To be frank, I find the ratio of people who actually do that to people who think they do that but are really using it as an excuse for not exercising their interpersonal skills is 1:1000. I've known many people that called themselves brutally honest, but with the exception of one particular manager I can recall, it always ended up being an excuse to feel powerful by shocking people with a brazen lack of tact while the truth of the statement, even if occasionally beneficial, was incidental.

Who knows... maybe you're the 1 out of the 1000. The tone of what you wrote sounds more reasonable than what many others have expressed in that vein, so I'm inclined to think so, but it'a hard to tell without having universally accepted bounds to words like kindness, politeness, and honesty. That said, doing good deeds and not directly insulting people we deal with doesn't absolve us from a the basic social necessity to treat other people with compassion and humanity. For that reason, whenever I encounter anyone that touts their honesty at the expense of kindness, I generally consider it a tacit admission that they have some serious work to do on their interpersonal skills and don't realize it.