A report in today's Sunday Telegraph reports that a national masonic lodge has been set up by leading police officers. From the article we learn:
"Masonic rules require members to do all they can to support each other, to look after each other and to keep each others' lawful secrets. New members of the so-called Brotherhood are blindfolded, a hangman's noose placed around their necks and they are warned their throat will be slit and their tongue torn out if they break their oath."
If Masonic rules require members to do all they can to support each other and to look after each other, then this article is not news as it would appear lodges already exist within ACPO, the quangocracy and Westminster.
5 comments:
I agree with the 1997 Home Affairs Committee comment "We believe however that nothing so much undermines public confidence in public institutions as the knowledge that some public servants are members of a secret society one of whose aims is mutual self-advancement ..."
This comment was made in their report on Freemasonry in the Police and Judiciary. There are at least 12 Freemason Lodges with exclusively police memberships and there are no doubt many other police officers who are members of general lodges. Indeed it is a persistent rumour that you have little chance of higher promotion within any UK police force unless you are or are willing to become a Freemason.
The committee's main point however was that there was no evidence in either Freemasonry aims or practice to indicate corruption and there I disagree. Every club or association, however prosaic, carries with it a predilection for corruption if for no other reason than the natural human urge to embrace the familiar and organise itself within social groups. When a particular group is set apart from the rest of society for any kind of reason, as is the case with police, those urges and pack instincts only grow stronger. This is why, for example, the police will always expect those accused of criminality to shop any acquaintances involved, yet they will rarely if ever 'dob' on their colleagues even when they know they have acted improperly, I am sure we can all recall reported incidences where a detained person in police custody has mysteriously suffered severe contusions and other injuries yet none of the officers present saw or heard anything, offering up such insights as he must have slipped. Cast your mind back to the initial police comments regarding Ian Tomlinson.
PC: "there was no evidence in either Freemasonry aims or practice to indicate corruption"
As what you may call an ex-Mason (I have not attended any lodge meeting for 30+ years now)I never found any such 'helping' etc in my time - maybe I was being naive? I have to say that I have read a lot of ill-informed writing about the Masonic movement, however that is not to say that that which you allege does not take place and your point is well made.
Potentially you have a secret club that because of its secrecy is able to plan to discriminate against non-members. When that behaviour directly affects not just the internal 'club activities' (where they can do what they like) but affects the public at large it is an obvious invitation to abuse.
WfW I hope you don't think I was casting unwarranted aspersions, such was not my intention. I was drawing attention to what I believe to be the inevitable consequence in any club or association that the members will automatically seek the approval of other members and will be inclined to support other members rather than strangers and to 'rally round' members in trouble. In most cases it is not even a conscious decision.
It is also inevitable that this will make members less honest in dealing with outsiders and the more isolated an association, and the police are very isolated from the general populace these days, the more inwardly focused and insular the members become. Thus the common aims, perceptions and prejudices of the group can easily become viewed as the 'norm' by the members while to the outside world they are badly skewed. In essence the corruption I was referring to was more a corruption of values and attitudes than outright dishonesty, but still corruption never the less and potentially even more serious than simple dishonesty, take religious bigotry for example.
W42: totally agree!
PC: No "unwarranted aspersions" taken! I accept your criticisms as I thought I had intimated..........
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