I do think he makes a good point though that "Your patient, non-bastard supporters are the lifeblood of your community" and these are the people who have to be protected. Whether his approach is the right one is arguably questionable.
It is extremely questionable. However, on the occasions I stopped doing what I do (usually because I felt that I was starting to burn out and be too much of an asshole even for my own tastes) nothing anybody else did helped very much and eventually I got asked to come back by a number of the nice people because the standard of behaviour was sliding and they weren't being listened to because they were, well, being too nice.
So I can't claim my approach is right, only that it works and that in the absence of somebody finding a better one I'll continue to follow it - and I'm reasonably comfortable that in this case the ends -do- justify the means, at least according to my own moral calculus.
