[joshes]

I'm not entirely sure, but he may have taken exception to the following from your piece:

>Of course, you and I know that the latter is just a general form of the former, but somebody whose educational attainments have qualified them to sit behind a desk stamping passports doesn’t.

[seldo]

...he took exception to something I wrote about him 2 days later? As I've mentioned in another reply, I was scrupulously polite at the time.

[Permit]

Well it's a relief to know you only belittle people behind their backs.

[shiven]

... as opposed to how you are compassionately honest and direct with people who can ruin your life-as-you-know-it based on which brand of bigotry pill they ingested that morning? (Clearly, this applies to many other aspects of life, not just international travel!)

Sure, insulting people behind their back is unethical. So is the treatment OP was subjected to.

[Permit]

It's not hard to be honest with people when I don't look down on them because they're not as educated as I am...

If an officer is being disrespectful and you dislike him, that's fine. If he's being disrespectful and you immediately think "Look at this idiot, if only he knew what kind of degrees I had" you've likely got a problem.

[jacquesm]

Action begets reaction.

When someone is a jerk to you you tend to react to that. This may be irrational but that's the way most people work and it is perfectly natural.

[Permit]

Not everyone reacts that way, which suggests to me it's not "natural".

[sliverstorm]

Yup, making it tortuously elegant doesn't somehow un-make it a put-down. Just because you have more formal education than someone, doesn't entitle you to look down on them.

[shiven]

Just as you having less formal education but more authority in a given situation does not entitle you to behave like a dictator.

Easy to be righteous when you are not the one who was wronged.

[sliverstorm]

I don't mock people's level of education, no matter how I have been wronged.