Thank you for giving a ____.

December 20, 2023

Dear friend,

Today's email is a "Choose Your Own Adventure."

The Brattleboro Commons asked Windham County legislators the following:

What do you want to say to your constituents?

What do they need to know about the upcoming session?

My full reply to the Commons starts below the photo of Alex. It includes cursing.

The Commons quoted my remarks without the cursing. It also includes other legislators' perspectives.

You can read that version here:

Commons: State legislators have plenty to do in 2024

Here’s my unredacted, cursing version…​

***

Thank you for giving a fuck.

Dear Commons,

Thanks for asking for what I want to say to my constituents going into the January 2024 legislative session.

Two words have been rolling around in my mind. They are a little raw, but I’d like to share them if your readers can offer me some grace.

Ask an EMT what happens when they encounter a person overdosing from opioids. The EMT administering Narcan via nasal spray has just saved their life. What does the opioid user say, upon regaining consciousness?

“Fuck you.”

In counteracting the overdose, the EMT interrupted their high and wasted their drugs. Hence the cursing.

It gets worse. The “Fuck you” is usually followed by going to get more. That often involves burglary, theft, sex trafficking, and open-air drug dealing.

Many recover from this disease if given time and the tools to heal. But we haven’t mustered the resources to get everyone into treatment, and not everyone accepts treatment. We’re also not building enough of the one thing everyone agrees would help most—housing.

To be clear, EMTs are professionals. My EMT buddy tries not to take it personally. After all, the opioid user’s body is not theirs. It’s under the control of the most potent and prevalent street narcotic ever invented, Fentanyl from China.

We’re fortunate to have a lot of professionals in Vermont who are trying to do the same. The nurses who’ve been assaulted in the Emergency Department. The social workers who bravely walk into known drug houses and motels to reach victims of opioid addiction and their families to deliver life-savings services.

We’ve long expected the public safety officers who protect and serve our communities to face this abuse. The staff at the courthouse, from security on up to the judges, are doing their part for justice with the imperfect tool of the law. We’re asking correctional officers and probation and parole officers to save lives. The tools we give them? Threadbare staffing, inconsistent programming, and outdated facilities.

The man or woman who spat those words at the EMT worker has a kid in childcare and another in middle school, who are acting as you’d expect from kids living with such stress. Giving these kids the resources they need might start with three square meals and clinical support, but it takes every classroom teacher, every para-educator, and every staff person who comes in contact with those kids to raise them to have a fighting chance of avoiding their parent’s disease.

To show up for work anywhere today is to risk your life. In the face of antisocial behavior. While trying to hold compassion. While trying to hold your own shit together. Doing it all on third-shift or overtime.

You can earn $20/hour and up in retail or yard work or house painting. Many are opting for those jobs, and these folks too are cleaning up after society’s ills. Painters are dumpstering filth and patching bullet holes. The leaf rakers take extra caution to avoid getting stabbed by a used needle. Every store owner, retail worker, and food service worker calls on their inner light to cope with the depravity and to be a positive presence.

What about your legislators in Montpelier?

I see a great future for Vermont. But it’s not guaranteed to us. It won’t happen because we deserve it. It will happen because we saw the raw now around us and made hard choices.

Therefore I want to say the following outside the rules of House decorum.

Thank you for giving a fuck. Every single person showing up for work today in Vermont is showing up for a greater vision of human potential. Thanks. I admire you.

I also want you to know that I’m sick of this shit. I want you to feel safe in your home. I want you to trust the criminal justice system to work. I want you to feel that your taxes are a fair exchange for quality public education and services. I want you to feel that your healthcare costs are predictable, fair, and that you have access to what you need.

My constituents tell me they don’t feel this way. Some feel that things are headed in the wrong direction.

Fuck that. We can do better, we will do better, and for our children, we must do better. I will do my utmost to work with the Legislature and the Governor this session to set a better course for our state. I will look for any place to intervene in the cycles of addiction and dependency playing out around us.

To anything holding us back from hard choices—I say “Fuck it.”

Thank you for reading. Have a great day.

warm regards,

Rep. Tristan Roberts
Vermont House of Representatives

P.S. I always appreciate feedback. Send me a note anytime.