Boy Scouts Introduce Merit Badge For Not Pirating 731
The_Slaughter writes "The MPAA has recruited the boy scouts of America to do their dirty work. Scouts will now be able to learn a merit badge for anti-piracy related activities, including creating public service announcements urging others not to steal movies or music. No word yet on if that includes helping the MPAA file lawsuits against 80-year-old grandmothers."
Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do they also have merit badges for not thinking independently? Or one for having your IQ reduced to a single digit and being converted to a near-mindless automaton?
first its not stealing post (Score:1, Insightful)
Its not stealing, since you are not depriving anyone of the thing. Unless this merit badge is for going into record stores and lifting cds. Somehow I doubt it.
The editors should be more careful with their phraseology.
fair use (Score:5, Insightful)
Positively Orwellian ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize the Boy Scouts like to try to teach morals and the like, but it doesn't sit well that the *AA's would be able to create a new merit badge and start indoctrinating them.
Errie.
As I understand them, (Score:4, Insightful)
These qualities are important, sure, but to dangle a badge as a carrot for not doing something wrong seems a like it's missing the point. Boy Scouts have a code and moral values (including those that would keep you from pirating software, smoking, and cheating) are implicit therein; further bribery, especially in the form of badges, seems unwarranted.
I'm an eagle scout (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Horror (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:first its not stealing post (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Horror (Score:2, Insightful)
Feedback (Score:5, Insightful)
-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
My prediction: If it's easy, scouts will do the badge. You don't have to believe in it, you just have to do it, and damn if there's nothing better than an easy merit badge for that extra Eagle palm or whatever.
Re:Positively Orwellian ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The boy scouts of today are the politicians of the future. I can see where the RIAA is going with this.
Re:first its not stealing post (Score:5, Insightful)
The editors should be more careful with their phraseology.
It's straight from the article.
And more to the point, it's the exact doublespeak that the RIAA wants to drill into these kid's heads, using them to spread their propaganda, astroturf style.
ftfa (Score:5, Insightful)
Shouldn't the boy scouts decide what their badges are? This is like McD's making the health curriculum for a school.
-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does this have to be a partisan issue instead of a cut and dry, "creepy old man" issue? Furthermore, what does this have to do with the BSA and the MPAA? Jeez.
Coming from an Eagle scout. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's bad enough that MS hijacked the acronym "BSA".
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:first its not stealing post (Score:4, Insightful)
Businesses and people who offer services or products are not concerned with being deprived of things, it's being deprived of the sale of the thing.
Get over the language games and talk about the actual issue.
As an Eagle Scout... (Score:3, Insightful)
Luckily, the people that make these decisions are not the people that are leading individual troops. My Assistant Scoutmaster was a liberal radio columnist, far from the socialist "join the army" stereotype portrayed by some, and my actual Scoutmaster was often heard saying "I don't care what the requirements say". He'd rather the kids learn the material than blindly worship the step-by-step process if it meant skipping the crap so as to learn the meaty stuff. Of the three weekends spent doing the Computers merit badge, we might of discussed the "Is it permissible to accept a free copy of a computer game or program from a friend? Why or why not?" requirement for a total of three minutes.
I'm strongly going to urge any sons I have in the future to join scouting, not only because it's where I met some of my best friends and was my first chance at taking a leadership position, but because it was just plain fun. However, I will also be the parent that attends the meeting, make sure that I agree with the way it's being run, and if not check out another troop. There are plenty around that one will "do it right", by my standards, and not by the book.
Re:I bet they got a better deal from the RIAA... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have any statistics one way or the other on that. Certainly, I often hear that these people are married and have children. Who is gay or not is up to them. If some people have an agenda whereby they want to define as many people as possible (or as few) as gay, that's their problem.
My point is, this is not something which is representative of the community any more than the actions of a few priests are representative or Catholics, or the actions of Foley are representative of congress, or that blacks are more likely to commit crimes, or that Hispanics are probably illegal immigrants who are in gangs, or that all Muslims are terrorists, or that all Americans are gun toting fundamentalist rednecks. None of the preceding are fair generalizations to any of those communities.
You can't go about painting an entire group of people with the same brush. But, this is slashdot, where it's more expedient to do so.
