An Eagle Scout’s Rebuttal to the President’s speech at the National Boy Scout Jamboree.

President Donald Trump, flanked by and Sec. of the Interior Ryan Zinke and Sec. of Energy Rick Perry, at the 2017 National Boy Scout Jamboree at Summit Bechtel National Scout Reserve in Glen Jean, West Virginia, July 24, 2017.

Let me be clear about one thing: I do not criticize the Boy Scouts of America for inviting President Donald Trump to their 2017 National Boy Scout Jamboree. As representatives of the BSA have said, it is custom to invite every sitting-President to speak at Jamboree, and that the BSA are “wholly non-partisan and does not promote any one position, product, service, political candidate or philosophy.”

My criticism — and to whom this is addressed — is for the 45th President of the United States, for the insult he has delivered upon the values of Scouting with his remarks at the 2017 Jamboree, from the opinion of an Eagle Scout.

Let us assess your remarks, politics aside. What possessed you to believe that this crowd of teenage boys and their parents and mentors were present at a time or place most appropriate for you to go on long diatribes about your electoral success? Was it appropriate to speak about your experiences as a young man in New York cocktail circuit from a time-period none of these boys could relate to? Was it the time or place to once again rail against the “fake media” and your defeated electoral opponent, Hillary Clinton? And was it appropriate to demean the moral principles of the Boy Scout Law with brief references to your own personal, perverted, self-serving and selfish interpretation of the concept of “loyalty”, for which we Boy Scouts understand differently regarding our relationship to others and our country? By how you’ve treated your allies in recent weeks, it’s clear you serve only yourself, and only respect those who show you deference and praise despite their own honor.

The 12 points of the Scout Law, briefly explained

This was not a crowd of your most loyal supporters, vetted to supply you with the most enthusiastic reaction based on your politics. Again: this was 40,000 young Boy Scouts from across the country there to celebrate Scouting.

While you held the stage, did you once speak on the moral philosophy of the Scout Oath and Law that is meant to guide a Boy Scout to be accepting of others, honorable in his personal and professional practice, or to place the needs of others before himself? Did you use your platform to portray how you’ve lived the ideals of Scouting, referencing some measure of our principles despite your inexperience and non-membership with the organization? An attempt at this would have been laughable, given your personal history and wide regard, but at least it would have shown some degree of respect for the audience and the organization they represented. Your partisan, off-script, and wholly out-of-place remarks were inappropriate, and an embarrassment for those of us who were in Scouting and believe we gained personal value from the experience.

My father was a Scoutmaster in my town’s Boy Scout Troop in The Colony, TX. He pushed me to get the most out of my experience with the Scouts, and learn the values it espouses through study and experience because he found them to be worthwhile. My father loves what the Scouts stand for, and as an immigrant and a father, he hoped for his son to understand how the Scout Oath and Law, and the slogan of “Do a Good Turn Daily”, would shape me into a better, public service-minded citizen in America. He never joined such a group when he was young, and from our mutual membership in the BSA, he would impress upon me the hope that I would live up to the ideals of Scouting and one day achieve the rank of Eagle Scout. With his encouragement, I would eventually succeed, and when I was awarded my Eagle Scout rank at a ceremony held within the National Scouting Museum in Irving, TX, against the backdrop of the large sculpture of the Boy Scout Fleur De Lis flanked by tablets with the Scout Oath and Law inscribed, I understood that the experience I gained and the lessons I learned would play an integral part of how I understood public service.

Both of us — an immigrant and a first-generation American — watched your speech, Mr. President, and your words and performance reflected nothing of what we learned or held as value within the Boy Scouts.

As a young man who holds Scouting’s principles as a part of why he presently works in civil rights advocacy, I’d like to think that I speak with some credibility as to why — on the nature of your remarks alone, deferring my personal politics — I found your speech to be an affront to the virtues of Scouting.

I say this to you, Mr. President: barely anything of what you said — barely a sentiment — reflected the service of Scouts to the country and value of their service to the communities they live and work in outside your warped-view of those concepts. Nor did you reflect — by words or by your own character — how the principles of Scouting embrace all and work to build a country where we put others before ourselves, and uplift those most in-need of our aide. Politics aside, you represent — as you displayed with your remarks praising yourself and your accomplishments while tearing-down your political enemies — the antithesis of putting service to others above personal aggrandizement.

You can surround yourself with as many Scouts and Eagle Scouts as you’d like in your administration, Mr. President, but it is clear that you possess not even one modicum of the virtue or principle of a Scout enough to attest such things in front of a “record breaking” crowd of young men whom are taught to look at a person’s character and leadership to asses if he or she is to serve as an inspiration for their actions. To be the example for an aspiring Boy Scout to serve his nation and build his community is an honor, presumably because that individual would live up to the highest ideals for what a Boy Scout is taught to model his character after.

You, Mr. President, are unworthy to receive such an honor.

“The Latino Smith”. Higher Education and Latino Civil Rights organizer and activist. Views are my own; views are progressive.

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