There are a lot of ways you could measure the profound changes that have taken place in this country over the past century. You could talk about the civil rights movement, which pretty much everyone on the Left does — constantly, all the time. You could talk about the growth of our GDP and the stock market. Or you could talk about our many technological advancements in aviation and space flight and computing and so on. Plenty of people talk about those achievements, too.
What’s less discussed are our views about nature and the environment. I’m not talking about the politics of “man-made global warming,” and all the junk science behind it. I’m talking about our view of nature as a totally non-political concept. That’s changed, too, and not for the better.
When he was president, Teddy Roosevelt doubled the number of national parks, made the Grand Canyon a national monument, and established hundreds of millions of acres of protected public land. He became known as the “conservation president” because he inspired an entire generation to become outdoorsmen. And he didn’t do any of these things to advance any kind of political agenda. He did it because a healthy society recognizes that nature is worth protecting and enjoying for its own sake. Both Democrats and Republicans respected that.
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A little over a century later, we don’t have politicians like Teddy Roosevelt anymore. In fact, the government is trying to erase his legacy to the extent possible. They’ve taken down his statues because he was supposedly racist. And in the place of leaders like Teddy Roosevelt, we have politicians like Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota who’s now running to be the vice president of the United States.
Tim Walz, unlike Teddy Roosevelt, views nature as a means to a political end. Like so many other politicians, he sees the environment as just another part of the all-encompassing “total state” — as just another avenue to indoctrinate as many people as possible, particularly young people, into the most perverse and deranged excesses of Left-wing ideology.
Yesterday, my team and I broke the news about a particularly disturbing program that the state of Minnesota, under Tim Walz, recently funded. Here’s how it works. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources operates something called the “No Child Left Inside” program. The idea of “No Child Left Inside,” which has been around for more than a decade, is that young people shouldn’t spend all of their time indoors. They should go hiking, ice fishing, bird-watching, et cetera, and learn something about nature. And as part of this program, the Minnesota government gives grants to organizations that promise to facilitate these kinds of outdoor excursions. So far, so good.
The problem is that, because politicians like Tim Walz believe that their ideology must be promoted everywhere and at all times, these “No Child Left Inside” grants aren’t just going to organizations that facilitate hikes and bird watching. Instead, they’re going to organizations that want to get young children between the ages of 11 and 17 alone, in the wilderness, where adults who identify as transgender can talk to them in private about topics like “queerness and nature” — without their parents present.
From The Daily Wire’s Spencer Lindquist:
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources gave $10,500 to Clean River Partners, which sponsors the ‘Queer Unity, Environmental Education, and Recreation for Youth’ program [a.k.a. ‘QUEERY’]. Led by a woman named Heron, a self-described ‘trans non-binary naturalist, youth educator, and community engagement professional’ who uses ‘they/them’ pronouns, the group convenes monthly ‘to offer a safe space for young individuals … to connect, learn outdoor skills, and explore the intersection of queerness and nature,’ an Instagram post advertising the program states. According to Heron, parents are asked to ‘not attend the events, so participants have the chance to build their independence outdoors.’
For the record, here’s a picture of Heron, the “they/them” who wants to spend some time alone in nature with children as young as 11 years old:
3/ Run by a “trans-non-binary” “they/them” named Heron, the club is “specifically designed for queer and questioning middle and high school youth” to “explore how queerness shows up in nature.” pic.twitter.com/sJwPeTFHzR
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) October 17, 2024
Some of the topics that Heron reportedly wants to chat about include examples of queerness in nature, which will supposedly make these children more comfortable with their identity, whatever that means exactly. This is what Tim Walz’s Minnesota is spending taxpayers’ money on. Some of these examples of “queerness” in nature, by the way, include female wood-frog sex-changing tadpoles, mushrooms with different “sex types,” and so on.
