Socialism, Tim Walz said recently, is another word for "neighborliness." 

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a top VP contender for Kamala Harris, says socialism is actually just "neighborliness." pic.twitter.com/xISVQSxIUv

— Alpha News (@AlphaNewsMN) July 30, 2024

Perhaps. Socialism has a particular connection to neighborliness, historically speaking.  One particular feature of socialist societies comes up time and again, which turns neighborliness into outright spying on behalf of the state. Just ask the Russians and the former East Germans, whose industrial-scale snitching for the Stasi made that socialist police state highly effective.

And Tim Walz certainly knows that, because he put that connection into practice during the COVID pandemic. If socialism is just neighborliness in Walz' Minnesota, "neighborliness" got defined as snitching during the pandemic:

A hotline set up by Gov. Tim Walz’s administration to monitor compliance with his 2020 stay-at-home order generated thousands of reports from Minnesotans who snitched on their neighbors for things like playing basketball in a park, walking their dogs, and throwing small parties.

The hotline was launched in March 2020 and law enforcement continued to monitor it until November, well after the stay-at-home order ended. In October 2020, it was used to alert authorities to a church service that didn’t fit with the governor’s “legal requirements.” This type of complaint was not uncommon. 

People often would send in lists of “non-essential” businesses that remained open or weren’t strictly following masking requirements, according to files from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA).

Call this what it really was: a domestic surveillance system, imposed and run by the State. Walz and his team just farmed it out to the grassroots, and the Gladys Kravitzes among us cooperated enthusiastically. 

That makes Walz' theme yesterday at his launch in Pennsylvania more than just ironic, writes John Hinderaker at Power Line. As Walz proclaimed his guiding principle as "Mind your own damn business," Minnesotans recalled when Walz set up his fascist snitch operation:

One of Tim Walz’s themes in his speech in Philadelphia today was “Mind your own damn business.” This is beyond ironic. There is no aspect your life, or your children’s lives, that Walz does not consider to be his business. He advises his fellow Democrats not to shy away from socialism, which is just being “neighborly.” Right. God preserve us from neighbors like that.

Which brings us to the Walz Snitch Line. At the beginning of the covid epidemic, Walz issued an executive order that prohibited any resident of Minnesota from leaving his or her house, except as permitted by him. It was perhaps the most overtly fascist measure in America’s history. Walz then set up a snitch line, so that Minnesotans could phone in, anonymously, and rat out their neighbors if they violated Walz’s “stay at home” order[.]

I recall this too, and how it seemed to be deployed especially enthusiastically against faith communities attempting to continue worship services. This didn't just last for the "Fifteen Days to Stop the Spread," nor did it end when other states realized that the shutdowns were unnecessary. Walz' snitch operations didn't even end after Minnesota fully reopened in the fall. The hotline apparently kept operating until June 2022, more than two full years after Walz launched it:

Actual phone recording of Tim Walz's Orwellian COVID snitch hotline.
Even more shocking, Minnesota Governor Walz kept the hotline operational till June 2022 for reasons that remain unanswered.

(h/t @cicero_mn) pic.twitter.com/p8HQTYdFrz

— Chabria (@ShivenChabria) August 6, 2024

Why did it apparently stop in 2022? Walz faced voters in a re-election campaign, which probably prompted the state to quietly shut down its COVID snitch operations. 

If you think the comparison to the Stasi is overwrought, read the linked 2015 article from Der Speigel. It describes just how the Stasi managed to impose such an effective police state by deputizing everyone to rat each other out. The Stasi understood that they could manipulate slights and grudges between neighbors, co-workers, and even family members to gain leverage over practically anyone and everyone. And it didn't cost the state a dime to employ most of its subjects as domestic spies:

One day in September 1987, the phone rang at the headquarters of the Volkspolizei, East Germany's police force, in the town of Döbeln, not far from Dresden. On the other end of the line was the voice of an unknown man.

"Good evening. I have some information for you. Grab a pen!"
"I'm listening."
"Ms. Marianne Schneider is traveling on Wednesday, Sept. 14, to West Berlin for a visit. She doesn't intend to return."
"And who are you?"
Silence.
"You would like to remain anonymous?"
"Yes."
"What is the basis for your information?"
"She said so, to her closest friends."

Then, the mysterious caller hung up. And Marianne Schneider* had a problem. Officials immediately revoked her travel permit and began monitoring her phone and mail in addition to questioning her neighbors and friends.

This story is one of spies and informers of the kind that were largely ignored by historians of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) until recently -- because they were spies and informers that were not connected to the Stasi, as East Germany's feared Ministry for State Security was popularly known. Instead, they were totally normal citizens of East Germany who betrayed others: neighbors reporting on neighbors, schoolchildren informing on classmates, university students passing along information on other students, managers spying on employees and Communist bosses denouncing party members.

John isn't exaggerating when he calls this one of the most fascist programs ever imposed on citizens of the United States. This is Walz' idea of "neighborliness" put into practice, and it has nothing to do with minding your own business. Walz wants to make everyone's business the business of the state, and he put that ambition into practice for over two years in Minnesota when he got the opportunity to use the pandemic to achieve it.

Nor is that the only Walz failure during the pandemic, as the New York Post reminds us:

“From overseeing the largest COVID-19 fraud scheme in the country, to asking neighbors to tattle on one another for violating lockdown mandates, to forcing hospitalized COVID patients back in their nursing home facilities — Tim Walz proved during the pandemic he does not have the competency to lead in times of crisis,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) told The Post. ...

“In 2020, Governor Walz unilaterally closed places of worship, schools, and businesses for several months, infringing on the rights and freedoms of Minnesotans under the guise of emergency powers,” a spokesperson for the Upper Midwest Law Center told The Post in a statement. “His heavy-handed approach during COVID-19 demonstrated a troubling disregard for constitutional freedoms and the rule of law.”

“The federal district court of Minnesota overruled Governor Walz’s shutdown of the churches in the Northland Baptist case and the resulting settlement required him to refrain from any further discrimination against churches in his COVID-related orders,” the spokesperson said of their suit against him, which was later thrown out by an appeals court.

“Despite the ruling in our case,” the rep added, “Governor Walz continues his same pattern of overreach, disregard of constitutional protections, and lack of respect toward his fellow Minnesotans.”

Hey, Walz just wants to be neighborly ... in the same way as the East Germans defined it. And if given the opportunity, Walz will get just as neighborly with the entire American population. And they won't have to "mind their own damn business" at that point, because their business will be entirely the business of the State.