Ryan Bridge: Is the work of activists making a difference? - Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

Regular listeners will know, when it comes to free speech, I'm into it. 

How else do we get smarter but to debate ideas, put them through the ringer, shout and scream and reason and argue?

We've been doing it since we could talk - which is, well, a long time. 

When the MAGA mob came for Jimmy Kimmel, I defended him. On this programme. 

Many of you agreed. Some of you did not, which is what we call an argument, and that's okay too. 

So yesterday, when the telco OneNZ decided to pull those ads with the activist in them, I had a genuine moral conundrum. 

See I think people should be able to protest (not in work uniform, obviously), and not get the sack. I don't like cancelling people. 

In this case, the fact she gave out Winston's address on the internet probably crosses a line. 

But if we're being honest, did it need to take a crowbar through his front window, shattering glass, for the head honchos at OneNZ to take action?

She'd been plastered all over the news for sharing his address for days before crowbars hit glass. 

I don't like that she'd been cancelled, but I can see why they did it. 

And as for activists more generally, apparently there's a Shortland Street actor packing his bag for some flotilla somewhere - they're just annoying, aren't they? 

Same goes for the priests chaining themselves to electorate offices. 

Who doesn't need a lecture on geopolitics of the Middle East from a guy who wears a fake stethoscope for a living?

In most cases, the real subject matter is themselves. In most cases, they achieve nothing. And in most cases, they're ignored. 

The beauty of democracy, along with freedom of speech, is that we can.

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