Nazi
So today I’m a Nazi. Admittedly, it’s probably one of the less attractive things I’ve been called but probably not the worst. A few months ago I was “re-raping” a women because I had the audacity to ask her if it was true that she had failed to report on her first asylum application that she had in fact faced a horrif rape at the hands of her persecutors. That particular individual decided to fall off her chair sideways instead of answer my question. No matter that her attorney took her to three more specialist (three had already been consulted), after I asked the question, where she was forced to recall the whole sordid affair in order to prove to me that it really did happen. Clearly MY question was more detrimental to her well being. Oh and just a few weeks ago a judge told me that “I clearly didn not respect justice” because I was three days late in filing a detailed explanation for him of the law he should have already known in a case that had no merit what so ever. So yeah, being called names has become a part of my daily routine. It’s almost funny now and I almost enjoy writing bog’s with the title Nazi because after all it makes it more interesting for you all to read.
But the whole Nazi comment got me thinking today, what is it that makes us fear the truth so much? Ok maybe it wasn’t just the Nazi comment that made me think about this. But the Nazi comment in combination with the Boy’s “discussion” last night made me think this. What I have always had a hard time accepting both in court and in real life is this persistent, pervasive fear we all have of truth. In court my opposing counsel’s jump and down in the middle of my cross examination of their client’s because they seem to be deathly afraid that their client might actually tell me the truth. Isn’t it logical to believe that if their client’s stories were in fact completely true then no question I asked would swerve them from that truth, right? So why would the name calling be necessary. And yet I don’t actually think all the individuals whose attorneys call me names are lying. Rather I think that their attorneys are living with the pervasive fear that their “truth” will be misconstrued, misunderstood, won’t fit into the appropriate legal paradigm. It’s the same problem in human relationships. We all regularly avoid asking the critical questions because we are afraid of the ramifications of a truthful answer. We are terrified that we might not be able to control what results from a truthful answer. So we either avoid the question all together or we lash out with irrelevant protest. We call the person who dared broach the subject a Nazi.
At the end of the day though the truth is that it’s not the truth we’re afraid of. What we really fear is the ramifications of the truth. The uncontrollable fall out. Our own inability to stop what might come. Perhaps, and here is a revolutionary thought, if we just trusted ourselves a bit more we would discover that the uncontrollable fall out isn’t really all that uncontrollable after all. Or perhaps, and don’t look now but I might be getting slightly spiritual here, perhaps if we just trusted that most of the time what happens is what needs to happen we could spend a bit less time worrying about the fall out of the truth and a little more time getting to the truth. And maybe, just maybe, we would find that the truth is really what brings us together. And maybe, just maybe, they would stop calling me a Nazi!! Ofcourse until that happens I’m going to go practice my sly backhanded retort and get some thicker skin.
