"I'm not qualified to debate freemasonry with you." "Well, I am qualified to debate freely with you. "
Whether Franco was "fascist" or just "authoritarian" is a matter of definitions. As I read Webster's dictionary, Franco was a fascist. But as far as I know, and as you suggest, he shared little in common with his more bellicose German and Italian colleagues.
I disagree with none of your comments regarding Franco and the Jews.
But back to Freemasonry, you are obviously describing a different experience than ours in America.
In American, Masons are just one of many similar fraternal organization, albeit one of the oldest and largest. But they are all good, decent and law abiding. Most are dedicated to some charity, and of course, to helping each other out. Nothing wrong with that.
Masons are particularly distinguished, since many of our Founding Fathers, including George Washington, were Masons, and many, if not most presidents since have been Masons. Including, I'm pretty sure, President Bush.
In short, there are no better Americans than Masons.
Now, if you are telling us that somehow, when those same good and decent Masons cross the border into Spain, they suddenly become evil conspiratorial monsters, well, that's not a phenomenon I'm familiar with.
What do you suppose would cause such a thing?
Well, I am quite familiar with such "phenomenon".
Spain is a country with no democratic tradition. No protestant background on which build a moral democracy. On the contrary, the structure was and is basically a triangular fabric made of interwoven interests with the king on top of it. Any movement inside such structure is accomplish by patronage, which ensures that it would never work properly, triggering crises periodically.
The old king's court, avid to share the treasures from America whilst stopping any reform, has been simply replaced in modern times by oligarchies, that act the same way.
The Spanish Freemasonry, probably created with good intentions, soon became an important player in that structure, that had and has nothing to do with democracy and a lot about hiden interests.
For instance, Perez-Galdós already wrote around 1890 how Freemasons were unable to support the incipient Spanish democracy after the revolution of 1821.
In the end, it can be seen in many aspects of Spanish life, democratic systems are not favoured here, but pyramidal ones. There is no tradition and there is no moral background, dissenting voices are judged dangerous, complete allegiance to the leader, at least publicly, prevails in any group; and when somebody wins an election, it is not uncommon that his first actions are intended to crush the opposition.
Believe me, Spaniards know the they can corrupt even the purest institution.