This relates to a familiar argument that trans activists use, even though it’s never made any sense. There’s an obvious difference between a tadpole that undergoes natural physical changes throughout its life, and a human who “identifies” as a different gender — or who makes the voluntary decision to remove body parts. The tadpole is undergoing a natural process that alters its body. A human who cuts off body parts is not undergoing a natural process. It’s like saying you can make a trans butterfly. Yes, a caterpillar can become a butterfly. That doesn’t mean we can paste wings on the caterpillar and turn it into a butterfly whenever we want.
Obviously, anyone who says the opposite shouldn’t be alone with 11-year-old children without parental supervision. But this “trans-binary naturalist” says there’s no cause for alarm, because there will be plenty of “adult supervision” on these excursions — which are an ongoing, monthly thing. For example, there will also be a college student in attendance, who serves on the board of a “student-run drag organization.” This college student uses “he/they” pronouns and appears to be a female who’s had her breasts cut off. So rest easy, parents. Your child is in good hands at “QUEERY.”
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The Daily Wire reached out to this organization, and the State of Minnesota, to figure out exactly what’s going on here. The organization’s director claimed that, “parents aren’t banned from attending the program, but it is meant to be a space for youth and it’s designed as such.” She added that the program is intended to promote a sense of “safety and belonging in the outdoors for queer and questioning youth,” with discussion topics including “trail navigation, plant identification, and paddling skills.”
So what exactly do trail navigation, plant identification and paddling have to do with children who say they’re gay or “non-binary”? That’s a question that definitely would’ve confused Teddy Roosevelt not too long ago. To Tim Walz, though, it’s not so confusing. This is how grooming works. You surround confused children with gender ideology at all times, and you tell them that everything in the world — even plant identification — relates back to their perceived sexuality.
For their part, the state of Minnesota gave us a predictably useless, bureaucratic answer to our questions about this program. First they told us:
It is our understanding that parents can participate in the program.
So they just dodge the whole issue of whether parents are being pressured not to attend. And then the government spokesman told us that the Department of Natural Resources:
… funded this project because it scored highly on a rubric-based assessment that took into account program focus, design, approach, and evaluation; feasibility; and financial need and match.
Whenever you hear terms like “rubric-based assessment,” you know you’ve descended to the sixth circle of bureaucratic hell. You don’t need a “rubric” to know it’s a terrible idea to have adults taking children out into the woods without their parents to talk about “queerness.” As as general rule, it is never a good sign when adults are trying to lure children into the woods to talk about sexuality. You don’t need any special rubric to know that. You just need common sense. But bureaucracy exists to provide plausible deniability when people disregard common sense in order to advance an agenda. It exists to provide cover for programs like “QUEERY.” When they’re called out for what they’re doing, they hide behind the “rubric.” That’s the strategy that Tim Walz has decided upon.
I could go through the many other examples of depraved programs that Tim Walz has either endorsed or overseen in Minnesota. There was his legislation removing the requirement that doctors provide lifesaving care to children who survive abortions. And we’ve already talked at length about his bill that requires high schools to put tampons in the boys’ bathroom. Tim Walz’s wife recently doubled down on this bill. She suggested it was just common sense. Watch:
Gwen Walz says that it “makes sense” for tampons to be available in the boy’s bathroom at schools. pic.twitter.com/AxNYjcCye2
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 17, 2024
In hindsight, these people calling JD Vance “weird” was one of the most flagrant examples of projection in all of modern politics. They always accuse you of exactly what they’re guilty of. Any reasonable person can take one look at Tim Walz and come to that conclusion. You can read his policies. You can look at how he behaves at his rallies. It’s actually striking how strange and viscerally disturbing he is.
At the same time, within the Democrat Party, Tim Walz isn’t weird at all. He embodies everything that the party stands for. And in particular, he stands for the idea that everything — even outdoor activities like trail navigation and plant identification — should be used as an opportunity to indoctrinate as many children as possible.
This is an ideology that seeks to corrupt everything it touches. It’s what Tim Walz has brought to the state of Minnesota. And even if you’re not particularly political — even if you care at all about preserving sane, non-political spaces in this country — that’s reason enough to make sure he never gets anywhere near the White House.
