Lily Tan Williams (Website | twitter) met David Scott on his first trip to Scotland and shared stories of his childhood. Mao ZedongHe talks about his escape from poverty, fear and domination in Communist China, his life in America, and how he then decided to speak out to warn about the creeping authoritarian rule that was taking hold of the Western world.
She describes Mao-era China, its extreme poverty, collectivism, and the nature of the state religion in which Mao was essentially high priest and god. She also learned to live in a surveillance culture where snitching on friends and neighbors was the norm. She learned to thrive and to keep her thoughts and ideas to herself. The first rule of a totalitarian state is “trust nobody.”
With Mao's death, Lily finally realized she had been deceived, for God cannot die. Her inquisitive mind and love of learning gave her focus. She sought to resolve secret questions about the society she grew up in and the lies that had been told to her. Seeking insight and answers, she went to college to study law.
During her college years, Tang learned that China's laws were not for justice, but to maintain the power and control of the Chinese Communist Party. When she met an American student, she was shown a pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution. This sparked her ambition to go to America and seek the land of freedom. She began to plan her escape.
Her plan required the permission of the Communist Party boss at her university, where she was a law professor at the time. She needed to appear to be a perfect follower of Communist ideology. So she started taking the required steps. After seven applications, her passport was issued, and when her American visa was issued, people touched her hair to receive a little of her good fortune. In 1988, she arrived in the United States with $100 in debt and no English skills, determined to work hard and stay in the United States.
Her American sponsor welcomed her on the first day she arrived and introduced her to the man who would become her husband. That same day, she found a job as a research assistant. She started her life in the U.S., earned her degree, married, had three children, and became a U.S. citizen in 1995. She then became involved in local politics with her homeowners association and school committee.
After the 2008 crisis, she had the courage to enter the real estate market and build a business, but she began to realize that freedoms were disappearing in America. She became politically active and wrote an article in 2013. Guns Against Tyranny Published in National ReviewLater, her concerns about the rise of totalitarianism led her to run for Congress, speak out about her experiences, and raise warnings.
Lily Tang Williams knows that the last bastion of freedom is the family, and that the state targets children with queer theory, critical race theory, and other attacks on the parent-child relationship. In response, she is sounding the alarm, and she will not be silenced. Twenty-three years in China have prevented her from speaking the truth. She will not be silenced now.
