Like Tim Walz, lots of us are selective hypocrites about ‘Mind your own business’ | Opinion
In his speech introducing himself to the country, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz talked about his theory of how Republicans should treat abortion. “Mind your own (bleep!) business,” he said.
That was music to my ears. What columnist doesn’t love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning? Walz, you might not know, set up a COVID-19 snitch line for people to call to rat out their neighbors if they saw them praying or eating in ways that violated pandemic restrictions — a little bit of the Stasi in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Let’s just say, Walz believes in the selective application of his “Mind your own business” principle.
And who doesn’t? Back when I first started covering politics in the 1990s, Republicans liked to call themselves the “Leave Us Alone Coalition,” but at the same time, they were all about getting in people’s business to tell LGBTQ people who they could marry. Things went so far that dozens of states put rules in their state constitutions telling people who they could marry. Republicans should be the last people to call out Walz for his hypocrisy.
To be fair, every politician who has ever said, “Mind your own business,” has been a tad insincere, but I started asking myself: What if they weren’t? What if Republicans and Democrats got together and said, “We’re really going to take this ‘mind your own business’ stuff seriously”?
What a blessed day it would be for America.
Close to home, Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey could stop trying to sue New York state for prosecuting Donald Trump and focus on Missouri problems. New York politicians could stop trying to regulate cow flatulence in the Midwest and focus on New York problems.
Democrats could stop trying to use taxes to fund abortions as their platform argues. Republicans could stop trying to outlaw the abortions of grown women who don’t want to turn a pea-sized embryo into a baby.
Democrats could stop letting liberal librarians put smut in our kids’ libraries and tampons in the boys’ bathroom at middle schools. Republicans could stop trying to regulate the health care parents want for their trans kids. Democrats could admit that it is parents’ business when their 13-year-old wants an abortion and Republicans could admit it is nobody’s business when she’s 23.
Imagine all the fronts of the culture war where we could call a truce just by minding our own business.
Got an opinion on birth control? Mind your own business.
Got an opinion on the right to die? Mind your own business.
Got some thoughts on what kind of health care plan your neighbor should buy? Mind your own (bleep!) business.
Imagine all the federal and state bureaucracies we could shut down.
Hey Securities and Exchange Commission, don’t think poor people should be able to invest in risky but potentially lucrative startups? Mind your own business.
Hey, Missouri, don’t think I should be able to pay someone to cut my hair without a license? Mind your own business.
Hey Kansas, don’t think I should be able to buy beer at the grocery store at 9 p.m. on a Sunday? Mind your own business.
This Walz seems like a nice guy. He served his country as an enlisted guy in the National Guard for decades. He was a public high school teacher and a coach. Maybe he is in touch enough with regular people that he’s come up with an idea that can fix our politics. I suggest we all try it.
Then again, maybe I should mind my own (bleep!) business.
David Mastio, a former editor and columnist for USA Today, is a regional editor for The Center Square and a regular Star Opinion correspondent. Follow him on X: @DavidMastio or email him at dmastio1@yahoo.com
