He was commenting after an Auckland aiport toy shop was ordered to hide its "golliwogg" dolls when they offended a visiting black American hip hop star.
Mr Thomson, general manager of the gift store chain Acquisitions which stocks the dolls, likened the airport's decision to make the shop hide the dolls to the Nazi Party's burning of books.
"In my view, this is just silliness ... and you're talking to a card-carrying lefty here."
The controversy erupted when Big Boi - half of chart-topping hip hop duo Outkast who performed at a packed Powerstation on Thursday night - noticed the dolls at Auckland Airport-based Natures Window as he was leaving yesterday.
He posted a picture of the dolls, viewed by many as racist, on Twitter with the message: "Ok, all blacks is a rugby team, but what the .... are these ..."
The comment drew several replies, with one tweeting "throw them in the bin with the person selling them" and another adding: "can't explain that one ... burn the racist airport down".
Airport management ordered their removal after being contacted by The New Zealand Herald.
Airport corporate relations manager Richard Llewellyn said the dolls - sold in white, brown and black - had been sold at the airport for two months without any previous complaints.
"While individual retail companies at the airport make their own choices about the products and services they sell, the airport also has the right to ask those retailers to cease selling products that may be regarded as objectionable or inappropriate."
The store owner could not be reached for comment yesterday but a worker said the order "stinks".
Mr Thomson said it was ironic a man who had tweeted about visited a strip club during his visit to Auckland should be complaining about golliwogs.
"I don't think the world should be using him as the moral arbiter."
He had sold about 1000 of the dolls in the past year, but had only had two complaints, he said.
"For most people, they are a nostalgic memory from the past. People buy them because they remind them of when they were kids, and they appreciate them for what they are.
"We're comfortable selling them. We've sold them to labourers through to prime ministers - I'm not going to tell you which prime minister bought one."
Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres said New Zealanders often did not realise "golliwog" dolls had a controversial history in other countries where many people find them offensive.
The character the dolls are based on started out in 1895 as brave and lovable in children's books by Florence Kate Upton.
They also featured in the Noddy books of Enid Blyton.
But by the 1940s, the toys began to be associated with the racial insult "wog" and by the 1960s books - many showing golliwogs as villains - were being withdrawn from libraries because they were seen as racially insensitive.
