Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Nol.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our superproducer,
Speaker 3: Paul Mission Control decads. Most importantly, you are you, You
Speaker 3: are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 3: want you to know. Tonight, fellow conspiracy realist, we are
Speaker 3: exploring the story of the Boy Scouts. It's an international
Speaker 3: youth organization originally founded ostensibly to teach morality, ethics, and
Speaker 3: preparedness to young males in the United Kingdom, and then
Speaker 3: it expanded to the US and now it exists in
Speaker 3: multiple other countries. Two caveats before we dive in. We
Speaker 3: have our own individual backgrounds of involvement with Scouting to
Speaker 3: one degree or another, and as such we may have
Speaker 3: some biases here. We were just talking off air a
Speaker 3: little bit about some of our respective backgrounds. I think
Speaker 3: we got some we belows some former Cub Scouts in
Speaker 3: the crowd. Is that correct?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm kind of losing track of the I guess
Speaker 4: the hierarchy, but I think I may have been a
Speaker 4: cub Scout. Is we below even still a thing? That is?
Speaker 3: That?
Speaker 2: Is that real?
Speaker 4: I think I threw that term out because I remember
Speaker 4: seeing it on Leave It to beaver or something.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, it's also a very memorable word, you know,
Speaker 3: like when Jacovia was a thing. You know, that was
Speaker 3: an easy bank to remember because it sounded like a
Speaker 3: sneeze in a foreign language. And Matt, you were a
Speaker 3: cub scout, you were saying for a time, Yeah, I was.
Speaker 2: For quite a while. I did a lot of stuff
Speaker 2: with my dad and with just a local troupe. It
Speaker 2: was really good. The levels, by the way, are tenderfoot,
Speaker 2: ah huh, second class, first class, star life, and eagle.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 4: Well, where's we below fall into it? I'm sorry I
Speaker 4: didn't hear.
Speaker 2: That's when you get down to like the cub Scouts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, scouts who or cub Scouts in fourth grade have
Speaker 3: to get we blows like a rank get you get
Speaker 3: we blow, and then you get to arrow of light.
Speaker 3: And already we see the nomenclature and jaragon so farm
Speaker 3: into cultic organizations.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this culturally appropriative as well, very much so.
Speaker 3: And we're going we're about to learn about some of
Speaker 3: that history before we dive into tonight's unfortunate, completely true
Speaker 3: and ongoing conspiracy. The second caveat tonight's episode contains depictions
Speaker 3: and descriptions of abuse. As such, this may not be
Speaker 3: suitable for all audiences. Here are the facts. The Boy
Speaker 3: Scout movement is founded back in Great Britain Street named
Speaker 3: the United Kingdom in nineteen oh eight by a guy
Speaker 3: named Robert Stephenson Smith Baden Powell. Baden Powell would later
Speaker 3: become Lord Baden Powell. That's how he's known in Scouting
Speaker 3: in their origin stories. He was a British Army officer
Speaker 3: and author. In nineteen oh eight, inspired by a conversation
Speaker 3: with an American, he wrote a book called Scouting for Boys,
Speaker 3: a handbook for instruction and good citizenship. I hold in
Speaker 3: my hand here one of the many iterations or descendants
Speaker 3: of that, the Boy Scout Handbook.
Speaker 4: And for listeners out there, since you can't see, I
Speaker 4: would describe this as a dog eared copy, ye Warren.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, it's been through a lot, It's been in
Speaker 3: many places. And this this guy Baden Powell beat me here, Paul,
Speaker 3: He's kind of a piece of Check out the Behind
Speaker 3: the Bastard's series on him from our good friend Robert Evans.
Speaker 3: We're not going to go too much into Baden Powell's history,
Speaker 3: but we will tell you how the Scouts, the BSA
Speaker 3: Boy Scouts of American particularly came to be to that
Speaker 3: point about appropriation. Yes, this book and the Scouting movement
Speaker 3: overall was inspired by interactions Baden Powell had with an artist,
Speaker 3: illustrator author named Ernest Thompson Satan Seto n lest we
Speaker 3: fall into wordplay. Ernest, by the way, his original name
Speaker 3: was something like Ernest Evans Thompson, something like that. Anyway,
Speaker 3: this guy in Connecticut, he had created a similar group
Speaker 3: called the Woodcraft Indians, a predecessor to Boy Scouts of America.
Speaker 3: The Woodcraft Indians spoiler alert, did not include Native American children.
Speaker 3: It was for the kids of this one town in Connecticut.
Speaker 4: Yikes. Yeah, cos Cobb, Connecticut. Isn't that the whitest sounding
Speaker 4: town name you've ever heard? I don't know why it
Speaker 4: hits me that way, but cost Cob.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds sounds very I don't know, it sounds
Speaker 3: it sounds kind of made up. It sounds like one
Speaker 3: of those things Stephen King does in the Dark Tower
Speaker 3: when he events his own language. Percent.
Speaker 4: And you know, there were some skills, some outdoors y
Speaker 4: kind of survivalist kind of skills for foraging and finding
Speaker 4: water and you know, things that you would need out
Speaker 4: in the wilderness. And also I believe a little bit
Speaker 4: of woodworking, carving things.
Speaker 3: Like that, right, yeah, whittling.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's it's survival skills, right. I mean we're
Speaker 2: talking about early nineteen hundreds, and at the time, identity
Speaker 2: for specifically males often went back to or was associated
Speaker 2: with these kinds of skills, these kinds of self determination, right,
Speaker 2: being able to accomplish tasks on your own. If you're
Speaker 2: in trouble, you can get out of it. If someone
Speaker 2: else is in trouble, you can provide aid for that person, Right,
Speaker 2: I think self reliance, Yeah, I think so this organization
Speaker 2: goes back to a lot of those fundamentals.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. And those fundamentals, those skills
Speaker 3: remain valuable today and they can make a difference between
Speaker 3: life and death if you find yourself in the wild.
Speaker 3: One of my favorite examples, one of My favorite examples,
Speaker 3: which I mentioned on air in the past, is I
Speaker 3: had had a tremendously wonderful, very strange, eccentric Scout master.
Speaker 3: My Scout troop was all ex military law enforcement. And
Speaker 3: one of the first things that they one time they
Speaker 3: told us, they said, Okay, you wake up, you find
Speaker 3: yourself lost in the woods. You don't have anything but
Speaker 3: what you have on you. Now, what's the first thing
Speaker 3: you do? And we add all these answers, right, like,
Speaker 3: build a shelter, try to build a fire, try to
Speaker 3: orient ourselves, you know, figure out where north south, closest
Speaker 3: civilization is, find water, of course, And he said, no, idiots,
Speaker 3: the first thing you ask yourself is what did you
Speaker 3: do wrong to end up in the woods like this.
