Demonizing Girl Scouts

This story, http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-21/girl-scouts-and-abortion-pro-life-groups-target-gsusa/#, is further proof that I am truly conservative and that the "conservative" label is erroreously applied to others who are anything but.

This story headline beggers the question, "Why Are Pro-Lifers Targeting The Girl Scouts?" There are so many things wrong about this including using the label "Pro-Lifers" for people who are, again, anything but.

Then there is the subhead that says, "They sell cookies, they earn merit badges, they---promote abortion? ...two teens from Texas are accusing the Girl Scouts of creating boot-stomping, sexualized radicals."

After I put my eyes back in my head and stopped saying, "What?!?!!?!," I updated my Facebook status with this:

"These girls' ideology & mores may be fine for them, but that doesn't mean others--including the GS--need to conform to them or that anyone who doesn't is bad, immoral, evil, subversive or radical. If these girls object to how the GS operate, they should find another organization."

But that isn't the m.o. of people who have a radical, regressive and double-standard agenda.

I use the same label, radical, on these folks as they do on those who are not on their ideological track because that is a favorite, and often effective, tactic they use to put others on the defensive. If they call you what they are first, you waste your time and energy defending yourself and arguing that you aren't, instead of proving that they are.

Equally suspect about that subhead are the words "boot-stomping" and "sexualized." What, I can't help but wonder, is wrong with boot-stomping girls, particulary when the mission of the GS is to promote girls' independence and self-sufficiency. I would far rather girls know how to stomp their boots when they spy a spider or a mouse or other pest than to squeal and leap onto chairs.

And sexualized? Well, what the heck! Girls are sexual beings. That's what makes them girls, shes and hers, and not things and its.

I salute and congratulate this organization for girls that is contributing to their awareness and understanding of their sexuality and to help them understand the the responsibilities associated with that. Perhaps it is the weak, misguided thinking of these true radicals that talking about sex, reproduction, birth control and related topics is going to turn them into wildly promiscuous sluts.

If these Texas teens and others of their ilk have a problem with that they need to look elsewhere for their social wants and needs, and not be so liberally impose their constipating ignorance and psychological chasity belts on others.

They might believe that their objection to the mission, policies or programs of scouting organizations gives them the right to impose their ideology on mainstream organizations or to change them. Well, I have very strong objections to the agendas, philosophies and politics of organizations these Texas teens and those behind them, but my tax dollars support them anyway.

So what else is wrong about this story and the offended teens? How about calling themselves "pro-life" when they, or at least their adult enablers, are generally pro-death penalty, pro-war, and pretty much life-neglecters once the unborn become born---at least so far as the generic "unborn" is concerned. How much more accurate the label "pro-unborn" is.

Then there is the double-standard aspect.

Again, generalizing, the same folks who ascribe to the uber-Christian, sexuality-denying, ignorance-promoting agenda are hauling a whole lot of water for the small, and even anti-, government "get your nose out of my business" crowd.

Translation for that kind of rhetoric is "get your nose out of my business, but it's OK for me to get government to let me poke my nose into your business." And that applies mostly to the most personal and intimate aspects of other people's lives that does not impact economically or in any other way on the lives of the sanctimously self-righteous, publicly pious who are advocating their impositions.

So why are these radical, regressive and double-standard people so successful at injecting their ideology into mainstream society? Because we let them. We are so reticent to offend---particularly when anything smacks of so-called Christian/Christianity---or to lay claim to the legitimacy of our own beliefs, life choices and humanity.

When I asked on Facebook why the insanity of these morality police and their surrogate children trumps everyone else's beliefs/daily life, a Friend opined that it is, "The confidence of bigotry."