Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, proudly declared that “one person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.” Unsurprisingly, this comes from a guy who honeymooned in communist China and created a snitch hotline during the COVID-19 pandemic.

My parents fled socialism in Soviet-occupied Lithuania and, rest assured, there is nothing neighborly about the government fully exerting control over people’s lives. Walz, sadly, has emulated this governing style throughout his time as Minnesota governor.

Like Walz, I am a proud and avid angler, gun owner and hunter — but I am not sold on his folksy demeanor due to his support for gun control — a policy that Soviet socialists favored. No amount of blaze orange, National Hunting and Fishing Day declarations or pheasant harvest posts can assuage my concerns about his troubling record.

Of course, we all support measures to keep guns out of the hands of prohibited possessors — criminals and those truly mentally unstable — but there is nothing neighborly about establishing overly broad red flag laws that deny lawful gun owners due process rights because aggrieved family or community members don’t like their political views. And there’s nothing Minnesota nice about establishing a backdoor registry, under the guise of a universal background check system, that criminalizes law-abiding folks yet does little to reduce violent crime. No amount of gaslighting by Walz boosters in the media and in elected office, who despise my way of life, can convince me and my fellow sportsmen and women that he is on our side. Just ask Minnesota deer hunters how he treats them.

Walz brags about adhering to a “mind your own damn business” mindset. But as head of Minnesota’s government, he used a whole-of-government approach to force electric vehicle adoption and unreliable clean energy onto his constituents. He signed a law to fully decarbonize Minnesota by 2040, despite the state primarily relying on coal and natural gas for power. One watchdog group estimated Walz’s net-zero plan — one that’s more radical than the Biden-Harris administration’s goal to fully decarbonize by 2050 — will cost the state $313 billion and result in 79,000 lost jobs.

Whenever governments determine outcomes, as was the case with socialism in the Soviet Union, environmental destruction is a consequence that is often overlooked. And my worry is that many climate activists, including Walz, will ignore the downsides of investing 100% into so-called renewable energy to virtue signal on climate issues.

It is well-documented that these clean energy sources are unreliable, land intensive, and made with rare earth elements primarily sourced by China — the world’s worst polluter. Not to mention EVs are arguably worse for the environment than conventional gas-powered cars.

As a freelancer, I’m also worried about this folksy moderate, who is beholden to far-Left labor unions, not minding his “own damn business” when it comes to workers who don’t join unions or want to be W-2 employees. His targeting of Minnesota’s 1.6 million legitimate independent contractors is very troubling. And he, like Vice President Kamala Harris, is expected to push the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act that would abolish 27 right-to-work laws and forcibly reclassify 64 million independent contractors as employees, among its many troubling provisions. How can he and Harris claim to champion freedom when they oppose flexible work arrangements? There is nothing freedom-minded about forcing workers into unionized, 9-to-5 jobs.

Socialism is not about socializing or engaging in neighborly behavior; it is about the government equalizing outcomes — and too often punishing those who have different views. If the Harris-Walz ticket cared about freedom, it would not openly telegraph support for central planning.

Gabriella Hoffman is a senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Voice. Follow her on X at @Gabby_Hoffman.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.