Two weeks ago over on True North, Jeff Peil – who works at my radio station, AM1280 – wrote an article that cast a gimlet eye on “Girl’s State”, an annual mock government exercise sponsored (along with “Boys State” – perhaps two of the last non-coed educational exercises in America) by the American Legion and its Auxiliary.

Peil had gotten an email from a parent who was unimpressed by one of the products of the exercise:

 An irate parent forwarded me a handout his 16-year-old daughter received this past weekend at a “Girls State” retreat sponsored by the American Legion Auxiliary.

Juniors in high school are invited to attend these Girls State retreats…While most of this seems relatively non-controversial, this year’s Girls State has ruffled a lot of feathers.  This year it was held at Bethel College from Sunday, June 13th – Saturday, June 19th.  During the course of the week, the daughter of my “irate” friend sent his father several emails decrying how left-wing the event was.  The father dismissed these, thinking he had simply trained his daughter well how to identify leftist propaganda.  Little did he realize that his daughter would come home with written proof of the left-wing agenda the group promotes.

Here is an exerpt – read Peil’s piece for the entire list:

Rules for Girls State – 2010

1. Never do housework.  No man ever made love to a woman because the house was spotless.

2. Don’t imagine you can change a man – unless he’s in diapers.

3. What do you do if your boyfriend walks out? You shut the door.

And more, in the same post-Sex-in-the-City vein.

Peil:

Now while something like this might be relatively non-controversial for women looking to boost their self-esteem and feminine comraderie, this was not a group of women.  This was a group of 16-year-old girls.  More importantly, these girls often attend this to have a resume padder for college applications.  The highly selective event offers young women an exposure to civics that not every high school girl gets, and thus makes the applicant stand out.  I ask you – what does this have to do with civics?

With all due respect to my colleague Peil – without whose talents as a salesman the Northern Alliance would not be on the air – I wonder if he’s watched Congress, or even most of the advertisements coming from Madison Avenue, lately?

No, there’s more to it than that.

———-

It was about thirty years ago last week that I and about a dozen other guys from Jamestown trekked off to Fargo on a Sunday to take part in Boy’s State.  Of the dozen from Jamestown, I think I was picked last – everyone above me had other plans.  So I squeaked in.

It was…different.  The presenting reason was about civics, of course – but I couldn’t help but thinking that the American Legion had an underlying motive; show us a little of the military life, too.    We were organized into eight “Counties”, which were about platoon-sized (and split into a couple of squad-sized “cities”), and led by a “counselor” who happened also to be an NDSU ROTC candidate.  These “counties” marched around in double file; we woke to reveille every morning, were shown how to make hospital corners on our dorm beds, had our rooms inspected by a couple of humorless highway patrolmen; minor transgressions rated pushups or minor hazing; being caught with “contraband” – booze, usually, although the list included drugs, porn and smokes – meant being sent immediately home to face the wrath of the local Legion chapter that had, we were reminded, paid our way (which, in a small town, was powerful deterrent; I think I heard of one kid being tossed).   We assembled at night for “taps” and to retire the colors, and had “lights out” at 10:30PM.

It was a whirlwind of activity; we divided up into two parties, the “Federalists” and “Nationalists”, by luck of the draw; I was a Fed.  We held a county caucus (mandatory) right after dinner Sunday.  I spoke; apparently that was all it took to get elected County party chair, which sent me to a 10PM meeting with the other seven chairs; they apparently liked my style, because by the end of my first evening I was the Chairman of the North Dakota Federalist Party.

Score.

The best part?  I would get to spend my first couple of days exempt from marching around with my platoon county.  I had early – 7AM – meetings every day with other party people; I had to get going early, and I’d gotten half an hours’ work done by the time the rest of my platoon county had gotten to breakfast.

But I also had to run the State Convention the next day.  It involved four hours of standing at a podium trying to conquer Robert’s Rules of Order on the fly.  And after that?  An all-night session of writing a party platform and designing a campaign for the state executive office races…

…the next day. 

Now, it’ll come as little surprise that I wrote most of the platform.  It SHOULD surprise you that it was so far to the left it would have made Paul Wellstone blanche with horror.  And boy, was I cynical; much of the platform was blatant pandering.  It was so far to the left that my “enemy”, the Nationalist Party chair, when he came to my college four years later to recruit for the Campus Republicans, recognized me and asked “so are you still super-liberal?”  I was a conservative by this point.

But between that and the campaign I designed – featuring a REALLY tight stage production that, yes, did in fact reflect my training in broadcast production values – we did in fact win the governor’s office and nine of the twelve executive offices. 

I went on to win an election to the Legislature, and then House Minority leader – all by Wednesday of that busy, crazy week.