Cheers
merit badges (Score:2, Insightful)
My mother used to tell me... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
From a Scout's perspective... (Score:4, Insightful)
On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight
So does this not imply a scout's obedience to governing laws, including copyright laws? Isn't providing this kind of merit badge redundant by simply reinforcing what the scout already promises? As I recall, the merit badges I earned for my Eagle Scout rank were meant to be skill-related...
Slashdot editors... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Only die-hard evangelist Christians really gave a shit that Clinton had an affair. Granted, people with a political agenda would have hammered him even if he'd told the truth from the get-go, however, I for one had no problem with it. I think cheating on your wife is an immoral thing to do, but I understand why some people might do it, and it doesn't really speak to his competence as a president. Lying under oath on the other hand is something I have a huge problem with. I think (although I can't offer any evidence) that most people felt the same way. If he had told the truth from the beginning, I would have defended him instead of calling for his resignation.
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You get to people young enough- you define who they are and what they feel is right and wrong.
Re:I bet they got a better deal from the RIAA... (Score:2, Insightful)
You can't fight stereotypes with equally outrageous claims to the contrary - it just makes the arguer look stupid and diminishes his real, legitimate point.
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess the kids also get a lesson in how messed up upper management can be...
Either way, no matter how messed up the Boy Scouts are, they still have nothing on the Girl Scouts. Talk about an organization that doesn't know what it's doing. They're still not sure if they should be teaching girls how to cook, how to camp, or how to not speak unless spoken to. It doesn't help that girls interested in the more exciting parts of scouting can join the Boy Scouts via the Venture program.
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I feel that the scout organization has fallen so far from its original intended roots that it's nothing but a special interest shadow of its former self
I was a boy scout, got my Eagle, have been a Cub Scout leader for the last few years and just recently became the Varsity Team Coach (Varsity is the 14-15 year-old boys), so I have a very good view of what Scouting actually is, as opposed to what it appears to be in the press.
My take is that your perception is driven primarily by the special interests who have decided to attack scouting based on the two tenets of the program they don't like: homosexuality and religion. The scouting organizations actually have very little problem with either of those, and spend no time at all worrying about them. The prohibition on homosexual and pedophile leaders is very sensible, in my opinion, and the religious position is both open (must profess faith in *some* god) and not really enforced.
Scouting is a great program that does a tremendous amount of good. It's precisely because it's such a valuable program that people who object to a couple of its tenets like to attack it. Don't take their attacks to mean that the program has changed.
Anyway, I need to get back to planning next year's High Adventure camp. We're going to do a week-long, 100-mile rafting trip, most of it through the inaccessible canyons of the Colorado River above the Grand Canyon. I'm actually not so much planning it as putting together the framework for planning it, because the boys will do the real planning themselves.
That's what scouting is about. Self-sufficiency, outdoor skills, teamwork, preparedness and the moral strength and integrity that are developed by doing hard things in a place that no one can cover for you. Oh, and fun. Lots of fun.
Doesn't stop people from trying to use Scouting to score political points, but we try to ignore those people.
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
As an Eagle Scout, I can say first-hand that the Boy Scouts DOES teach scouts how to obey the law. Here are a few examples:
However, I am personally sad to see special interest groups who are imposing a political agenda upon scouts. Once upon a time, scouting was about kids discovering themselves. While there was a core set of requirements which every scout was expected to achieve as they worked their way up the ranks (the basic skills of camping, first aid, being a leader...), there were hundreds of merit badges which scouts could work towards and earn, depending on what interests they had. A great example of this was when Spielberg, himself an Eagle Scout, helped create the Cinematography merit badge, for any scout who may have an interest in learning more about movie making. Looking back, the most amazing thing about scouts was all the opportunities I had to learn about new things, as well as all the people who willingly worked so hard to offer me those opportunities.