Speaker 3: That's a that's a pretty hard, hardcore question to ask
Speaker 3: some eleven year olds, But yeah, they were. They were
Speaker 3: about me.
Speaker 4: You mean, why is God punishing me?
Speaker 3: Like exactly? And this woodcraft Indians thing, this movement that
Speaker 3: sits on makes it's a bit of a different vibe
Speaker 3: from the Scouts, partially because it becomes co ed, but
Speaker 3: also because it advertised itself as while it was oriented
Speaker 3: towards children, it was open to quote children between the
Speaker 3: ages of four and ninety four. So anybody in this town,
Speaker 3: in this neighborhood of Greenwich could come hang out.
Speaker 4: It's like legos for everybody, you know.
Speaker 2: But if you're ninety five, you.
Speaker 3: Get so this, say the ninety three year old's right, yeah,
Speaker 3: exactly so this uh, this guy. He meets Baden Powell
Speaker 3: over in the United Kingdom and their conversations later he
Speaker 3: gives Powell one of his books, and their conversations inspired
Speaker 3: Baden Powell to create this Scout movement to write his book,
Speaker 3: and Satan, for a time merges the two organizations Woodcraft
Speaker 3: Indians Scouting. They merged to create the Boy Scouts of
Speaker 3: America Satan. Actually I think they had a falling out later,
Speaker 3: but Satan wrote the first Boy Scouts of America handbook,
Speaker 3: the you know, the early version of this copy I
Speaker 3: held up earlier, the Woodcraft thread though, you guys, it's
Speaker 3: fascinating because I was digging somewhere into it. Once you
Speaker 3: get to the more adult side, the grown up side,
Speaker 3: it gets into esoteric magic and neopaganism.
Speaker 2: Like directly.
Speaker 3: The Red Lodge, what is that?
Speaker 4: That's some Twin Peaks stuff right, rights Like for sure.
Speaker 4: You know you mentioned Ben, I think maybe it was off, Mike,
Speaker 4: just that some of your scout training felt a little
Speaker 4: on the militaristic side. And it is interesting that some
Speaker 4: of the early ideas for this kind of training and
Speaker 4: these type of skills and the merging that you just
Speaker 4: mentioned did come from like drills for training cavalry soldiers, right, Like,
Speaker 4: It's an interesting component that I was not personally aware of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that logic makes sense for LBP. Baden Powell
Speaker 3: because this guy, like mentioned, he used to train cavalry
Speaker 3: in his time as a British military officer, and one
Speaker 3: of the big components of training those guys was the woodcraft,
Speaker 3: forest craft, the survival skills. Right. This book takes off
Speaker 3: in the military stick environment of Great Britain at the time,
Speaker 3: because the boys want to be heroes, right, The little
Speaker 3: kids want to grow up and fight for God and
Speaker 3: country and so on. And that's a that's a tendency
Speaker 3: that continues to some degree in the modern day. So
Speaker 3: Baden Powell says, all right, I've got this idea where
Speaker 3: I can teach these kids skills they will need later
Speaker 3: when they inevitably join the army. Because it's just a
Speaker 3: given that they will unless they have some sort of
Speaker 3: physical or moral failing.
Speaker 2: Well. But it's also very strange because the US has
Speaker 2: no compulsory military service. Right, you don't have to go
Speaker 2: in to the military at all in this country unless
Speaker 2: you get drafted during the time during a time of
Speaker 2: war when a draft gets instituted. Right, So during the
Speaker 2: Vietnam War, you know, as you got into a World War,
Speaker 2: was there there was a World War too, draft, right,
Speaker 2: there were.
Speaker 3: It's it's interesting with the world wars, both in the
Speaker 3: Kingdom and in the US, because even if there was
Speaker 3: not a draft, or even if a draft did not
Speaker 3: apply to you a conscription, it was considered a id yeah,
Speaker 3: deep moral failing to not contribute to the larger effort.
Speaker 2: And so well, I guess what I mean is if
Speaker 2: you didn't join the ROTC, right, or some other youth
Speaker 2: organization where you're going to be prepared for battle or
Speaker 2: to learn those skills that you would learn in one
Speaker 2: of these other organizations, you're not going to know that
Speaker 2: stuff unless you've got you know, a family like a
Speaker 2: family friend or a father or somebody who was teaching
Speaker 2: you that stuff one on one. So the BSA, and
Speaker 2: you know these other organizations we're talking about right here,
Speaker 2: they it's almost a stand in for exactly what you're
Speaker 2: talking about, Ben, the preparation prior to either military service
Speaker 2: or the need to fight or you know, help people
Speaker 2: during a time of conflict.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and to answer your question directly, Yeah, the US
Speaker 3: did have military conscription during World War Two. The most
Speaker 3: recent military conscription from the US was, of course, as
Speaker 3: we remember, the Vietnam War. That hasn't occurred since. And
Speaker 3: one of the reasons that, well, one of the hot
Speaker 3: take reasons that the draft has not occurred after that
Speaker 3: is in some degrees due to accelerating economic inequality, which
Speaker 3: makes the military increasingly the only viable option for a
Speaker 3: lot of American citizens.
Speaker 2: Precisely, I think it's worth noting in many of the
Speaker 2: successful democracies across the world, children as they become adults
Speaker 2: are required to join some kind of military training and
Speaker 2: you know, become certified in a bunch of different levels
Speaker 2: before they get to become adults basically.
Speaker 3: And I'm not against it. I'm gonna be honest with you,
Speaker 3: I'm not against compulsory service. I would actually I would
Speaker 3: extend that. I mean in theory. I'm not opposed to it.
Speaker 3: I would extend that to say, if you were a
Speaker 3: member of Congress, if you were a political leader, member
Speaker 3: of parliament or whatever, and you vote for a war,
Speaker 3: you should have to go too. Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 4: Something was bouncing around in my head when you were
Speaker 4: talking about this. The Selective Service, that is the closes
Speaker 4: to that is basically a database that the government keeps
Speaker 4: here in the US of names of quote unquote able
Speaker 4: bodied you know, humans that that could be called up
Speaker 4: were a draft to be reinstated, the old SS.
Speaker 3: I just remember, and I looked it up.
Speaker 4: If you don't register with it, it's a felony pub
Speaker 4: punishable by finds up the two hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 4: dollars and or five years in prison. I just remember
Speaker 4: that in high school that you have to like register
Speaker 4: for the Selective Service.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It gets kind of kind of spooky real quick.
