Part One: Robert Baden-Powell: Founder Of The Boy Scouts | BEHIND THE BASTARDS 

I love how these episode fall into 1 of 3 categories: 1. Guy you've never heard of who invented the entire modern world. 2. Guy you know barely anything about who was so cartoonishly evil you're both surprised and relieved you didn't know more. 3. Cult leaders who are almost, but never quite, as amazing as L. Ron Hubbard.

As a member of that small city's worth of young boys, I thought y'all should know that the class action suit for this shit is going well. Money doesn't fix trauma, but a multibillion dollar settlement really helps shut the acceptance window on this bullshit.

It's weird. I'm in the same camp as Robert; boyscouts all but introduced me to d&d/magic the gathering, gave me love of camping and hiking...it was great. The friendships I made there literally saved my life (bad home life). Knowing how bad that organization has been for others is....hard, you know?

When my ex was 8 years old he went to Boy Scout camp. While there his baby sister had to be put in the hospital and was not expected to live. His father, an ex golden glove champion, decided he better go get my ex. He drove to the camp…meanwhile before he arrived, the boys were getting ready for bed. The Scout master told the boys,”we’re going to play tickle.” He grabbed my ex who just had on his underwear as the rest of the children. He threw a couple of ropes over the rafter beams and tied my ex by the thumbs, as he hung in the air. The rest of the kids were traumatized as they covered themselves under the covers screaming and crying. It was at that moment that my ex’s father walked in. Needless to say, he knocked the Scout master out. My ex remembers two men coming to his house from the corporate office. Because he was so young, he had to leave the room so he doesn’t know what the discussion was about. His parents never told him. That took place in the US in the 1950’s.

I always had conflicted feelings about the boy scouts. I'm a trans man who was in girl scouts and I had a very mixed experience there. The troop I was in did more camping than any other in my service unit, and if that hadn't been the case, I probably would have dropped out, because my experience was otherwise being outside the clique and bullied by the troop leader's daughter. I was solely interested in the hands-on skills and spending time in nature. I was aware of what kind of stuff the boy scouts did and I wished I could have done that stuff. Whittling, archery, swimming, more frequent camping - it would have been exactly what I wanted. But at the same time, I always got a weird vibe from the boy scouts. Girl scouts is more secular and doesn't tend to take the pledges and ceremony as seriously. It's certainly more rigid than most children's clubs, but not like the boy scouts. I was agnostic and anti-authority and I think I would have felt smothered by the rigidity and religiosity of the boy scouts. But I do still kind of wish I'd been able to be a boy scout. I've heard vague things about other similar sorts of clubs for children, like adventure scouts, and maybe that's a better option for the kids who can join it. Though I don't know if they have any skeletons in their closet, so I could be wrong about that. I think there can be something special about experiencing comradery with others of your gender, though maybe that's the man-over-30 in me. But it can also be healthy to make friends with people different from you and a lot of men could use more genuine friendships with women. And I think every kid can use something that teaches them life skills and has some structure to it, but doesn't try to turn you into a good little soldier of god.

1:02:30 "watching the little boys as they dance, jump, and jiggle" this is definitely getting clipped by the tankies 😂

The geometry priest casts circle of healing

Trying to sell popcorn was the most traumatic thing I did in Boy Scouts.

Some of these quotes, its like you want to say "Do you not hear yourself? do you not hear how that sounds?" Like david cross's character in arrested development

I was bullied by the scoutmasters son, culminating in being held down and whipped with a piece of tire by his son and older brothers without any repercussions for them, and I so I left the boyscouts (If I remember correctly, the response was "boys will be boys")

I've been wheezing uncontrollably at "there goes my fucking saturday" for like an hour. My fucking sides.

Robert's "19th century Brit" voice sounds like the Star Trek TNG Mark Twain performance, but much younger. 😂

I was in the BSA, and for every practical woodsy skill I learned, I also learned a new homophobic, sexist, or racist slur. But as far as I know, there was no sexual abuse in the troop I was in, so I guess I had a "relatively good" experience?

Weird because I was attacked for being demonic by the troop leader and shunned by the rest of the troop for playing D&D. It's why I eventually left once I realized I was an atheist and the abuse would only worsen.

To quote Paul F Tompkins from last episode, "Oof"

You know it's going to be a good one when the titular bastard has a double-barrel surname and came from the landed gentry

Two things: One - I grew up in Seton Village, just south of Santa Fe NM. Fun! Two - you should do Yukio Mishima at some point. There’s a lot of cross over to Baden Powell.

