I’ve avoided hot topics recently, being preoccupied with other matters, but I shall wade into the fray on this. I try to avoid public criticism of those “on the right”, but things have gotten so bad that it’s important for someone to speak up.
I’ve heard Lee Williams speak in person twice and watched a small handful of videos on his Cross the Rubicon Youtube channel. Both times I did have to laugh and cringe at some of his hyperbole, but I avoided being publicly critical. I am not sure if it would have helped though, as I still have the obscene rants he sent to my moderators after they asked him to follow the group rules. I had to permanently ban him from the Right Minds Facebook group last year.
We don’t have to defend bad behaviour, we don’t have to stand up for someone with a nasty attitude, but we should defend people’s right to freedom of expression.
Were any of his opinions actually racist, in an objective sense, and worthy of him getting hounded out of his job? Of course not. But employment is about money, and if you become a liability to your employer then you’re probably out of luck. Freedom of speech is not just about what you say, but also about how you say it.
Is doing “hori” impressions of a powerful ethno-nationalist MP a smart thing? Certainly not. Previously Lee had been having “fun” going toe-to-toe with far-left internet comrades and washed-up commies—a fair fight. Picking on a sitting MP from Te Pati Maori was asymmetrical warfare—he was always going to lose.
The brave Palestinian Nationalist who throws rocks at the Israeli tank can scream all he wants as he gets run over, but, well, you get the picture. Winning requires tactics, not suicidal foolhardiness.
The actions of the disgusting media to name him an “alleged white supremacist” show the pure evil of the journalist class. The Head of News BusinessDesk even admitted that the only reason they used “alleged” in the headline is because of New Zealand’s strong defamation laws—one that petition organisers and twitterers have most certainly fallen afoul of. They knew the label as applied to Lee Williams is defamatory, yet they ran a dishonest story because that’s what journalists do.
There’s something wrong with Lee Williams too—he talks about how his wife left him (clearly before he lost his job) due to his online activities. This is a massive red flag. Poisoning your family relationships should be viewed as horrifically by the right-wing as affirming biological facts are on the left. It’s an unacceptable transgression to put your quest for internet points before the well-being of your family. After all, why do any of this, if not for them?
Be someone that your family and friends will defend. Be someone who even those you disagree with politically will be willing to be associated with when the mob comes for you. Becoming a trade unionist doesn’t hurt either—the Free Speech Union only charges $50 a year. The catch is that you do need to be a high-calibre human being for membership to be effective.
Pick your battles, improve your optics, and be likeable.
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