Speaker 3: But the h so Baden Powell has this, the way
Speaker 3: he thinks through this stuff seems like he doesn't necessarily
Speaker 3: understand children, because maybe he just thinks of the people
Speaker 3: who are under his command as somewhat childlike his ideas,
Speaker 3: like naturally the children will organize themselves into small subgroups
Speaker 3: I imagine six or seven, and they shall choose a leader.
Speaker 3: The boy will be the patrol leader, and they will
Speaker 3: train in tracking and reconnaissance, and so they.
Speaker 4: Will pass the conkshell around.
Speaker 5: There shall be no note of the flies, right, Like,
Speaker 5: he's clearly underestimating the inherent savagery of human beings because
Speaker 5: you know, I don't know people are crabs in the bucket.
Speaker 3: Oh, I like that, It's true. I mean, okay, So
Speaker 3: we can already see the premise here is ideological, it
Speaker 3: is militaristic, and there is a logic to it. There's
Speaker 3: a strong argument that Baden Powell is ultimately see he
Speaker 3: sees himself as saving time for future military commanders. It's
Speaker 3: kind of like how you see English teachers in college saying,
Speaker 3: I wish these kids had been taught the fundamentals of
Speaker 3: language and syntax and grammar before they came to my class.
Speaker 3: So he's thinking, if these kids grow up already knowing
Speaker 3: these basic survival traits once they enter the military, which
Speaker 3: again they inevitably will, then they'll be that much more capable,
Speaker 3: that much more quickly. That's the origin story. It's brief
Speaker 3: it's high level. A lot of it's accurate, but it
Speaker 3: doesn't tell the whole truth. Because if we fast forward
Speaker 3: through the origin of Scouting, through the decades to the
Speaker 3: modern day, we see the Boy Scouts of America becomes
Speaker 3: a runaway success. It's one of the largest youth organizations
Speaker 3: in the country. As recently as twenty seventeen it had
Speaker 3: two point three million kids, almost almost a million, like
Speaker 3: nine hundred thousand something adult volunteers. And if you are
Speaker 3: doubtlessly so of our fellow conspiracy realists listening now, you
Speaker 3: have been in scouting, so you understand that it doesn't
Speaker 3: necessarily end when people age out, whether or not you
Speaker 3: get or when you get the Eagle Scout rank, then
Speaker 3: you can continue on to other related things Explorers Club, order,
Speaker 3: the Arrow, et cetera.
Speaker 4: Didn't that Baden Powell character like even like form like
Speaker 4: a like a training camp or something.
Speaker 3: He did to practice his ideas to make sure it
Speaker 3: would work. He's set up what you could call the
Speaker 3: first Boy Scout summer camp, and he said, okay, it's
Speaker 3: It was on an island, Brownsea Island, and the.
Speaker 4: Most British sounding place I think I've had sued by
Speaker 4: the way if cost Cobb.
Speaker 2: Is the I think this is the most British guys.
Speaker 2: I want to just quickly go beyond what the skills
Speaker 2: are taught in boy Scouting, because I think it's more
Speaker 2: than skills, like actual physical things. I think it is
Speaker 2: mental training. At least that's what it was for me.
Speaker 2: It was when I was in Boy Scouts. I remember
Speaker 2: it was like it reminded me a lot of the
Speaker 2: martial arts training that I was taking again as a child.
Speaker 2: It was about discipline, It was about how to act
Speaker 2: around other people, how to think about other people, how
Speaker 2: to treat other people right. It was it was almost
Speaker 2: a mindset training since doctrination in doctrination. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, I well, I mean it was in doctrination,
Speaker 2: I guess, but I hold dear the things that I
Speaker 2: learned in boy Scouting about how to treat other people
Speaker 2: and how to I don't know. I wanted to just
Speaker 2: really quickly. I was thinking about I was watching this
Speaker 2: documentary that we're going to talk about in a minute.
Speaker 2: I mean, it had a clip of George H. W.
Speaker 2: Bush speaking to I guess it was a large It
Speaker 2: was probably one of the national Boy Scout events that
Speaker 2: occurred back in probably the early nineties. Yeah, it's probably
Speaker 2: jam Bree, It's exactly right. I'm just gonna read this
Speaker 2: quote because it it reverberated with me so much listening
Speaker 2: to him say it on my tiny little iPhone screen
Speaker 2: that I got emotional because I remember hearing this. Right,
Speaker 2: It's like I remember these things being told to me
Speaker 2: kind of over and over again. This is what you are,
Speaker 2: this is how you should be. This is how boy
Speaker 2: Scouts are, this is how we are. I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: read really quickly quote. Your Scout law commands you to
Speaker 2: be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean,
Speaker 2: and reverent.
Speaker 4: And it's like Golden rule type stuff. It's got a
Speaker 4: it smacks of almost like a religion, I mean, very interesting.
Speaker 3: The recitation of the of the Scout oath code. Stuff
Speaker 3: you have to say all the time.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, but it but it's like, I guess
Speaker 2: it's what you're saying and like being indoctrinated. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, and.
Speaker 3: It's good, it feels good.
Speaker 4: It's all good things. This is a good idea. I mean,
Speaker 4: I I inherently don't have any problem with any of this.
Speaker 2: But in there the words obedient, right are in there.
Speaker 2: That's true, reverent, helpful, courteous. I don't know that some
Speaker 2: of it. As we get into the story, like I
Speaker 2: start to see the cracks in the vision I had
Speaker 2: of it, right.
Speaker 3: The language of submitting to authority. Yeah, that's what it is,
Speaker 3: that's part of it. Yes, Uh, you can be physically
Speaker 3: self reliant, but you must consider yourself morally and ideologically
Speaker 3: reliant upon a hierarchical organization. So the that's I mean,
Speaker 3: that's the truth of it. And you know, for decades
Speaker 3: this organization was plagued by rumors of physical and sexual
Speaker 3: abuse in full transparency, probably due to the unique and
Speaker 3: somewhat militaristic nature of the organization I was part of.
Speaker 3: Physical abuse was not uncommon or what would be called
Speaker 3: physical abuse today. What's more, the survivors of different troops
Speaker 3: and survivors of time in the BSA alleged for years
Speaker 3: and years and years that the Boy Scouts of America
Speaker 3: was aware of a huge, ongoing intergenerational problem with abuse.
Speaker 3: And yes, folks, the worst kind, the kind you're thinking of.
Speaker 3: And further that the Boy Scouts of America conspired successfully
Speaker 3: to cover it all up. What do we make of this?