Nowadays, I feel more and more that special-interest groups, including but not limited to the RIAA, are seeing scouting as a vehicle for "indoctrinating" their agendas onto future leaders of America (and believe you me when I say that Eagle Scouts truly are leaders). I was asked last year by a parent if I could be a merit badge counselor for the Computer merit badge. As the tech coordinator at my school, I thought it would be a great chance to catch-up with boy scouts again. I opened up the merit-badge book, and lo-and-behold, one of the requirements to obtain the merit badge was for scouts to be able to understand and give examples of piracy, whether it was burning CDs or P2P. This had NOTHING to do with learning about computers, how they work, learning about how to create documents, spreadsheets, and databases, and programming a computer. This was a political agenda, and it didn't sit well with me.
Scouts are certainly educated every day about how to be obedient to the rules and be good citizens of this country. But I want scouts to find and grow their own ideals, not have them spoon-fed by the RIAA.
Re:I concur and remember one patch... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:first its not stealing post (Score:5, Insightful)
Needless to say, I don't agree with this reasoning. When I copy a music file, I gain music but the music company doesn't lose anything physical at all, despite their claims to being deprived of a potential sale. This is a purely hypothetical loss on their part, based on the assumption that if I couldn't get the music via mininova, that I'd have no choice but to buy it at full price, in which case they've lost the sticker price of the CD. I think this reasoning is flawed for several reasons:
(1): Some music I would buy for $5 or listen to if it's free, but I wouldn't pay $20 for the CD. In some instances, music that I would pirate I would not buy, even if I was unable to obtain the music through P2P networks. This means that in a situation like this, the music company is only "losing" the amount of money that I would actually pay for the music. The problem is that the RIAA is treating their product as though it's a commodity, like it's water... and we have no choice but to either buy it from them, steal it, or die of thirst.
(2): I could just as easily buy the CD from a friend or from a store that sells used CDs, in which case the RIAA has lost nothing.
In short, I believe that you are correct that being deprived of a sale constitutes stealing, especially in the cases you mentioned. What I'm disputing is that copyright infringement necessarily deprives anyone of a sale.
Re:It will when I teach it (Score:4, Insightful)
Since you are already a MBC, you understand that you may not add to, delete or change the requirements. If the requirement were to say "Make a public service announcement", that's exactly what the candidate should do, not write an essay. How you go about it is between the MBC and the scout, but one requirement cannot be substituted for another unless it is specifically allowed.
Re:first its not stealing post (Score:5, Insightful)
Jesus. This is such a broken record.
to use YOUR article for the example.
It's like watching the barber cut someone's hair, and cutting your own hair and he sues you because he's a magical barber like magicians and expects to get paid for the REST OF HIS LIFE and 50 YEARS after HE DIES for cutting hair in a PARTICULAR pattern and way with particular tools.
Not to mention that 99% of the stuff downloaded would never have been purchased at the desired price.
Not to mention that 80% of the stuff will probably never be listened too or only listened to once.
Not to mention that the 20% that is listened to will probably expand the market.
Not to mention that lots of people are as moral as they afford to be and when they make more money, they'll buy the products if they like them since they want the "real" thing.
Not to mention the products that you *can't BUY period* and can only get these ways.
Seriously- if barbers were like musicians, the fact that they wet the right side of your head, combed it back, then combed a row and clipped it with no.6 scissors would be equivalent to a "chord" and they could sue other barbers for cutting hair using the same sequence of "chords" and ever barber who invented a new haircut (like "the bob cut" or the "monica cut" or the "shag cut" could copyright it.
Then they could sue the hell out of anyone who cut hair that way (including people who cut their own hair) and they would add a
Why are musicians SO MUCH better than a barber who invites a new style of hair cut?
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless, ofcourse, you can show that Bush deliberately set out to violate the Constitution.
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This all lies in contrast, of course, to our current president, whose resignation you apparently aren't calling for. He hasn't been held accountable for a single false, misleading, or outright deceptive public statement, of which there are plenty to cite. Some say that these lies have directly resulted in as many as half a million deaths. The only reason he has gotten away with them is because he has encountered virtually no resistance or scrutiny from Congress, and has skillful deceptive tactictians who, in a very real, cynical, Machiavellian sense, have artfully deceived the entire world, America included, into turning over as much power as possible to them and their cronies. Heavy accusations, I know. But unlike many of the Republican accusations against Clinton, these [bushwatch.com] hold [bushlies.net] water [amazon.com].
