Freemasonry: Scourge of Dictators

Freemasonry teaches thousands of excellent lessons. Perhaps too many for most of us to absorb. Let's concentrate on a couple.

ALL men are to be treated as equals, claims Freemasonry. We must meet on the level and part upon the square. We must practice Temperance, meaning we must be moderate in all of our actions.

Why am I a Freemason? Why have I remained a Freemason? Because the system Freemasonry teaches cannot be improved upon. Far too often we, as individuals, forget this and we become the little despots I'll expand on as we go along. Let me tell you a story.

Shortly after my discharge from the U.S. Navy I found a job as an accounting clerk with a dry goods company. About three hours into my first day on that job in November 1945 an older fellow asked me if I would like to go with him for a cup of coffee. To the greasy spoon next door we went. We had coffee and smoked a cigarette. When we returned the walking zombie who was our boss cornered my friend. It was evident the boss gave him hell. The zombie then rushed over to me.

"We don't permit smoking!" says he. Says I, "I can see that, Sir. The place is plastered with 'NO SMOKING' signs." He glowered from his towering height, "We don't permit smoking at any time or any place during working hours!"

"Sir, are you saying that I can't go outside to smoke one cigarette in the morning and one in the afternoon?" I asked politely.

"Not and work here," he said. "I gave up smoking and so can you."

As I rolled down my sleeves I looked up at him and calmly (witnesses have claimed this is an understatement) said, "Then you can take this job and shove it. I just finished four years of fighting dictators like you." I took my jacket off the nail and left him standing with his mouth wide open.

Forty-six years later (1991) this type of petty tyranny has expanded throughout the land. Vote-conscious politicians have enacted unconstitutional laws banning a legal substance called "tobacco." An aptly described (by The Richmond Times-Dispatch) "pygmy tyrant" named Edward J. Derwinsky, Veterans Affairs Secretary, banned the sale of cigarettes in Veterans Hospitals. Earlier he had banned smoking.

In an article for the Journal of Regulation and Social Costs, Hank Cox takes a dim view of the bureaucracy of the Surgeon General and Health and Human Services. Its "trying to browbeat Americans into behaving properly all the time — to forswear smoking, drinking and sex, and to subsist on a bland diet of oat bran, tofu and bean curd washed down with mineral water," writes Cox. This "campaign against enjoyment of life is the general ban on food with taste." These "Aunt Samanthas" want to save us from everything they consider evil. One is warned to avoid anything that tastes good, and anything else one may enjoy.

These characters, whom I call dictators, Cox points out, deliberately exaggerate dangers of this and that to frighten the gullible. He quotes experts who have studied the effects of alcohol on traffic deaths and the danger to pregnant women. He claims that the disastrous effects, as with everything else the Samanthas claim, are highly exaggerated.

Fear! That's the name of the game. It always has been with dictators — large or small.

Dictators come in all shapes, sizes and genders. They aren't confined to the Hitlers, Mussolinis, Khomeinis and Husseins. They aren't confined to foreign countries. Sad to say, we probably have far more pygmy dictators in America than anywhere else in the world. Why?

Because some men and women have been willing to fight and die to keep America free. This is the reason petty dictators are free to spread their garbage. This permits small special interest freaks to tell others how they must conform to the freaks' way of living.

Examples? They are all around us. They are so numerous volumes can be written about them. Look in any directory of organizations. Special interest groups abound. Listen to the news on television or radio (shucks study much of the biased stuff called "entertainment" on TV); pick up any newspaper or news magazine. A handful of eccentrics will be found espousing some cause.

We find people arguing for disarment, usually unilaterally of the United States. They fight for peace and are willing to maim or kill to achieve their goal.

There are kind hearted souls more than willing to let humans suffer in order to protect exotic snakes, snails, roots, flowers, bird, fish — name it, they'll protect it.

How can these small groups get away with exploiting the overwhelming majority of us? Because they understand human nature. They know we look upon them as the kooks they are and will ignore them. We figure no one will believe their nutty statements. And they are correct. No reasonable person can possibly accept their wily assertions. We don't take into account politicians always seeking reelection and other eccentric fringes. By ignoring them we give them the opportunity to increase their small numbers. Then they stage shows for the visual media, many of its members who are as dense as the subjects they are recording.

Then, too, they get support from politicians who kowtow to any group of crazies for a vote. These "giants" of the campaign trail are joined by power-hungary bureaucrats. Many of these look to the future and the lucrative lecture circuit. And example is cited by Hank Cox writing in a National Chamber Foundation publication for June 1991, Journal of Regulation and Social Costs.

Referring to Louis Sullivan, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Cox says the "vast HHS bureaucracy" is "waging unrestricted warfare on just about every diversion that might provoke mirth, tempt unwary lips into a smile, or otherwise distract humanity from its nasty, brutish and short condition. That one agency with a budget bigger that the Pentagon's is trying to browbeat Americans into behaving properly all the time - - to forswear smoking, drinking and sex, and to subsist on a bland diet of oat bran, tofu and bean curd washed down with mineral water. Our once virile Uncle Sam has become Auntie Samantha, an unholy amalgam of overbearing den mother and persistent fishwife."

The paragon of moral virtue, the hero who dumps autos and young ladies into bays, is working on another beauty — the absolute prohibition of free speech as it concerns tobacco and its products. After watching and listening to this schemer since he was a youngster I strongly suspect it's his staff that uses him as a puppet.

What has this to do with Freemasonry? Nothing — and everything.

Sanity does prevail — sometimes. Early in August 1991 Judge Jean- Jude Chabot of Canada stopped the "nicotine Nazi" (so called by the Richmond News Leader). The judge threw out the ban on tobacco advertising in Canada. He said: "This form of paternalism or totalitarianism is unacceptable in a free and democratic society."

Politically Correct (PC) "harassment" = describes the expression of any politically incorrect position.

Free speech, supposedly protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution takes a rear seat to being politically correct. Virginia's Attorney General (Mary Sue Terry) says campus life cannot be hostile to minorities; If it is, "any infringement on plaintiff's free speech" is justified! And it once was illegal only to falsely cry "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

Bureaucrats within the federal government of the US are among the greatest of the country's dictators; i.e., the Interior Department has decreed it controls the use of land around Civil War battlefields, even those where minor "battles" took place; the Corps of Engineers controls all private property to protect the swamps (charitably called "wetlands") throughout the country.

Richmond Times-Dispatch (9/8/91): Walter Williams discusses the "pork" Congressmen build into the national deficit. "Congressmen have little or no principle. As such, they are like prostitutes doing what customers want. That being the case, it is up to you and me to let them know that they cannot buy our votes by destroying our nation. We must tell them what they're selling is diseased, and we don't want it."

Williams also noted: "Congressmen who don't go along are in deep political trouble. This year, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., warned two congressmen, 'If you rock the boat or support a line- item veto, we have a special chute that goes down to the Potomac.'"

Business bashing has become popular with those among us who would turn this country into a more socialist nation than it has become. When they read about the bank, political and stock market scandels they have a right to complain. Add to this the salaries and bonuses paid to a certain few high rankings individuals in the corporate world. Examples: The Chief Operating Officer of International Telephone and Telegraph Corp — between $7 and $14 million; Reebok's — a reported $40.8 million; United Airlines' — $18.3 million; Disney's — more in a day than one of its employees makes in a year; Lee Iacocca of Chrysler (an idol of many) took a 25% increase although earnings were falling by 17% and his workers were asked to sacrifice. And Business Week goes on and on with its annual survey, but its report merely touches the edges of what's occurring in the world of business.