Speaker 3: We'll tell you after a word from our sponsors. Here's
Speaker 3: where it gets crazy. These allegations, both of abuse and
Speaker 3: of conspiracy are true. They are inarguably true. They are
Speaker 3: a fact. It's not a conspiracy theory. It's a conspiracy, which.
Speaker 4: Is crazy considering that it was almost like I not almost,
Speaker 4: I just remember growing up and just hearing off color jokes,
Speaker 4: really tasteless jokes about like boy Scout troop leaders, you know,
Speaker 4: molesting children, like haha, it's something creepy about a grown
Speaker 4: adult men being in command of all these young boys.
Speaker 3: See also youth pastors, yeah.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent, and you know, priests, and we're kind
Speaker 4: of see this. There's some pretty striking parallels there in
Speaker 4: terms of, like, you know, abuse by figures of authority
Speaker 4: and absolute betrayal of trust.
Speaker 3: And in recent decades, multiple individual cases of abuse have
Speaker 3: reached US courts. The vast majority of these allegations of
Speaker 3: abuse involved abuse of a sexual nature. More So, what
Speaker 3: I'm saying is more so than just smacking kids upside
Speaker 3: the head sexually abusing them. In nineteen eighty eight, the
Speaker 3: organization had already attempted to respond to some of this.
Speaker 3: They created something called the Youth Protection Program to address
Speaker 3: this systemic issue. And if you look at the Youth
Speaker 3: Protection Program, you can learn a lot about this online.
Speaker 3: You'll see that it had some basic rules. So in
Speaker 3: scouting there's always this thing with exploring the wild called
Speaker 3: the buddy system. Right, summer camps, non scouting summer camps
Speaker 3: do this as well. You always want to have someone
Speaker 3: with you. So the Youth Leadership Program create some requirements.
Speaker 3: They have a buddy system for leadership. They say, okay,
Speaker 3: no one on one adult child stuff. You have to
Speaker 3: have a minimum of two adults present during all activities.
Speaker 3: It can be a parent, it can be an adult leader,
Speaker 3: but there have to be two adults. No one on
Speaker 3: one contact. You have to respect privacy of youth members,
Speaker 3: you know, taking showers, changing clothing, stuff like that. You
Speaker 3: can only intrude if there's a threat to health or safety.
Speaker 3: Separate accommodations, you know what I mean. The adults are
Speaker 3: sleeping in a different tent, to different camp, a different cabin.
Speaker 3: You have to prepare for high adventure activities, so make
Speaker 3: sure all the kids have you know the stuff they
Speaker 3: need to not die rock climbing. That's pretty basic. Why
Speaker 3: wasn't that a rule earlier? No secret organizations, that's a
Speaker 3: really interesting one. They said, you can't. Basically, it's kind
Speaker 3: of like squirreling in scientology. You can't create a splinter
Speaker 3: faction because that could aid and a bet you in
Speaker 3: the commission of evil, evil things, and it goes on.
Speaker 3: But you know one thing they don't have in there, guys,
Speaker 3: they don't have something about not allowing previously convicted sex
Speaker 3: offenders into the organization. Missed that one?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because theoretically, this is after someone has been
Speaker 2: vetted to become a Scout leader or a volunteer, even
Speaker 2: right to be an adult person there, even if it
Speaker 2: is the parent of one of the adults right during
Speaker 2: that too deep leadership. It's like it's a Scout leader
Speaker 2: and another Scout leader or another parent of one of
Speaker 2: the kids that's there. So theoretically, anybody that can go
Speaker 2: on a Scouting trip as an adult supervisor, you'd think
Speaker 2: would be trained. Right, But this thing, this youth protection
Speaker 2: program comes out what I don't even know, sixty eighty
Speaker 2: years after the after boy Scouts of America is formed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, more than half a century.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, okay, so don't have one on one
Speaker 2: contact with kids and make sure there are at least
Speaker 2: two adults there. Huh. I wonder why that is after
Speaker 2: eighty years this thing gets created.
Speaker 3: And then also why is it created in reaction too?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know it's a reactive it's a reactive declaration.
Speaker 3: Fast forward. You know, just a few years later this stuff,
Speaker 3: by the way, spoiler didn't work. We'll talk about it
Speaker 3: in a minute. But in nineteen ninety one, the Washington Times,
Speaker 3: particularly lead investigative journalist Patrick Boyle, they publish a major,
Speaker 3: multipart investigation into sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America.
Speaker 3: You can read this online. It's called Scouts Honor. They
Speaker 3: spent two years looking into everything they could find. They
Speaker 3: looked into personnel records from the Boy Scouts themselves, internal
Speaker 3: documents that were purposely kept from the public, court records
Speaker 3: from twenty states, probably more newspaper articles, hundreds of interviews,
Speaker 3: including convicted child abusers, families of victims, victims themselves, Scout leaders,
Speaker 3: et cetera. And they even narrowed their scope. The scope
Speaker 3: of this investigation is only cases of male Scout leaders
Speaker 3: abusing Boy Scouts prior to the nineteen eighty eight introduction
Speaker 3: of the Youth Protection Program, and in summation in the report,
Speaker 3: they wrote the following, It's going to be very difficult
Speaker 3: for a lot of us to hear quote the Boy
Speaker 3: Scouts are a magnet for men who want to have
Speaker 3: sexual relations with children. Pedophiles join the Scouts for a
Speaker 3: simple reason. It's where the boys are. Jesus yests.
Speaker 2: This guy Michael Johnson that we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: in just a moment, who worked with the Boy Scouts
Speaker 2: of America for quite a while, as you know, someone
Speaker 2: trying to protect kids. He said, quote, Boy Scouts is
Speaker 2: exceptional in the opportunities that it presents to perpetrators to
Speaker 2: access children in no to very low supervised situations. That
Speaker 2: was like the same point. I think a similar point.
Speaker 2: It's because they're not other adults around, and you've got
Speaker 2: where the boys are, right.
Speaker 3: And predators seek opportunities, you know what I mean. Regardless
Speaker 3: of what specific sort of animal they are, predators are
Speaker 3: all opportunistic. That's how predation works. And this documentary we're
Speaker 3: talking about Scouts Honor the Secret Files of the Boy
Speaker 3: Scouts of America is available now. Watch it on Netflix,
Speaker 3: maybe a couple of other platforms to r maybe sadly,
Speaker 3: Like you said, Noel, it is difficult not to make
Speaker 3: comparisons between this ongoing tragedy and the conspiracy of the
Speaker 3: Catholic Church abuse scandals. The BSA had a history of
Speaker 3: covering things up, even to the point of allowing knowing
Speaker 3: sex offenders back into the organization. Just like the priest
Speaker 3: getting relocated, they might change troops, they might move to
Speaker 3: a different state, wait a few years, let the heat
Speaker 3: die down. And this was very easy. This is a
Speaker 3: very easy environment for these predators to operate in for
Speaker 3: quite some time because this was well before the age
Speaker 3: of the internet. You know what I mean. If you
Speaker 3: wanted to research someone, you needed help from authorities, or
Speaker 3: you needed a lot of time, you know, to dedicate
Speaker 3: to physically going out hitting the bricks and doing some research.
