Note: This post is deeply flawed and hurtful in ways I did not intend. In making a case against state policy, I used the Menards as symbols — or props, if you prefer — in ways that dishonor their memory and affect their family and friends. I apologize. I’m keeping this post as is, but I have written a follow-up with an apology and further reflections.

Lucas and Tammy Menard may have been the first to die because the State of Vermont didn’t care, but they will not be the last. There are roughly 1,500 people, all of whom were officially classed as “vulnerable” due to age, disability, or other factors, who have been unsheltered by state policy since mid-September. Our leaders put all of them in the most horribly uncertain of circumstances because we could not muster the political will or managerial smarts to provide for these people.

Instead, we were satisfied with a policy that amounts to “culling the herd,” weeding out those too compromised to survive the onset of winter living in a goddamn tent. The Menards’ deaths could be seen as a policy success in that regard. The long, long list of the unsheltered has just been reduced by two, so hey, congratulations?

It’s a situation that would seem to warrant charges of negligent manslaughter against certain politicians and bureaucrats — except for that pesky immunity standard they enjoy for official acts. And if you think accusing Our Betters of willfully committing two felonies is a bridge too far, well, let us turn to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of “manslaughter” as

…resulting from the failure to perform a legal duty expressly required to safeguard human life, from the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to a felony, or from the commission of a lawful act involving a risk of injury or death that is done in an unlawful, reckless, or grossly negligent manner.

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