Pete, Unhinged
So, I am wrong.
Though I claim the national leadership rules day-to-day with no grand strategy, it turns out there is one consistent goal : the erasure of wokeness.
There is no better spokesperson for this effort than Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Offense, who has targeted:*
political correctness
overly-sensitive-don't-hurt-anyone's-feelings leadership
D.E.I.
promotion based on race and gender
social justice
toxic ideological garbage
dudes in dresses
climate change worship.
Last week, through a leaked D.o.D.W. memo, Mr. Hegseth's rhetoric went into hyperdrive as he attacked the century-old institution of....wait for it...Scouting. Specifically, coed scout troops.**
After the requisite pondering, I have come to a clear conclusion:
Pete Hegseth is like a shutter blowing in the wind, unhinged and noisy, damaging the house it is designed to protect.
Pete's proposed changes in the military/scouting relationship include:
The military will no longer support the quadrennial "jamborees" attended by thousands of scouts.
Scout troops will no longer be permitted on military bases.
Pay enhancements for recruits with scouting credentials will end.
His Justification:
Supporting Jamborees harms national security by diverting resources from border operations and protection of U.S. territory.
Scouting America (coed) is designed to attack "boy-friendly spaces."
Scouting is no longer a meritocracy.
Scouting is genderless.
Scouting was "cratering"and the left wanted to destroy it.
Scouting fosters gender confusion.
Gender confusion is a threat to national security.
THOUGHTS AND QUESTIONS:
Jamborees, ten-day gatherings held every four years, are training and recruiting exercises for the military. There is no threat to security--there are 2.8 million members of the armed forces who can take up the slack during those ten days.
The military actually values the Jamboree connection, as it provides an opportunity to recruit motivated, civic-minded, individuals.
Scouting troops on military bases provide support and continuity to families required to move frequently. ***
The military academies snarf up Eagle Scouts like dogs snatching hamburgers.
The whole idea of "being under attack," endemic in today's Washington, is used to justify action against minimal or nonexistent threats. Designed to attack? It's as if Mr. Hegseth believes there is a scout-hating cabal, a subset of the "deep state," implementing a secret plan to turn young Americans with penises into girly men incapable of defending the nation.
Boy-friendly spaces? How can Mr. Hegseth not know there are still gender-specific Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops? ****
Why not let kids and their PARENTS choose among boy, girl and coed troops? If they find no single-sex troop nearby, Scouting America will help them start one. ***
Scouting is genderless and no longer a meritocracy? Coed scouting epitomizes meritocracy. The standards for earning MERIT badges are the same for boys and girls. Not considering gender makes the organization more meritocratic.
Scouting was cratering, which is why the movement was restructured to include coed troops in 2018. Going coed saved a drowning Boy Scouts of America. Mr. Hegseth's claim that "They (the left) wanted to destroy it or dilute it into something that stood for nothing" is just the usual "they messed it up and we're fixing it" bullshit. Pete is like a kid with a baseball claiming it was the dog that actually broke the window. Don't buy the misdirection.
It doesn’t occur to Secretary Hegseth that scouting was dying because it no longer reflected the values of a more inclusive nation that had loosened the grip of repressive stereotypes.
The suggestion that coed scouting creates "gender confusion" for its participants is stunning. Participation in group activities, heterogeneous or homogenous, provides CLARITY on gender identity, not confusion. It's the kids that struggle with gender dysphoria in ISOLATION who kill themselves.
I can't help but wonder if this "confusion" is connected to the false narrative that gender identity is a matter of choice, affected by "groomers" and "inappropriate" role models, but not biology. Are we suggesting a gender dysphoric boy will turn out "normal" as long as we keep him together with other boys? Hello! Anybody home!? Has Mr.Hegseth ever met/talked with any of our LGBTQ citizens?
Congress controls military support for the scouts. Yet the secretary of war can override the congressional support if it is "detrimental to national security." And what is it that Mr. Hegseth thinks is detrimental to national security? Gender confusion. I’m flashing ahead to when China finally gets around to annexing Taiwan, and Mr. Hegseth claims it wouldn’t have happened if the Taiwanese hadn’t allowed coed scouting.
So there it is. We don’t care what the actual situation is, what the military thinks, what kids want, what parents choose. There is no cost/benefit analysis to the proposed changes--just the opinion of an exceptionally uninformed purveyor of a moralism bereft of logic.
As the century progresses, fewer and fewer jobs (including military specialties) will require masculine bodies, masculine minds or masculine "values"(a Hegsethian term of yet unknown meaning.) This reality is not going to change by using scouting, or any other institution, as a route to gender role retrenchment. Meritocracy cannot be built on segregation, misogyny, ignorance of human development and sex-role stereotyping
We deserve more from our national leaders. Policy, not strident screeching about dudes in dresses. Honesty, not lies. Clear goals, not misdirection. Stability, not the enflaming rhetoric of "we're under attack." Most of all, we need this administration to cut the anti-woke crap and deal with the elephant in the cabinet room: as amazing as the U.S. military is, a deep and rapid retooling is needed to deal with 21st century conflicts.
None of this will happen with Pete Hegseth in charge. He may be equipped to feed the wokeness bogeyman or bomb boats, but the world is figuring out that he is a one-trick pony whose name is invective.
Regardless of whether the president decides to stop the unhinged Secretary’s swinging and banging by adding some screws or tearing him off the house entirely—the noise needs to stop.
*Secretary Hegseth's address to top military leaders, 9-30-25:
https://youtu.be/8BA5EwsR_rI?si=Dex10DT9bBNXDcwA
**report on leaked memo:
https://www.npr.org/2025/11/25/nx-s1-5615164/pentagon-scouting-hegseth-cut-ties
***Stars and Stripes reaction
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2025-11-25/pentagon-severs-ties-with-scouts-19883710
****the actual structure of scouting in 2025
https://www.scouting.org
11-25-25