So are you literally defending the act of firing people who tell the truth?

I'm defending the act of firing people who are assholes. Whether they're telling the truth or not is irrelevant.

The problem is that 'asshole' is completely subjective. You can have someone state a fact that a tiny hurts a tiny group of peoples' feelings and they will think he/she is an asshole. That can't be a fireable offense.

Suggest that a piece of code is un-maintainable and that the group should rebuild it and there is a good chance someone will think that makes you an asshole.

You can't go around firing everyone because some idiot gets triggered.

We're talking about a specific case here where twenty thousand people in the company managed to get pissed off, not one person.