So what I suppose you are really complaining about is that Clinton got caught.
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
As an adult hetrosexual male, do you have the desire to fondle a female child?
Re:I bet they got a better deal from the RIAA... (Score:1, Insightful)
However, many of those allegations are fair to the leaders of their respective communities. The Catholic Church has covered up the actions of a few priests (all the way to the top - they swear an oath to protect the church, above an oath to protect children), the Republican leadership may have covered up the actions of Foley, and certainly leaders of several Islamic countries have said such things as "death to Israel! kill $PERSON_X!", and many of our own politicians have encouraged the gun-toting fundamentalist redneck in all of us so we will be easy to control.
The actual curriculum (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, the MPAA-developed "curriculum [mpaa.org]" begins :
Intellectual dishonesty is no different than child abuse
Re:I'm an eagle scout (Score:3, Insightful)
How about a song that's legal to copy-- but the same song sold in a "reissued collection" has a new copyright so it is not legal to copy?
This really applies to old cartoons big time. They are legal via certain paths- but not via other paths. in some of them, the music is legal and then when they are *reissued* the cartoon studio purposely re-records the EXACT same music and lays it back over the cartoon so now it has modern copyrights which will extend another 50 years?
How can you be morally upright and true when you are dealing with incredibly scummy people who bribe congressmen and corrupt government?
Re:From a Scout's perspective... (Score:2, Insightful)
Eagle Scout (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not an Eagle Scout; more by choice than anything. Years ago, I took a honest interest in scouting, but was very disappointed in the whole scheme. While some might assert that scouting isn't supposed to be a focus on survival skills, why else for all the survivalist training such as cooking without stove, camping with minimal supplies, hunting etc.? OK, so there are much better clubs to join that can better teach you how to eat dirt, weeds and to build a sheltor out of leaves and bark... but I was still rather annoyed at how little the Boy Scouts prepared a young adult for if they did get lost in the woods and had to get by a few days.
Looking back on those days, I realize that the Boy Scouts is heavily capitalist, despite any hopes a young scout might have for actually learning something for outdoor life. I remember the joy of seeing the Boy Scout emblem on my new portable stove, knife, compas etc. It never really dawned on me till after the fact, the Boy Scouts were actually far more mainstream than what people might expect. For a real life comparison, they are like the Air Force with air conditioned, reinforced tents in "war" rather than the Marines left to cover up with whatever they might, their jackets, a rock... anything but no air conditioner. I also came to realize everything in the Scouts was geared towards making me think like a malible consumer. A consumer which even if he isn't "sold" by advertisement, will still buy whatever is in the advertisement. A consumer who thinks that name brand is everything (does it have the Boy Scout Emblem!?). The dangers in this, is also an intiment involvment with the authorities behind the hype, and I assert no organization, no company should be above either the People or the Government. It is often in Capitalist Nations that people tend to bag on the government and forgive the Company without considering the fact that all their horrors were becuase of the Company rather than the Government; America doesn't go to war becuase of public support, but becuase of entire industry wide consensus (A lot of private/public companies making money off of our campaign in the Gulf and that money is not going to expand Middle Class. This is fact.).
Yeah, I learned how to pitch a tent, tie a few knots, and clean a wound. But, honestly, I could have figured that out along the way anyways... the depth of how much they teach in the Boy Scouts I believe is a hidden agenda as well. "You're too stupid to do much else, and trust Big Business and it's ability to make sure you won't ever have to decide which flower or weed you can eat. If you do end up in the woods, your car broke down and left you stranded becuase of Government regulations. In the meantime buy this handy Boy Scout Portable Stove, Boy Scout Portable Water Purification Kit and Boy Scout Compas to help tide you over till Big Business will rescue you."
The Boy Scouts is really a political/economic condition course for a particular ideology. The fact is, most capitalists embracing nations have Youth Programs all, in some way, dubbed as "scouts". Communists, tend to go for "pioneers". They all expose simple survival aspects which more give an impression of the phenomenal attraction to "Tips'n'Tricks", while underneath the stage tricks and simple wood carving classes... there's a political, philosophical, economic lesson vehemently pushed and ingrained in the childs mind.
