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1. Reference the WCAX piece about city officials concerned about deteriorating behavior of residents at city council meetings. It seems that some people in Burlington are expressing themselves with some emotion in response to the suggestion that local government officials will bring to bear ultimately the criminal law to force them to cover their faces against their will; particularly with such weak evidence that masks actually work – except to signal the wearer’s compliance. Is this objection to citizen behavior at meetings what is meant by “gaslighting”? Is it an effort to quell dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy? Having recently viewed the 1942 film starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Berman and Joseph Cotton, as I understand “gaslighting” classically refers to an effort to control one party to an intimate relationship by making the other feel like they are losing their mind; that they don’t have a grasp on reality, despite what they see with their own eyes. Perhaps we have gaslighting here on a larger scale. Here government officials lament the poor attitude – that is, less than docile – of the poor slobs who voice their objections to overbearing government policy threatening the freedom of a freedom-loving people in the name of public health regarding a virus that has “killed” (deaths vaguely attributed) about 400 people in 21 months in a state of over 600,000. I for one would suggest that those people are not crazy, and they are right to object, saying it loud and saying it clear. It seems Burlington City officials would rather the populace just accept that they know better and leave personal decisions up the experts. One might ask the mask-wearing advocate, “Doesn’t your mask work?” If it does what you say it does, leave me alone.

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