Speaker 3: The files that these reporters found date back to the
Speaker 3: beginning of the Scout movement in England, well before the
Speaker 3: organization reached American shores. And this is where we want
Speaker 3: to pull another quote Patrick Boyle, the lead journalists for
Speaker 3: the Time's investigation put it this way.
Speaker 4: Soon after the Scouts were found that in England in
Speaker 4: nineteen oh eight, the Scouts there realized they had a
Speaker 4: problem because scouting has always attracted men who were attracted
Speaker 4: to boys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, according to that documentary, the first doctor that was
Speaker 2: present on the first Boy Scout camping trip, the first
Speaker 2: official one, had to be removed from the organization because
Speaker 2: of his interest in the boys.
Speaker 3: That was inappropriate, And of course Baden Powell himself turns
Speaker 3: out some of his high faluting statements may have also
Speaker 3: been a cover for unclean interest and things. We know,
Speaker 3: this youth protection plan did not seem to work. Prior
Speaker 3: to nineteen ninety four, there were an estimated two thousand
Speaker 3: separate reported incidents of abuse. And if you have ever
Speaker 3: had the misfortune of being familiar with abusive situations in institutions,
Speaker 3: you know that this unfortunately means that many, many, many
Speaker 3: other cases likely went unreported or got reported and were squashed.
Speaker 3: And this problem, this genre of conspiracy, aiding and abetting predators,
Speaker 3: it's unfortunately not uncommon in youth organizations. Yet, even admitting
Speaker 3: that problem, the Boy Scouts of America set several historical
Speaker 3: records in terms of legal proceedings.
Speaker 4: So from nineteen eighty six to nineteen ninety one, the
Speaker 4: Boy Scouts of America and local councils agreed to pay
Speaker 4: more than fifteen million dollars in damages, and according to
Speaker 4: this investigation from Washington Times, the actual payment is likely
Speaker 4: a whole lot more. And that's because the BSA sometimes
Speaker 4: agreed to pay individual damages only if the payments were
Speaker 4: kept under wraps, which doesn't Is that a thing you
Speaker 4: can do?
Speaker 3: I guess it is. It's kind of common. And these
Speaker 3: sort of settlements of confidentiality, guess would be required by insurers. Wow,
Speaker 3: it happens in It happens in companies as well. Outside
Speaker 3: of child abuse. They might say they had.
Speaker 4: Meant no wrongdoing, right like they pay they had been
Speaker 4: no wrongdoing, and there's a gag order essentially.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, of course exactly. And continuing on, in twenty ten,
Speaker 3: and jury ordered the BSA to pay eighteen point five
Speaker 3: million dollars to a former Scout who was abused in
Speaker 3: the nineteen eighties. This was the largest punitive damages award
Speaker 3: to a single person in a child abuse case in
Speaker 3: the entirety of US history up to that point.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about a little bit about how in the
Speaker 2: heck does an individual who ends up abusing a kid
Speaker 2: that gets involved, they get to the Boy Scouts of
Speaker 2: America involved in a lawsuit like that, what happens to
Speaker 2: that individual person? Like generally there are going to be
Speaker 2: criminal charges against somebody if it actually goes that far right, that.
Speaker 3: Would be That would be more the case now, But
Speaker 3: previously there was a statute of limitations in term for
Speaker 3: abuse cases as well as for sexual assault cases, and
Speaker 3: changing those laws has been a tremendous benefit to survivors,
Speaker 3: and I would argue to American society as a whole,
Speaker 3: But it still doesn't fix things. And these are just
Speaker 3: a few data points. It would be an entire series
Speaker 3: beyond even what the Washington Times did to name every
Speaker 3: single case here. There are countless other incidents. And we're
Speaker 3: not being hyperbolic. We say countless, we mean you cannot
Speaker 3: count them literally, because a lot of these went unreported
Speaker 3: or they were reported and then covered up by local authorities,
Speaker 3: many of whom were in some way affiliated with scouting.
Speaker 3: Because you know, you're the police chief, right, you know,
Speaker 3: the scout master. Heck, he's you know, he's a Scout
Speaker 3: master on the weekend. He works for you during the
Speaker 3: week Oh, you're.
Speaker 4: In like the Elks club together or something, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, especially in these smaller commune unities, there would
Speaker 4: be some real cross pollination.
Speaker 3: You know, with absolutely these types of folks. Power structures
Speaker 3: can be ven diagrams, especially in small towns. And so
Speaker 3: the question then becomes similar to the question posed about
Speaker 3: the Catholic Church. How did this happen? How did such
Speaker 3: a large, enormous organization with such a storied history go
Speaker 3: so far off the rails into the realm of the
Speaker 3: evil and the unclean. I mean, think about it. Politicians, senators, congress,
Speaker 3: folk athletes, astronauts. Some of the most prominent members of
Speaker 3: American society and indeed global society grew up in the
Speaker 3: Boy Scouts. Congress has had official authority over the organization
Speaker 3: since nineteen sixteen, when the Boy Scouts got congressionally chartered,
Speaker 3: so the most powerful people in the nation ostensibly were
Speaker 3: able to keep an eye on it. Yet Congress never
Speaker 3: investigated thousands and thousands of claims. That's that's just the
Speaker 3: ones who made it to the attention of Congress. Local
Speaker 3: municipalities never investigated far, far more claims. You know what,
Speaker 3: it's similar to, it's got true Detective Season one vibes right,
Speaker 3: We're not saying murder, but we are saying horrific abuse.
Speaker 3: And you know, to your point, old people who are
Speaker 3: who all know each other, who hang out in the
Speaker 3: same back rooms, say we don't want to make this
Speaker 3: a problem. It's not necessarily. The sense you can get
Speaker 3: from looking at all the research that has come out
Speaker 3: is less that the Boy Scouts were, you know, steepling
Speaker 3: their fingers and saying, yes, let's ruin the lives of children.
Speaker 3: And it was more like they were saying, we've got
Speaker 3: a brand, We've got a brand that is profitable, and
Speaker 3: we need to protect that brand, so let's airbrush some
Speaker 3: of the inconvenient history. And it seems they miscalculated just
Speaker 3: how much of that evil history they're Zessimov bass, I
Speaker 3: don't want to overdramatize this.
