A couple of weeks ago, my youngest daughter and I watched the movie “Amazing Grace”, for the hundredth time. It’s the story of the English abolitionist, William Wilburforce, who led the anti-slave trade movement in Colonial Great Britain. The movie is a good reminder that the winds of change take time and doing what is right is seldom easy.
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In 1991, my grandmother died at the ripe old age of 98, a victim of cancer, but partly due to her inability to enjoy a nice cold beer and a cucumber sandwich. She used to say that when you couldn’t have either, it was time to go. In those last few months, when I partnered with two aunts in taking turns spending the night with her, my grandma would occasionally lament that she put up with my one aunt’s moaning and groaning for years, and her only regret was that she didn’t put her foot down sooner. She’d chuckle and say to me, “Steve, life’s too short to take shit”. That was a 98 year old woman talking.
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I’m not big on the chain of command; then again, I never served in the military so I recognize there are benefits in that structure that I’ll never begin to appreciate. However, I did grow up in a chain of command household…and by that I mean, you didn’t take your problems outside the house. I did that once, at age 12, but the social worker didn’t believe my complaints and sent me home. The marks from the so-called "discipline" I received afterward didn’t disappear for three weeks, but I never talked out of line again. There are benefits to the chain of command to be sure – but my personal experience has always been that it protected the guy upstairs, not the guy below.
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The feds have a whistle blower statute, which you’d think would be universally supported since nobody wants fraud to exist in government, at least that’s what the politicians say, but the truth is the current statute barely squeaked by being enacted, and only then because it was so watered down that some question whether it has any teeth. The reason the whistle blower statute is so unpopular and ineffective is that nobody in charge wants to worry about having the whistle blown on them.
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One of the things I learned during my years doing criminal defense work was the importance of listening to folks. I spent thousands of hours listening to criminals and victims, police officers and everyday folks on the street. Along the way, I learned that a person could decipher the truth a lot better the more they listened to what others had to say. I often think I know the truth, and then find out that the more I listen, the more I realize I’m often flying blind. So, I listen to anybody who wants to talk to me.
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I’ve also learned that few decisions we make in life are made in a vacuum. We make them in light of our life experiences and the system we’ve developed over the years for making judgments. Some would say it’s a personal set of biases and prejudices; and there’s truth in that charge, but as long as a person can recognize why they do what they do and take responsibility for their decisions, and remain true to their conscience, I can live with the results.
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