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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 1357904" data-attributes="member: 177">Sorry, but "The ends justify the means" does not hold water in this context.You aren't helping him, because as soon as you insult a person, your credibility and ability to teach drops precipitously.  As soon as you make your audience annoyed at you, the amount of attention they pay to your content decreases, and the amount of attention paid to your tone increases.  They cease treating you as a source of wisdom, and start treating you as an adversary - a person to be beaten or avoided, not a person to learn from.In addition, rhetorically, personal attack is a sign of weakness in your position.  It suggests that your reasoning is not strong enough to take on your opponent's position, so you must resort to impugning his character as a hope that this will imply a weakness in his logic, by extension.  Unfortunately for you, your opponent's position stands on it's own merits, no matter the character of the person.</blockquote>