge just before the Scouts caved, had not renewed his membership.  In response to a BSA letter asking why, he sent a three-word reply:  “You weren’t brave.”

This article was originally posted at Townhall.com

The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has been under relentless assault by homosexual activists for years, and it appears the pressure is wearing down its leadership. The BSA may be poised to reverse its long-standing national policy that prohibits homosexuality in the Boy Scouts.

A review of the mission statement of the BSA and the Boy Scout Oath and Law are helpful in evaluating just how profoundly wrong the decision to change its policy on homosexuality would be.

The BSA mission statement:

The mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.

The Boy Scout Oath:

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

The Boy Scout Law:

A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

How does the BSA promote fidelity to God if it permits men or women who affirm that which God views as detestable (i.e., homosexual acts) to serve as role models and leaders?

And how does the BSA promote fidelity to an oath when with a finger held to the political wind and a vote, its leadership decides that the Boy Scouts’ long-held convictions are dispensable?

There exist objective truths regarding sexual morality, truths which if violated mar the image of God imprinted on men and women. When men have sex with men or women have sex with women, they demonstrate a profound disrespect for God and for themselves, which, although less important, violates the Boy Scout Law which asserts that “a Scout is … reverent.”

No one is arguing that homosexual men and women are devoid of admirable values and traits that boys would be well-served to emulate. What many are arguing is that the affirmation of a homosexual identity is not one of them. Further, the affirmation of a homosexual identity is so profoundly immoral as to render them unsuitable for the role of shaping “morally straight” young men. No boy should be taught implicitly or explicitly that the affirmation of a homosexual identity or homosexual acts are moral acts.

BSA spokesperson Deron Smith issued this statement:

For more than 100 years, Scouting’s focus has been on working together to deliver the nation’s foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training….

Currently, the BSA is discussing potentially removing the national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation. This would mean there would no longer be any national policy regarding sexual orientation, and the chartered organizations that oversee and deliver Scouting would accept membership and select leaders consistent with each organization’s mission, principles, or religious beliefs. BSA members and parents would be able to choose a local unit that best meets the needs of their families.

This policy change would be a cowardly act because it would pass on to individual families the task of asking their local leaders what their policy is regarding homosexuality, which is far more difficult than having an established national policy. Maybe Deron Smith and other BSA leaders are able to deceive themselves into believing that such a policy change would constitute a “brave” and morally defensible act, but countless Americans know otherwise. This would be an act of cowardice driven by fear of perpetual slandering by homosexual activists and pressure from soulless corporations that do not have character formation as integral to their mission and yet self-righteously pretend they do.

In response to the announcement by Deron Smith, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) president, Herndon Graddick prematurely exulted, “The Boy Scouts of America have heard from scouts, corporations and millions of Americans that discriminating against gay scouts and scout leaders is wrong. Scouting is a valuable institution and this change will only strengthen its core principles of fairness and respect.”

In referring to “discrimination,” Graddick exploits the language of racial injustice. But making distinctions between moral and immoral sexual acts bears no similarity whatsoever to illegitimate discrimination of persons based on non-behavioral characteristics like race.

Graddick’s reference to “corporations” should remind Americans not to underestimate the influence of corporate pressure. Money is the driving force behind this possible policy reversal. Does anyone really believe that most parents who support Boy Scouts want homosexual men to contribute to the formation of their sons’ moral character?

Parents and other BSA supporters shouldn’t be duped into believing that this policy change, which would leave decisions regarding homosexuality to local organizations, will be left alone. Zach Wahls, Eagle Scout and founder of Scouts for Equality—who, interestingly, was raised by two lesbians—made clear that the relentless assault on the BSA’s commitment to sexual morality will continue unabated until every troop abandons moral convictions: “’We look forward to working with BSA Councils and chartering organizations across the country to end the exclusion of our gay brothers in Scouting, as well as the gay and lesbian leaders who serve the organizations so well.’” Regarding the possibility of only some clubs allowing homosexual members, Wahl correctly and ominously proclaimed, “‘Once you’ve started to introduce openly gay members, there’s no way to stop it.’”

Take ACTION:  Despite eager chomping-at-the bit accounts from homosexual activists, however, the deal is not yet done. Parents of current and future Boy Scouts and alumni supporters can make a difference. Click HERE to send an email or take a moment to call any of these numbers to express your opposition to any policy change: (972) 580-2400 (also 2401, 2405, 2239, 2443, 2280, 2199).