Sure you get a letter from the President for making Eagle Scout. Those that are trying to push their message are often proud of their efforts; yes, it's worth something to put on your resume, there are benefits adding to real life incentive to encourage parents to toss their children into these programs.
Bottom line. I didn't learn all that much while in the Boy Scouts. If you went against the grain you were punished for it. For example, most of the kids in my district ran around with State Fair, Stainless Steal, Rambo "Survival Knives"... it seemed the ONLY non-Boy Scout peace of gear authorized for use du
a teachable moment that will depend on the teacher (Score:3, Insightful)
But after thinking about it, this IS an interesting merit-badge subject because it involves both something relevant to today's kids (MP3s) AND an issue of ethics, which is a strong point of Scouting.
Ethics come most into play when the temptation is high and the risk seems low. Piracy is a great example. So it's a teachable moment for ethics, which aren't taught explicitly in many places these days.
Of course, if the whole thing comes packaged by the ??AA then it will suck, because it won't question the ethics of the laws themselves.
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I completely see how perjury is far more severe than shitting on the US Constitution on a daily basis while in the federal government.
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that lying under oath is wrong in all situations, especially since if you don't take the oath they just throw the proverbial book at you. This is a case in which they were asking Clinton questions that were none of their fucking business. Answering them would have disgraced not only Clinton, but also his wife and his lover, not that she was too worried about disgrace - she was only concerned about money once the whole thing came to light.
An old, old concept of honor is that you cannot reasonably be held to an oath made under duress of force, which is precisely what we're talking about here.
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you seriously beleive he didn't consult his staff?
"If he is such a "man of faith" (as he's blabbed about time and again), it should have been against his belief system to torture, hold people without due process, etc, in the first place."
Not really. What you call "torture" has was done in many past conflicts without anyone raising a peep. And holding "illegal combatants" indeffinitely isn't a violation of any laws. I suppose you would have preferred that we just execute them, since the Geneva Conventions say it's ok?
"I think the "stupid look" he portrays is just a cover for someone nearly as insane as Sadam, Hitler, etc. "
Well. You're certainly entitled to your opinion.
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, it's all become clear to me now! Bush accidentally ordered and approved of illegal wiretaps against citizens of the United States! Bush has been accidentally allowing people to be incarcerated and held without trial! Silly me! I guess he just slipped.
The only thing more offensive than a politician willing to tread all over our freedoms in order to make a buck is the apologists who excuse all of his wrongdoing because it fits their political agenda.
government created monopolies not capitalistic (Score:1, Insightful)
But, as the limits kept being extended/extinguished, the publishing monopolies became something that was treated more like property,
and something of a an artificial "capitalist" market did appear to form.
But note that after the point when the monopoly no longer serves any innovative purpose, this is a complete artificial government monopoly, with no more purpose/value than allowing someone to "own" the color red or allowing someone to patent the layout of the solor system.
Funny and shameful (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit, asshole. (Score:3, Insightful)
So you have a problem with him lying about something that the trial in question had absolutely nothing to do with? Even though you would have done EXACTLY THE SAME FUCKING THING AND SO WOULD EVERY OTHER MAN ON EARTH?
I've fucking had it with you hypocritical, uneducated Republican shitheels hamming it up on Slashdot, as if you had one fucking ounce of moral fiber in your being.
No, it really is not stealing: here's an example (Score:2, Insightful)
- Dell gets $$$
- Person A gets a laptop
Person B wants a laptop. He steals it from Person A:
- Dell does not get any more money
- Person A loses the laptop they paid for
- Person B gets a laptop
Person A buys a CD:
- Artist gets $$$
- Person A gets music
Person A rips the CD and uploads the contents to a file-sharing service. Person B downloads it:
- Artist gets no money
- Person A still has the music
- Person B also has music
As you can see, the creator getting no money in both examples, but in the first example Person A loses his item, while in the second scenario it's Person A that's actually allowing Person B to download a copy. Person A is the pirate, not person B.
Re:first its not stealing post (Score:4, Insightful)
In this case, you would have stolen a service, not a ware, and it is still stealing because the barber had to do work for that instance of the service. However, if you could somehow download a good shave and haircut every morning, and a barber sued you because of that, then you would have a similarity to IP infringement. And I can imagine the world laughing at a barber trying to prevent people from shaving themselves and requiring them to come to his shop.
