[neonate]

> As long as you were white, reasonably well-off, and probably male, yes. It did not mean that for almost everyone else.

There's some truth to that, but the solution is obviously to extend the same freedom to everyone, not dive into authoritarianism.

> There was just no recourse for the majority to apply consequences until recently

It is not at all the majority who are "applying consequences". It is a small vanguard of extremists, most of whom conspicuously belong to the classes they criticize.