going over the top

We mustn’t try to snare people or try to get them where we want them in order to more effectively inflict guilt, fear and shame, just to persuade them to our way of thinking. This approach has the whiff of aggression. When we’re on the receiving end we can get a premonition that cruelty is about to be inflicted upon us. For some animal activists, the handling of subjects so heavily charged with significant issues provides them with the excuse to "go over the top". When the subject matter is charged with passion, what follows almost bristles with inevitability, as if the decisive verbal blow has been rehearsed. Most of us have slammed our door in the face of the Jehovah’s Witness before he or she has even had a chance to get to this point. We have premeditated ‘the message’. Animal activists who try to use similar tactics meet the same fate and unfortunately "queer the pitch" for others who would never use such methods.
So is there a less direct way to talk about animal issues without World War Three erupting? Not so indirect that we don’t say what we mean, or so gentle that we can be easily brushed off? How can we be gentle AND dynamic at the same time? . . . Maybe by the use of mischief?