Back to Basics

Artwork by Michael DiMilo

By Geoff Carter

One of the main purposes of public education is to help mold conscientious, thoughtful, and responsible citizens. While most public-school curriculum emphasizes the core curriculum subjects of Math, Science, Social Studies, and English, our schools are mainly taxed with producing good and decent people—and they are still doing a fine job instilling and emphasizing these positive values. 

I was in the Boy Scouts once, a long, long time ago. Besides learning how to camp, canoe, shoot a bow and arrow, and hone my other suspect outdoor skills, as a scout I was taught how to be a good citizen. In fact, we had to follow The Scout Law, which (probably because of my decades-long descent into debauchery), I only vaguely remember. So, I had to look it up in order to refresh my memory. Here it is: 

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A Scout is:

Of course, not too many people seem to live up to these ideals. With all the strife and violence going on in our society, it might seem as if no one does. Remembering and following all these standards is expecting a lot for a kid, but even though we didn’t come up to snuff half the time, we were aware of these expectations and did our best to live up to them. Then, as we grew up, these ideals seemed, at the best unrealistic and at the worst absurd. We all experience some degree of cognitive dissonance and disconnection while growing up, but the prospect of trying to uphold these values in an adult world today seemed—at the very least—daunting. 

Watching adults cheat on taxes, talk their way out of traffic tickets, not turn in lost wallets, or “forget” to leave a tip can cause some consternation for a young person. For a child, then and today, it’s nearly impossible to how easily adults cross that line between hypocrisy and decency. Compared to the people we were taught we should aspire to be, real people sometimes looked ugly. 

Kids aren’t stupid. The first thing students in a classroom will notice—and complain about—is whether a teacher is being fair. They recognize hypocrisy, half-truths, and straight-out lies. It gets to a point where young people start to understand that trying to follow the Boy Scout Law is not that much different from believing in Santa Claus. They recognize that many adults lie, cheat, steal, covet, hurt, and discriminate and can be selfish, greedy, and disloyal. I remember during my own boyhood being told to “grow up” when I pointed out, among other things, that some lawyers break the law, and some men of God were godless. 

I remember one incident when I went sledding with my younger brothers. I was about twelve years old. Another family was sledding next to us and one of their kids accidentally ran his Flexible Flyer into my little brother Danny, who immediately started screaming. He seemed hurt—we weren’t sure how badly. I ran up to tell the other kid’s father for help, but he ignored me completely. He packed all his kids up into the family car and took off without even checking to see if Danny was okay. It was an accident, but even then, I thought the father’s actions were reprehensible. It was a chickenshit thing to do. I wanted to tell him what I thought of him, but I remembered that a scout is always courteous. 

Students were—and are—taught that America was the greatest country in the world, that American democracy is a form of government to which every other nation aspires. Parts of this are true, yet there are contradictions. Many of the founding fathers owned slaves. The Constitutional Congress approved the Three-fifths Compromise, which permitted the slave population to be counted as three-fifths of the census for taxation and representation purposes. Which—roughly—means that a slave was worth three-fifths of a free person. What happened to the dictum that all men are created equal? 

Look at today’s role models, the politicians who lie about election results, tax returns, or sexual histories. Are they trustworthy? Are they loyal to anything except their own ambitions? Are they helpful to their own constituencies? 

Does anyone follow the Boy Scout Pledge after they grow up? Who is trustworthy, loyal, and brave? I do believe there are those who try. I believe an Elizabeth Warren, a Liz Cheney, a Bernie Sanders, or a Mitt Romney measure up to at least some of these standards. While everyone has to function in the adult world, to know the art of negotiation and compromise, there are those who can do that and still follow these standards. 

In last week’s 2022 mid-term elections, the ex-president and leader of the MAGA Republicans endorsed a slate of candidates for federal, state, and local offices who insisted that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen, a baseless assertion that has been proven false dozens of times. These offices included secretaries of state, senators, and House representatives. All these candidates knew full well that the platform on which they were running was a lie, yet they continued to spread the misinformation, making them not only liars, but cowards and—in some ways, traitors. 

A number of these MAGA Republicans said that they would still try to reverse those 2020 election results and that the whole electoral system was corrupt, but when last Tuesday’s returns came in, most of these MAGA candidates had been defeated. The voters, recognizing the danger these candidates posed to the democratic process, denied them. Perhaps some of these voters used to be boy scouts. Or girl scouts. Or Republicans. Maybe they remembered what had been taught in their Civics classes. 

During the past decade or so, the Republican Party has sought to restrict voting rights, deny elections results, limit individual rights, egregiously gerrymander voting districts (see Wisconsin), and to tilt the playing field so far right that Democratic candidates have to work twice as hard to win. In so many words, they have been cheating, lying, and switching loyalties as often as a flea jumps dogs.

Up until now, the American people have stood by, watching the Republican party chip away at the foundation of democracy. Many were appalled. Some protested. Some supported the lies and the cheating, but most Americans knew that that these tactics were unfair, wrong, and even dangerous. After the Capitol was attacked, after Roe -v- Wade was overturned, and after election deniers still sought to usurp the authority of the American people, a (slim) majority of us remembered what it is to be good, responsible, lawful, and fair citizens. We remembered what we were taught as children. We remembered common human decency. We demanded fairness. We voted for it. We voted.