Speaker 4: No, I don't think it's possible. Frankly, I think the
Speaker 4: drama of the reality of it is bigger than anything
Speaker 4: one's imagination could conjure.
Speaker 3: Thanks man, I mean we should also really think again.
Speaker 3: The folks at the Washington Times and Michael Johnson who
Speaker 3: you mentioned earlier, Matt for speaking out. This guy wrote
Speaker 3: a letter in twenty twenty one who he was the
Speaker 3: leader of the organization that was supposed to investigate and
Speaker 3: prevent this stuff. And in twenty twenty one he writes
Speaker 3: directly to Congress and he says, the Scouts are unsafe
Speaker 3: for children, Please please do something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's literally the guy that's supposed to write the rules.
Speaker 2: He was hired as a Plano Texas officer who specifically
Speaker 2: specialized in child sex abuse, and they, the Boy Scouts America,
Speaker 2: brought him in to basically run their youth protection program
Speaker 2: to hone this whole thing, and they kind of held
Speaker 2: him back the whole time, and they said, hey, we
Speaker 2: don't have any kind of, you know, guidelines for how
Speaker 2: to protect youth or anything like that. Only for him
Speaker 2: then to find out that some Boy Scouts of America
Speaker 2: person did help create the official national youth protection guidelines
Speaker 2: like for the for the United States government. And found
Speaker 2: out that the person who was part of the Boy
Speaker 2: Scouts who was officially cited on that document was his
Speaker 2: boss who told him they don't have any kind of
Speaker 2: youth protection document. But then his boss goes on to
Speaker 2: tell him, oh, no, well they put my name on
Speaker 2: it because the actual guy who helped write it from
Speaker 2: the Boy Scouts of America, he got picked up on
Speaker 2: child sexual abuse materials, right that stuff, and his name
Speaker 2: was Douglas Smith and he ended up going to prison
Speaker 2: for child sexual abuse material And there's an article you
Speaker 2: can read. Here's the title. You can look it up.
Speaker 2: Boy Scouts executive surrenders in Fort Worth on a child
Speaker 2: pornography charge.
Speaker 3: And Michael Johnson was serving. He was not a spring
Speaker 3: chicken at this He had been serving as the youth
Speaker 3: protection director for a decade, right, and he was begging
Speaker 3: Congress to act. Congress left this on red and the
Speaker 3: more people investigated, the more unclean things they found Scout records.
Speaker 3: This came out in a court case where an abuse
Speaker 3: survivor his lawyers were able to have the courts compel
Speaker 3: the Boy Scouts to share records that had not made
Speaker 3: it to the public previously. And as people were looking
Speaker 3: into these records, they discovered something called alternatively it's been
Speaker 3: called the red Flag files, the confidential files, the later
Speaker 3: it was called the Ineligible Volunteer Files. Had very disturbing
Speaker 3: details on hundreds of Scout leaders banned from the organization
Speaker 3: and sometimes let back in banned for sexual misconduct from
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy five through nineteen eighty four, and then another
Speaker 3: list came out from the BSA with more than three
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty adult males banned for sexual misconduct from
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy one to nineteen eighty six. They're called the
Speaker 3: Secret Files. To be fully transparent here, I want to
Speaker 3: thank the LA Times. They have compiled a searchable database
Speaker 3: which is available online for free. You can look state
Speaker 3: by state, city by city, often but not always, troop
Speaker 3: by troop. You will see that the names of the
Speaker 3: perpetrators are not always present. Sometimes it's like person number blah.
Speaker 3: And you know, the scary thing about it is if
Speaker 3: you were in Scouts and you were not, you were
Speaker 3: not subjected to this abuse, You're probably going to be
Speaker 3: surprised and chilled by the fact that this database will
Speaker 3: likely show a Scout troop near where you grew up
Speaker 3: where something like this happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's that widespread. And what's the word foundational? Almost well,
Speaker 4: it was the word like when something was like yeah,
Speaker 4: well yeah, but even more so almost like it's oh god,
Speaker 4: it's this culture, this climb, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's like something that's ubiquitous and within the organization itself,
Speaker 4: like at the very root of it.
Speaker 3: It's wild and it's mission critical to note this organization
Speaker 3: went to pretty extreme lengths to prevent parent law enforcement,
Speaker 3: literally any other outside authority from seeing these files. They
Speaker 3: were under lock and key in the national headquarters because
Speaker 3: they were bad for business. And that leads us to
Speaker 3: another disturbing wrinkle of this conspiracy. I propose we pause
Speaker 3: for a word from our sponsor and return to dive deeper.
Speaker 3: And we have returned, this culture of secrecy and abuse
Speaker 3: becomes increasingly disturbing. We realize something that I, like I,
Speaker 3: as an Eagle Scout, was not aware of. For quite
Speaker 3: some time, the Boy Scouts of America actively lobbied against
Speaker 3: child sexual abuse laws. A youth organization opposed laws protecting children.
Speaker 3: In twenty eighteen, even the House of Representatives wrote in
Speaker 3: to the Boy Scouts of Americans said why are you
Speaker 3: against this?
Speaker 2: What were they lobbying against?
Speaker 3: They were opposed to mandated reporting requirements, a detailed account
Speaker 3: of safety procedures and reporting mechanisms that they have in place,
Speaker 3: I'm quoting the letter here from Jackie Spear, and this
Speaker 3: was since in twenty eighteen. You can read the letter
Speaker 3: in full. They were basically opposed to Congress looking for
Speaker 3: what they call a look back window, a short period
Speaker 3: of time where victims of child abuse can file suit
Speaker 3: despite a state statute of limitations.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So they were anti reporting requirements and anti extension of
Speaker 3: statute of limitations.
Speaker 2: And so essentially the Scouts are attempting to or at
Speaker 2: least it's the allegation years of the Scouts are attempting
Speaker 2: to shield like as an org organization individual abusers. And
Speaker 2: you have to wonder why would they do that, And
Speaker 2: it's probably a pr thing, right the Boy Scouts doesn't
Speaker 2: want anybody to think about it as an organization as
Speaker 2: the iconography that is the Boy Scouts as child sexual abusers.
Speaker 3: Right right, there's this idea of protecting the business of
Speaker 3: the brand. And you know, it's for a pained, cliche analogy.