And the House met for several sessions.  And by about Friday of that week of waking up at 6AM and going to sleep maybe at midnight (good behavior got us some later “lights outs”), some of the debate got a little blue, by PG-rated North Dakota 1980’s standards.

Friday afternooon,  someone – a Nationalist, naturally – introduced a resolution calling for the legalization of prostitution in Pisek, North Dakota, in the interest of helping spur economic activity in the depressed little city. 

It got debated for close to two hours, and I recall – and then got sent back from the Senate, before going (as I recall) on to get vetoed by the governor; the override survived. 

It was by far the most-debated bill in the session.  It was probably something none of us told our parents or our Legion sponsors about.   It was, of course, the inevitable result of putting a couple of hundred seventeen-year-old boys, punchy from long days and unfamiliar places and lousy food and constant immersion among strangers and strange jobs and strange rituals, into a room together.

And it was probably the most thorough education in how a bicameral legislature works that any of us have ever had.

———-

One of the Girls’ Staters posted a link to Peil’s article on a Facebook page, and True North got some feedback.

When I read the initial article, I was a little nervous; had the American Legion Auxiliary knuckled under to political correctness?

Emily Schirvar of Stillwater emailed to say not to worry:

In the first place, to accuse the Girls State as upholding “leftist” values is nothing short of ridiculous. As an attendee this year, I can attest that the American Legion Auxiliary’s focus tended more towards the right; I am proud to say, however, that the values we learned there were above and beyond party lines. We learned, among other things, to respect our nation’s flag as a sign of national unity and pride–ignoring our own biases to demonstrate an interest in and vision for the country we all share.

Well, that hasn’t changed…

Additionally, the “proof” mentioned in Peil’s blog is nothing more than misplaced evidence: these “rules” were meant to be a type of comic relief. With very full days, beginning at 7 a.m. and continuing as late as 10:30 p.m., laughs were a way to wind down, and relax for a moment; it would be ridiculous to attach ulterior motives.

And the “rules?”

Had the “irate” daughter been paying attention at the assemblies, she would have realized that not only were the “rules” designed as jokes–not to be taken seriously–but the other rule “verbally read by the group administrator” was not meant to be included at all. Receiving the list from a friend, the administrator simply forgot to proofread. Her embarrassment was sufficient, in my opinion, to forgive that mistake–one that the group rectified by not including it in the Moccasin.

Another participant, who asked not to be identified, supported this:

The list was passed on to our administrator from a friend and she didn’t proof-read the list before hand. The administrator apologized profusely and was quite embarasssed. This is why the “rule” did not make it into the list, the administrator in no way wanted that to be advertised by Girls State or the American Legion.

It is unfortunate that the young woman missed out on one of the most important lessons of Girls State: that our actions have consequences, good or bad, and in order to change the world, we must first arm ourselves with knowledge. Perhaps, had she considered this, she would have had a better experience at Girls State.

Another participant – let’s call her “Participant B” – added:

The girls were not given an option as to which party they belonged to, which provided new insight to those who were in a party that may not have shared the same views as them. Never did the Girls State program endorse one party or promote a certain party’s point of view. The guest speakers’ political views varied. In fact, one guest said she was so right-wing, “she made Rush Limbaugh look liberal.”

As far as the “Rules for Girls State” go, I cannot understand how any of those jokes could be considered part of the “left-wing agenda.” You would be hard-pressed to find a Democrat who believes we should build malls on the moon or that a man’s mind is “too little to be let out alone.” I ask YOU, Jeff Piel: What do any of those “rules” (which are nothing more than jokes) have to do with a left-wing agenda?

Well, there  is a certain amount of anti-male baggage with the part of feminism that’s tied itself to the left in America – and if our nation’s high school juniors are unaware of this, it’s either very good news or very bad news – but I suspect that if the American Legion Auxiliary ever becomes a hotbed of this train of thought, our nation will have much bigger problems to deal with.

 Schirvar challenges bloggers:

…I have heard about the “evils” of bloggers who neglect to do their fair share of research before acting as “experts” on a topic. It is disappointing, then, to find such a clear example of this occurrence. Although no one asks bloggers to be completely without slant, it would have been more honorable had Peil at least tried to find out about the other side of the story. Far from “leftist propaganda”, as he calls it, the week-long event was an intensive look into how government works–at times the Girls State citizens were asked to put aside their prejudices for the sake of the experiment, and many (myself included) would say that this unique look into new ideas helped each one of us grow as individuals.

 “Participant B”:

I’m sad to disappoint you, Jeff Piel, but the American Legion’s Girls State 2010 was entirely non-partisan and completely worthwhile.

On the one hand, it’s not the biggest controversy True North has gotten into.  On the other hand, the generation that’s going to be taking things over in thirty years or so is kinda vital.

Thanks for all the response!

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Tuesday, July 6th, 2010 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Culture War, Education, PC / "Woke" Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.