Users here (you, me, and everyone else!) need to follow the rules regardless of how badly someone else has broken them.

Everyone always feels like the other person started it and did worse—this is a human feeling—but acting on that feeling guarantees a downward spiral and we need to avoid that at all costs (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).

I often put it this way: "Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse." https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...