Ranking Wairarapa officer of the Right Wing Resistance group, Lieutenant Vaughan Tocker, of Masterton.
Ranking Wairarapa officer of the Right Wing Resistance group, Lieutenant Vaughan Tocker, of Masterton.
THE point of view of Right Wing Resistance lieutenant Vaughan Tocker, in our Saturday feature, was fascinating.
What was equally fascinating was the condemnation of the Wairarapa Times-Age, by our social media audience, for giving Mr Tocker some print time.
Since I have received no complaints from our "traditional" readershipbase, and around 50 comments from an on-line audience of more than 6000, I can probably assume I have correctly judged the tastes of the vast majority of our readers, whom, I believe, actually like to be informed about their community - in all its different ways.
I am particularly proud of that feature. It's not made up. There are many sides to Wairarapa, this is one of them, and we had the rare privilege of putting it in front of you for your judgment. Mr Tocker, and his views, are real. We are presenting Mr Tocker as a raw, speaking, thinking entity with views not everyone will agree with. There is no difference between that and presenting the views of a Mongrel Mob leader, or the leader of a political party, or a church leader. They also get print time and air time - a lot more.
Extreme viewpoints are a fact of a democratic society. I believe societies tend to find their own balance, globally and locally. Society is blended, not because it's politically correct to be so, but because diversity is an entirely natural trend. A person like myself, with over 2000 years of mostly mongrel Anglo-Saxon Germanic breeding, has no reason to assign any kind of label to my culture. Sure, I could go "extreme" and fly the Cornish flag from my cottage, but I think most of us find our "place" among family, friends, work and being a functional consumer in a free-market society.
Those who struggle to belong may naturally gravitate to "clubs", which is really what gangs or extremist groups are. There's nothing wrong with that. What would be wrong would be pretending extremists do not exist.
This is your Wairarapa. The Times-Age will put things in front of you that are the truth for this region. I choose to be informed. Do you?
