re: #182 The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge

Masonic conspiracy theories go way back. The Republican Party was an amalgam of the Whigs, the Anti-Masonic Party, and the Know-Nothing Party. (Which despite common belief, was not a description of their intellectual attainments, but what they were supposed to say if questioned about the organization, a la Sergeant Schultz.)

To be fair, there’s were some serious problems with Masons, particularly in New York back in the early 1800s:
en.wikipedia.org