hate crime....

[Kid Cossack]

This is a hat I wear at work.

The point is that why should people have to put up with it? If you are strong enough to withstand it, good for you. History has shown that one, or both, of two things will happen: they'll find somebody weaker than you; or they'll get a bigger mob than yours. Silence has never worked for long.

I see enough people sick from stress, taking time off, getting disciplined for absenteeism, or out of the department. Let the aggressor take the heat, and do the time.

I'm not sure I've always been silent! There have been, I believe, only three real times I was mocked when kilted. One fellow called out "You must have put your wife's clothes on this morning!" I replied, "Dang, man, that's funny. Did you think of that yourself? I don't think I've ever heard anything that funny."

Another time three youths at a Pizza Inn were mocking me while wearing their gimme caps indoors. I said, "I was taught that gentlemen remove their hats indoors, and if you're not a gentleman, I could care less what you think."

The third time a lout made assumptions aloud about my sexual preferences. I replied, "Well actually, no. But if I was?"

I don't believe in silence in the face of bullying or taunting, and I certainly didn't intend to imply that I approved of the bullying. Several times I have told bullies to "stand down" when they were picking on others, including times when I defended "the other" against "my own" if you take my drift.

If I felt that I could not handle bullying on my own, I suppose I would turn to the duly constituted authorities. Perhaps, as a Celtic mutt, an American, and a Texan (and, further, all the other little things that go into making me who I am) I am simply loathe to admit that there are things I cannot handle?

I'm not bragging on how tough I am or what a swell fellow I am, but I do prize courtesy, both as a social lubricant and as a measure of grace.

I think the ideal outcome would have been for, as mentioned by another poster, some Cumbrian footballers to have firmly called the English hooliganettes to account and explained how they were dishonoring themselves and their region by their behavior.

Sorry to babble on!

[Braveheart88]

I've never been mocked to my face (the only time anyone has ever made fun of me was at the Library a couple of weeks ago and they were in the next row of books giggling about "the dude in the dress") so I don't know how I would handle it to be honest.

The boys in the pipe band should have started to play a male supremacy song, if there is such a thing

[possingk]

young girls and a youth pipe band? the lads are pipers and drummers musicians and well drummers, they will be fine when the little girls are done picking on them, they did what they felt they had ti, and good on them for doing so, but we have all dealt with idiots, and their best response to is to say "I hope that you are never at a funeral where a piper has to play but if you are think about what that piper is doing and feel and think of how you just treated us you us?"

oped:
at some point those "girls" will leave their husbands for a real man, that man will be wearing a kilt"