The tapping of Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota for the veep nomination by dear Kammie about 48 hours ago has reminded people of just how bad American politics is. And the mental, intellectual, and moral bankruptcy of the Farm-Labor Party of Minnesota and the Democratic Party in all fifty States and the territories.

It also brings back memories of the worst days of the Pandemic Panic and the Black Lives Matter movement and the response to the death of George Floyd in Minnesota and nationwide.

And it is a reminder that the system Heinlein described in Starship Troopers more than 60 years ago does not result in a utopia. “Military service guarantees citizenship” (and therefore the vote and ability to run for and serve in public office) is not a bad idea. Even though it is condemned as supposedly being fascist and militaristic by many. But like all human systems and ideas, it has flaws and weaknesses: on average military veterans have greater civic virtue but not every veteran has that characteristic. Walz is the poster boy for such a lack – even though he has some good points. But as a sixty-year-old, he is the product of the many flaws of both the American military system for the last fifty-plus years and our society.

And of course, we cannot forget that even Heinlein’s ideas of human government are still tainted by the inherent evil and corruption of government.

But to Walz himself:

His actions and attitudes in the Army National Guard, as a congresscritter and governor of Minnesota demonstrate that he is both an enemy of liberty and a proponent of tyranny and totalitarian government.

Walz is what Minnesota produces and deserves. It is a natural outcome of the unique merger of American and Scandinavian culture, politics, and mental attitudes, as tainted by the last half-century of urban conditions and political conflict.

Oddly enough, Walz is not a product of Minnesota (often called the Sixth Scandinavian Country), but of rural Nebraska, at least as a young man. He was born and raised and educated in Nebraska including towns that we here at TPOL are familiar with: Valentine (on the edge of the Rosebud Nation’s reservation in South Dakota), Butte (about 100 miles E of Valentine, and also just S of South Dakota), and Chadron, where he studied to be a teacher at Chadron State College, on the south edge of the Black Hills.

He then taught in China, at Alliance (in the Nebraska Panhandle) and according to some sources, an unidentified school (probably BIA) on the Oglala Nation in South Dakota before moving to Minnesota and getting his master’s at Minnesota State in Mankato. In educational “leadership” – that is, as an educrat.

In some ways, this triggers memories of Senator George McGovern, the only South Dakotan to ever run for US President, an incredibly liberal politician, and famous for suffering the worst loss of a major (old) party candidate in an election in 1972: he carried only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, being creamed by Nixon. In other words, he didn’t even take his home State which he had served for decades in Congress. He too had military service (actually in aerial combat in Europe, unlike Walz) and was an educator.

It reminds us that even deep red States and districts like South Dakota and Nebraska (minus Omaha and Lincoln) can produce Woke regressives. (Admittedly, by 2024 standards, the incredibly neo-liberal McGovern would be unwelcome in Democrat circles.) Advocates and supporters of the nanny state. People who can look at reservations and rural and frontier areas suffering from generations of “government solutions” and claim that more government is the solution.

Why? The guy is well educated, but increasingly the public (government-run, tax-funded) school systems are really indoctrination centers. Especially the teacher colleges (like Chadon) and the mega-universities (like Minnesota State). He is a product of 1970s and 1980s education. And an increasingly degraded military system. He was given by his parents, the schools, and the people around him, a mindset that government can and should solve everything. That government can not only solve all problems but that it is the best way to solve problems. That democracy is the only way to go. And that “vox populi, vox Dei” – the voice of the people (as properly led by the elites, of course) is the voice of God.

He started in places like Nebraska (and South Dakota) that the powerful elites of Minneapolis-Saint Paul consider little more than colonial possessions – places and people that produce raw materials and provide opportunities for recreation to their natural urban betters. And then he went to Minnesota and the system there reinforced that, even though much of Minnesota is as red as most of the Dakotas and Nebraska. In many ways, he is a product of grooming. And in turn, has groomed thousands of young and old people to turn into the same worshippers and prophets of omnipotent government in his image.

Where does this kind of moral flaw come from? His response to the Beer Flu (the Pandemic) and to the George Floyd madness show that he is both arrogant and a socialist, regressive and very much an enemy of liberty. Is it heredity? Environment? Brainwashing?

Whatever it is, it matches perfectly with the running mate who supposedly selected him. (We are sure that the cabal behind her was the real decision-maker.) Kammie and Timmie are a match – and almost certainly worse for the cause of liberty in these States than Trump and Vance. (This is not saying that those two are good for liberty. Just preferable to the red ticket.)