Speaker 3: It's like, imagine there's a fox in Congress that is
Speaker 3: fighting hen House legislation, you know what I mean, like
Speaker 3: a fact saying well, this rule about fences around chicken
Speaker 3: chicken huts is Unamerican when you think about it, that's
Speaker 3: like that ulterior that ulterior motive is damning. And we
Speaker 3: have a quote from Michael Serbock, who was the Scout's
Speaker 3: chief executive at the time, and he said, quote, at
Speaker 3: new time in our history we ever knowingly allowed a
Speaker 3: sexual predator to work with youth. It turned out to
Speaker 3: be entirely not the case. It would have been more
Speaker 3: accurate to say, at pretty much every time in our
Speaker 3: history we have knowingly allowed sexual predators to work with youth.
Speaker 4: So, you know, this kind of hushing up of the
Speaker 4: whole thing, this inner generational silencing of these abuse victims.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, you're right, Ben, the true detective analogy. Well,
Speaker 4: it's not murder per se. It is murder of innocence.
Speaker 4: It is murder of trust, you know, and it is
Speaker 4: essentially what amounts to a child abuse ring, you know.
Speaker 4: And when with this finally coming out, it impacted the organization,
Speaker 4: the Boy Scouts of America significantly, and they actually filed
Speaker 4: It took a while. It took a long time for
Speaker 4: it to really hit home. Nearly a decade. In twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: the BSA finally filed for bankruptcy likely you know, because
Speaker 4: of a lot of these hush hush, you know settlements, right.
Speaker 3: And they were looking at two hundred plus pending lawsuits
Speaker 3: at that time in the federal and district courts of
Speaker 3: the US, with almost two thousand claimants involved in those already.
Speaker 3: And then May of that same year you mentioned the
Speaker 3: US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware because you know, where are
Speaker 3: you going to headquarter as a company if you're shady.
Speaker 4: We're in Delaware.
Speaker 3: We're in Delaware. They set they set a deadline in
Speaker 3: this settlement, and they said you have until you if
Speaker 3: you are a survivor of this abuse, the system of abuse,
Speaker 3: then you have till November sixteenth, twenty twenty to file
Speaker 3: your claim. And all told, more than ninety two thousand
Speaker 3: separate claims were filed with the bankruptcy court by that deadline.
Speaker 3: This breaks another record for the BSA. It's the single
Speaker 3: largest instance of child sexual abuse claims in a single
Speaker 3: organization in United States history. And we know that might
Speaker 3: sound crazy because you always hear about the Catholic church scandals,
Speaker 3: right the Scout, the boy Scout tragedy and scandal eclipsed that.
Speaker 3: The BSA published an open letter ostensibly encouraging victims of
Speaker 3: abuse to step forward. The bankruptcy settlement continues today, and
Speaker 3: you know, we can say thankfully, at least the conspiracy
Speaker 3: is unraveling, but the story is not over, you know,
Speaker 3: and for people who survive this abuse, it will never
Speaker 3: It'll never really be over. And Matt, I want to
Speaker 3: go back to a point that you had made earlier.
Speaker 3: What were the consequences for these predators? Many of them
Speaker 3: now have died. They were al at the time they
Speaker 3: were abusing children. They have aged, they became elderly, infirm,
Speaker 3: they passed away, quite possibly continuing to be career predators
Speaker 3: throughout the rest of their life and quite possibly never
Speaker 3: seen justice for the consequences of their actions.
Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely. Oh. If you watch that The Scout's Owner
Speaker 2: documentary on Netflix, you can see a couple examples of
Speaker 2: people who were brought to justice, but people who were
Speaker 2: brought to justice after five, eight, ten years of getting
Speaker 2: away with abusing kids through the organization, because the opportunities
Speaker 2: that were there just quickly. Just to give an example,
Speaker 2: this guy named Thomas J. Hacker who was in Illinois.
Speaker 2: He was a Scout master and he was a deacon
Speaker 2: at his church and in February of nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 2: he was arrested. He was charge of five counts of
Speaker 2: aggravated criminal sexual assas. Again these are at the time,
Speaker 2: it's against miners kids. He received over one hundred years
Speaker 2: in prison for what he had done, but he had
Speaker 2: molested hundreds of boys over eight years. And when he
Speaker 2: got caught, when he was interviewed in prison, they said,
Speaker 2: why did you choose the Scouts to do this? And
Speaker 2: his quote is literally quote they made it so easy, unquote,
Speaker 2: that is what he said. And just knowing that, like,
Speaker 2: who knows how many people are out there? Who knows
Speaker 2: how many people, even if they're involved in a lawsuit
Speaker 2: right like this, aren't actually going to see justice because
Speaker 2: they're they're gonna there's gonna be some kind of settlement
Speaker 2: at some point, and they signed some agreement like you
Speaker 2: were talking about, Ben where everybody walks away, nobody did
Speaker 2: anything wrong, but here's some money.
Speaker 4: I don't think that should be allowed. No, that seems
Speaker 4: crooked to me. That's just like a failing of the
Speaker 4: legal system, where like, you know, money is more important than.
Speaker 3: Justice, But those are also out of court settlements pretty often, you.
Speaker 4: Know, I get it. And I guess it's up to
Speaker 4: the victims to decide whether this restitution is worth you know,
Speaker 4: is to them a form of justice, But it just
Speaker 4: doesn't feel like that to me, you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about over the years, like why somebody
Speaker 2: wouldn't get called out for abusing right that the power
Speaker 2: dynamic that we've talked about so often on this show
Speaker 2: that exists between somebody who's functioning as a Scout leader
Speaker 2: in let's say, a deacon at their church, and then
Speaker 2: when a child is accusing this person who is to
Speaker 2: everybody else a leader in their organ in their community.
Speaker 4: Dude, I think I think what I'm trying to I'm
Speaker 4: not articulating well enough what I'm trying to say about settlements.
Speaker 4: To me, the problem here is these settlements and the
Speaker 4: hushing up of all of this legally, I guess is
Speaker 4: a pattern. And you're thinking that happened enough times it
Speaker 4: could be like, I think we're doing a disservice to
Speaker 4: future potential victims.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what I mean when I think when I
Speaker 4: say I shouldn't be allowed and this type of it's just.
Speaker 3: God dang, one would think, Yeah, and we'll provide resources
Speaker 3: toward the end of the show here tonight. In December
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty one, the BSA and their insurer, the
Speaker 3: BSA Insurance Reserve, agreed to pay eight hundred million dollars
Speaker 3: into a survivor fund created to give settlements and financial
Speaker 3: compensation and hopefully closure to survivors. The very next year,
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two, the BSA up to the price,
Speaker 3: agreeing to pay two point four billion dollars into the
Speaker 3: same fund, with payments set to roll out in September
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty three this year. As we record this,
Speaker 3: the total estimated settlement piers round out to about two
Speaker 3: point four to six billion dollars. Eighty six percent of
Speaker 3: the survivors in the claims approved of this, and just
Speaker 3: last month payouts began. Reuter's has a good summation of it.