This is even simpler than the previous example, this is outright theft out of my pocket because I receive a direct damage. Violating IP is not directly damaging anyone, though one may argue about the indirect effects.
IP is different from material property in that it can be endlessly multiplied. It's like bakers and fishermen suing Jesus Christ for stealing their bread and fish.
Re:ZONK EARNED THE "BUTT PIRATE" MERIT BADGE (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:1, Insightful)
That sounds a lot like my organization, which has a ban on blacks and murderers. Quite sensible.
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Voltaire was raised by the Jesuits, and people keep saying that.
Adolph Schicklgruber grew up as a Jew. And people keep saying that.
Statistically it may be true, but frequently there comes a time when a person decides to define himself by violently rejecting (some part of) what he was taught. The more coercively it was shoved down his throat, the more violent the reaction.
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this statement illustrates the homophobia in our society in general and Scouts in particular. For example, few people would raise an eyebrow at a heterosexual male coaching a high school girl's basketball team. Yet somehow gay men are supposedly unable to control themselves when around young men. I am reminded one time when a gay friend of mine was presented with this issue by a homophobe who was deathly afraid he would get cruised if he was arounf gay men. My friend told him, "You know, none of you straight men are nearly as hot and irresistible as you think you are".
Memories. (Score:4, Insightful)
"It's called Napster. It's a place where you can download free music off the Internet."
"Is it legal?"
"Not really. They'll probably have it shut down in a month or two."
"Well, hurry and get what you can."
My mom is as honest a person as I know. I just don't see this merit badge winning a whole lot of hearts and minds.
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Provided you actually have a religion and aren't an atheist. Because atheists' beliefs don't count. They're not worthy of respect.
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:4, Insightful)
BSA gets a bad rap because of some councils that have some ass hats running them.
Re:US-provided WMDs were used on Kurds. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well you had me agreeing with you right up until the point you wrote this bullshit. You're a pretty sorry excuse for a human being if you really believe that. Did you ever think that those innocents you are wishing harm upon might not have agreed with the idea of the war either? Or do you just consider them "collateral damage" making you no better than the man you condemn?
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:3, Insightful)
According to the statistics at least 10% of those women may be Homosexual, so whats your point?
Homosexual girls' coaches also don't get to keep their jobs, or at least have to deal with restrictions like not entering the girls' locker room while the girls are changing.
Sometimes when we don't see things its because we don't want to see them, not that they are not there.
And sometimes when we do see things it's because we want to see them, not that they are there.
BS (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Scouts Honor.... (Score:3, Insightful)
If necessary you could point out that atheism is a religious belief.
Re:I PLEDGE.... (Score:3, Insightful)
(You really should read their books; they're much more interesting than you might believe, and you might even learn something! For example, that the various Open Source models - yes, even the ones that allow such attached "capitalist" trappings as Red Hat or MySQL - are much much closer to Marx & Engels' concepts than anything seen before.
The "dictatorship of the proletariat", the bit that everyone seems to get stuck on and hung up over, is itself merely one (Marx thought inevitable; Engels wasn't so sure...) stepping stone on the path to Communism
Read the books, and you might come away with the feeling that Linux itself is an expression of one of those stepping-stones...)
Re:As an Eagle Scout (Score:3, Insightful)
I won't get concerned until the "Respect for Intellectual Property" badge becomes Eagle-required. At which point I'll personally go down to headquarters and find out what the hell's going on, and tell them to get back to their proper (ie, founding) values. Scout's Honor.
Re:I PLEDGE.... (Score:2, Insightful)
The way I see it, copyright is "communist" in that it's supposed to primarily be a mechanism to control corporate greed, i.e., "you have a temporary limited control over your (or your company's) intellectual property, but note that it's only limited and only temporary - you cannot hold complete and utter control over your creation, and your exclusive rights will expire one day, liberating it for all to use."
Of course, the corporations don't exactly like this shiny outlook and are busy trying to erode whatever rights the consumer has and extending the terms toward perpetuity...