cub scouts was fun, went pretty far in the pinewood derby with a smashmouth tour bus lol, but i remember as soon as it flipped to boy scouts it was the lamest shit ever, its crazy how they claim that getting eagle will help you with jobs and when i managed i noticed every guy that listed that was a huge fuck-off weirdo and completely unemployable

im late to the game but, i was a scout over here in italy. our branch is the "agesci", which is the italian branch of baden powell's original one. there aren't "boy" or "girl" scout groups over here, we are all mixed genders, only the squads are divided by gender. the first years were fine but quickly everything became too toxic: the chiefs, my other peers. id argue the religion stuff was even worse living in the country of the pope and all. i'd say have a list of the majorly fucked up things that happened over there to me and others lmao - i came out as bisexual to one of my squadmates and one of the chiefs found out and tried to "convert me back to heterosexuality" with the excuse that i couldnt have became a chief myself if i "stayed bisexual" - was told that i couldnt be part of the group at all if i stayed an atheist (plot twist: i'm a nordic pagan now LMAO) - me and the rest of the group (all minors!!) were denied food at the big end feast by the chiefs because we didn't tidy up the camp stuff fast enough. mind you that was going to be our lunch, we barely had breakfast before starting. i wouldve stayed without food if it wasnt for my mother saving up some stuff for me since she didn't see me come. they verbally abused us and screamed at us, a bunch of 12 to 16 year olds, because we werent strong enough to adjust some logs on the back of a truck without some help. that was the last straw for me and my parents. add plenty of bullying and ableism and there you have it!! i'm sure i was just unlucky for the most part but if i ever have children i'll never have them be a scout. we can learn all the nature stuff by going on walks and camping without the borderline cultish behavior.

I grew up doing all that Scout-y stuff so I waited until I was 18 and got paid to do the tame versions thereof in the Army. It was pretty cool because it was camping with real tents, the marches were all .... wearing shoes ... there was plenty to eat, and we got to shoot machine guns and throw hand grenades. It was pretty awesome.

What's scouting, my boys?!

I'm so ready for pt. 2, i wanna see if you mention my troop! we had a young, popular, local elected official as an assistant Scoutmaster while I was involved (who became an ASM immediately after his 21st birthday, having achieved almost every rank and badge possible in BSA and Venture Patrol (which goes to 21)) who turned out to have molested like 1/3 of the troop for years (as well as kids at his catholic church where he volunteered as well sooooo)

Hearing the Scout's Law unlocked feelings I haven't had for more than a decade. Other than consequences of the dumbass decisions I made as a child, I had a good time with the BSA. It was a lot of fun to go to all the various places around where I lived, go do activities related and unrelated to nature, and have a group of friends outside of school. I think what really helped is that most of most the parents of my troop were also involved so it was hard for an abuser to get involved and made sure we did fun stuff for everyone.

Dangit. I was in Cubs and Scouts for years.

I suspect that he was attracted to boys but, because of a combination of ignorance and denial, didn't realize that his feelings were sexual. Even if that was the case though it was still his choice to ignore all the red flags and stay ignorant. What he did was inexcusable

THE SEGUES IN THIS EPISODE AHAHAHAHA

I was in the boyscout. I was not molested. Is there a merit badge for that?

I was a sister in the boy scouts (not officially IN but in, ya know?) and I also had an amazing time. Honestly an amazing part of my childhood and what happened was just SO FUCKED...

The fucking carnival barker voice sent me.

hoo boy, this oughta' be spicier than a spicy nacho Dorito.

Geometry Priest? Hey... I get it. Gotta have those bases covered. 😂

All the boyscouts taught me was how to play Magic the Gathering which is both a curse and a blessing.

Anyone know who wrote the book they reference here?

Bada Boom.

I was in scouting for years, and even though I have a lot of trauma from those days (some of which I still don’t fully remember), nothing nearly as horrific as r*** happened to me. My dad was an active participant in my scouting activities, though, and he never liked my local troop, so I know he was relieved when I quit. I still don’t think anything super shady was going on there, but they ran my troop like a JROTC, which was more than enough to fuck me up.

Baden-Powell did a bunch of stuff in my hometown, there's a statue of him down on the quay that has been... shall we say controversial.

That's why I didn't even start working for the Boyscouts..

Go drink some water comrades.

Todd has Baden Powell cover his hands with Baden's much larger hands. "For the Website!"

Damn - describing it as "overly sentimental" is just about the most Nabokovian thing ever.

When I was in scouts, we mostly just played dodgeball. It was pointless and I quit.

The story about him sending the Black people out of the military base is obviously Baden sending people he deemed worthless to their deaths is very telling. He knew the enemy would attack anyone who left the protection of the camp.

👍

Please don't let this be taken as a poor taste joke, the internet at large, but after the Jew Scouts comment all I can hear is: Praising the lord by moonlight Eating latkes by daylight Follow sacred ascetic rites He is the one they call Jewish Moon 😂😂😂

Phrasing

Lot of cultural appropriation in scouts, if i remember correctly there was a merit badge for indian lore... even more appropriation in the Order of the Arrow. Yes i was in both. Thankfully i never saw or experienced any abuse in either my troop or unit respectively.

It's weird having grown up listening all my cis male relatives doing or having done the boy scouts, to the point we have multiple eagle scouts in the family and being jealous of that but then growing up and realizing hey, maybe that was a good thing. I still wish I could have done wilderness survival shit as a kid