Speaker 3: The initial payments were sent to seven thousand claimants who
Speaker 3: this kind of bothers me, who chose something called the
Speaker 3: quick pay option under the BSA bankruptcy Plan. These seven
Speaker 3: thousand folks who chose the quick pay option receive three thousand,
Speaker 3: five hundred dollars without going through the lengthier evaluation process.
Speaker 3: That awaits the majority of people who filed claims. So
Speaker 3: you heard that, right, folks, Three thousand, five hundred dollars,
Speaker 3: That is the price put on the.
Speaker 4: Trauma doesn't seem like quite enough?
Speaker 3: What is? What is? There's a exactly there's a retired
Speaker 3: bankruptcy judge named Barbara Hauser, and she and her team
Speaker 3: are in charge of this process. They say the entire
Speaker 3: settlement process is going to take years at lee. Individual
Speaker 3: abuse survivors are expected to receive between three thy five
Speaker 3: hundred dollars to two point seven million dollars, depending on
Speaker 3: how their claims are assessed. And not everyone is happy
Speaker 3: with this plan. To be clear, there are two separate
Speaker 3: groups that raised a pretty salience point. They appealed the
Speaker 3: settlement and they said, look, this prevents churches and organizations
Speaker 3: that sponsored scouting programs but have not themselves filed for
Speaker 3: bankruptcy from being held accountable for some of this. You know,
Speaker 3: like a lot of if you've ever been in Boy Scouts,
Speaker 3: you know a lot of the troops meet it community centers,
Speaker 3: they meet in churches, things like that. Right, So, these
Speaker 3: groups who are objecting to the settlement are saying they
Speaker 3: feel that some of these affiliated organizations who may have
Speaker 3: aided and embedded the conspiracy and abuse are getting off
Speaker 3: the hook because the bankruptcy settlement says you're going to
Speaker 3: release any claims against alleged partially responsible organizations or organizations
Speaker 3: that contributed to the Boy Scouts are contributed to the settlement.
Speaker 3: And sadly, there are a lot of places that appear
Speaker 3: to have turned a blind eye over the years. It
Speaker 3: does seem that the stuff they don't want you to
Speaker 3: know about the Boy Scouts continues in the modern day.
Speaker 3: And you know, I think it's also not to sound
Speaker 3: not to sound deferential, but I think it's also important
Speaker 3: for us to know what we said at the beginning.
Speaker 3: The heartbreaking thing about this is organizations like this, when
Speaker 3: done correctly, they can really help kids. You know, I
Speaker 3: owe a lot of formative experiences and a couple of
Speaker 3: survival situations, if we're being honest, I owe it to
Speaker 3: time spent in the Boy Scouts at similar organizations.
Speaker 4: Dude, I was just in Cub Scouts for like a
Speaker 4: year or so, and I made a lifelong friend that
Speaker 4: I still am very close with to this day. And
Speaker 4: it was also the first time I've ever been to
Speaker 4: the Cracker Barrel. I remember that distinctly. I think that
Speaker 4: was very much a popular boy Scout spot during camping
Speaker 4: trips when you wanted to get away from the nature
Speaker 4: of it all. But yeah, I think we started off
Speaker 4: it was important the way we started off, talking about
Speaker 4: how inherently a lot of these things are a good idea.
Speaker 4: But then there is that in citio is kind of weird,
Speaker 4: creepy language that you don't even notice right up front
Speaker 4: the whole, you know, kind of submissive aspect, you.
Speaker 2: Know, Yeah, Hey, do you guys remember Boys Life or
Speaker 2: I think a Scouts Life or Scout Life something like that.
Speaker 2: Just the magazines Boy Scouts in America would put out
Speaker 2: all kinds of different publications. Some of them were, you know,
Speaker 2: more official than others. Some of them were more local.
Speaker 2: But there were official publications back in the day that
Speaker 2: would call people out for having inappropriate contact. In the documentary,
Speaker 2: there's one where you can read an article from a
Speaker 2: nineteen twenties boy Scouting magazine that says the title is
Speaker 2: red Flag this Man, and it goes on to describe, Hey,
Speaker 2: here's this person who was a volunteer on this scouting trip.
Speaker 2: Do not allow this person on your scouting trips. You know,
Speaker 2: it feels at least back back for a time, there
Speaker 2: was internal reporting before this organization became so huge and
Speaker 2: such a powerful, moneied organization.
Speaker 3: And that was Yeah. Do watch the documentary, folks. That
Speaker 3: was a scouting magazine, I think nineteen twenty three, and
Speaker 3: the part you see in the documentary about this, it
Speaker 3: gives you a knowledge of the extent of the problem.
Speaker 3: Because the lead journalist for the Washington Times is reading
Speaker 3: that article for the first time on air, he was, yeah, familiar,
Speaker 3: there's so much out there.
Speaker 2: He finds it while going down the rabbit hole, just
Speaker 2: of realizing that those ineligible volunteer files slash, confidential files
Speaker 2: slash you know, the bad, the horrible thing, the red
Speaker 2: flag list. It's just it's astounding to me and its heartbreaking, honestly,
Speaker 2: because it does it. It destroys something that I hold
Speaker 2: as fundamental to who I think I.
Speaker 3: Am, and many people can say can say the same. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: we want to end on a couple of important points.
Speaker 3: You know, we have established that these organizations, or the
Speaker 3: skills learned in these organizations, the moral philosophies learned in
Speaker 3: these organizations, can be tremendously formative and helpful. We also
Speaker 3: must know abuse of children can occur in any organization,
Speaker 3: and conspiracies to cover this up continue in many similar
Speaker 3: institutions in the modern day. Of course, not every adult
Speaker 3: volunteer is a villain or a predator. The world would
Speaker 3: fundamentally not be able to work if that were the case.
Speaker 3: And if you or someone you know needs help, please
Speaker 3: remember this is perhaps the most important part of this episode.
Speaker 3: You are not alone. There are resources available. You can
Speaker 3: call or text in the United States one eight hundred
Speaker 3: number four a child. That's one eight hundred four two
Speaker 3: two four four five three. Again, that's one eight hundred
Speaker 3: four two two four four five three. You can also
Speaker 3: visit Childwelfare dot gov for more information. Thank you, as
Speaker 3: always so much for tuning in Conspiracy Realist. We immensely
Speaker 3: appreciate your time. We're here if you have some stories,
Speaker 3: some insight you would like to shed on this conspiracy.
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