What evidence have you got that suggests that the "far right types' as you call them, desire "a very mean, very strident God"? They like "the far left types" will have to face the same God so would not the 'God of nice' be preferable to them also?
Orthodox Catholics are however, realists. They realise that God is absolutely just as well as absolutely merciful. It is not easy to see how absolute justice and mercy can be exercised simultaneously, only God Himself knows that. 
What we do know however, is that Christ said loving God necessitates keeping His Commandments, all of them as they relate both to Him and our neighbour. The heterodox look for loopholes in them, ways of getting around them, and create for themselves a warm, fuzzy, comfortable religion where sin and self-sacrifice no longer exist with a God who benignly tolerates their rejection of His Laws and Commandments. Orthodox Catholics do not make such presumptions neither do they despair: they hope.