Be (un)prepared

"Be prepared" used to be the motto of the Boy Scouts, but according to a story in The Times (Which never uses the word "boy" a single time for fear of offending the Ministry of Truth), the Boy Scouts are bowing to the insanity of the era and are changing the motto to "Be unprepared" by saddling the Boy Scouts with restrictions that even a medieval serf would have rebelled against. True, the ignoble peasant may have been forbidden to own the sword reserved for his betters, but no robber baron, no matter how repressive, would have been insane enough to say that a commoner couldn't carry a knife. But that is exactly where the Boy Scouts of the "enlightened" 21st century find themselves. Showing all the spine of a jellyfish doing a Johnathan Harris impression, the Association has effectively said that Boy Scouts shouldn't carry scout knives any longer. Indeed, the scouts have been advised not take knives on camping trips "unless there is a specific need" and that if said knives are carried it should be by the scout master who is to issue them to the scouts at the time of use–no doubt after a dozen forms are filled out in triplicate and then the knife will be accompanied by a pair of burly Securicorp men to whom the knife is attached by a quarter-inch steel cable.

The strange thing about my life is that I spend it caught in a transatlantic limbo between Britain and America and sometimes the contrasts are so stark it's like being hit with a floodlight at 2AM in the middle of the Bonneville Salt Flats. When I turn away from the computer to think about what to say next about how Boy Scouts are being treated like death row inmates on suicide watch I look out the window and see the road where I live. It's a nice place. The sort where you don't need to lock your door and the kids can play outside unsupervised. Partly this is due to the decent people who live around here. Partly its because most of the decent people who live around here are armed to the teeth and any pimply little creep who tries to break into a house or import Britain's "knife culture" to the neighbourhood will get his ticket to the next world punched courtesy of Smith & Wesson. Even though I live within an hour's drive of the ultra-leftist Seattle, gun control around here means using both hands. And despite having The One in the White House, carry conceal laws are becoming so common that now the next step is citizens learning that in many states they can carry assault weapons strapped openly to their hips.

Why is this? Because after two generations of playing around with gun control laws, the Americans have learned the Gun Free zones translate into English as "Come on in and blaze away. Nobody can shoot back here." Small wonder that gun control in the US is about as popular as Obamacare. And small wonder that the baddies tend to keep the gun deaths among themselves. Gangs in the 'hood may have the gangsta attitude honed to a T, but they still can't shoot for toffee while the plumber on Elm Street can take out the pip on an ace of spades at a hundred yards.

Meanwhile, New Labour's answer to Britain's violent crime problem was to disarm honest citizens, who are then forbidden to defend themselves, and refusing to punish murderous thugs with anything harsher than life sentences that were little more than helpful suggestions. Small wonder then that London and other major cities echo with the melody of gunfire while less enterprising young hoods go around armed with stilettos like throwbacks to 18th century Venice without the pasta. Of course, something must be done about all the shootings and stabbings, but what? What can stem the tide of blood and pain?

Simple: Disarm the Boy Scouts.

This as tiresome as it's sick and pointless. Do you have a problem with violent crime? Then here's an idea: Go after the criminals, arrest them, try them, and if they're found guilty, lock them up for a very, very long time. For the worst of the worst: Hang the bastards and tell the EU to take a flying jump. Don't go after the organisation that is intended to take callow boys (I wrote the forbidden word!) and turn them into decent men (I have compounded my sin!). I have news for you, Mr. Brown, about the Boy Scouts (It burns! It burns!). They aren't the problem; they're the solution. Give them back their knives; formally and with apologies because they were never yours to take away in the first place.

I suppose part of the reason I get so heated on this topic is that though I wasn't a boy scout I've carried a pocket knife on me since I learned to cut my way out of the play pen. I've carried scout knives, Swiss Army knives, sheath knives, pen knives, and I even have a small clasp knife that I can slip into the pocket of my jammies. When I need a blade or a saw or a screwdriver, I deploy it with no more thought than I would using my fingers. And, of course, no cork ever stood between me and a glass of plonk. I would no more leave the house without a knife than without my trousers. A knife, it may amaze the totalitarians, is a tool of the responsible, not a thing of intrinsic evil to be shunned and feared–unless what you really fear isn't criminals, but free men. Remember them? They still exist and they're getting pretty pissed off. The way of a civilised society is that boys should be taught responsibility and that those who do not learn those lessons and resort to violence should be ordinately punished, not that the responsible should be equated with the criminal.

The path taken by New Labour and grovelled to by the Scout Association will have the obvious result: The unintelligent will become prigs, the intelligent will become cynics, and the brutes will remain brutes.

Well done, you twits.