I've always had an interest in freemasonry and have even thought of joining a lodge, primarily due to my interest in George Washington and knowing his affinity for the practice.

Aside him though, a lot of the Presidents who were freemasons seem to espouse some pretty liberal thinking and policies and it made me wonder if any of that could have come from masonic teaching or something along those lines. I know you're not supposed to or allowed to speak about politics in the lodge but I've also heard that democracy as the US knew it sprang from Freemasonry as well.

Might be a stupid question, but I'm just curious.

My lodge is pretty universally conservative, as far as I can tell being very new.

I hear jokes and remarks that I haven't heard in 20 years being an IT guy in a more urban environment (but I did hear when I did some time as an EMT some years back).

It's refreshing, really.

I would imagine that being male (and mostly White) that Masonic lodges would trend more conservative than America in general, but location and member age and other things would definitely affect that, and I'm sure there are some regional differences too.

Also, the type of person who would run for non-local office is probably somewhat different, and has different concerns, than the run-of-the-mill lodge members.

I've noticed from visitors to my new lodge that the guys who come in who are part of the Grand Lodge (I don't know how all the non-local power structure works yet) are very good guys, but seem to have a different perspective than my regular lodge brothers.

Kind of like the kids who you knew every year were going to run for Student Council or whatever back in school.