I must say, that line about "there is no force, only consequences", it does sound a bit ludicrous, not matter when it used. When other human being A willfully inflict a consequence on other person B because of past actions of person B, I thought such consequence is commonly referred to as a "punishment", especially if A has some sort of authority or official capacity.
Like, I live in Finland. Here is an illustrative episode from what I remember from school. In Finnish case, the first world war manifested as a brutal civil war where about 1 % population died. The interwar period was characterized by political instability and sectarian violence, where it was near always people aligned with the "White" anticommunist side (victors of the civil war) doing the violence. People who publicly professed communist or socialist ideas often got roughhoused and in some incidents were killed; many times, their printing presses were burned by right-wing activists. The government turned a blind eye to these actions, but it wasn't something government orchestrated -- the actual activities were genuine "grassroots" effort from a part of populace that found any idea of communist action as totally opposed their mental image of Finnish nation, and certain democratic norms were not running very deep. (During some specific moments, the politicians were often afraid of facing a popular right-wing coup.) And granted, some of the communist action during that time was supported by the Soviet Russia and was publicly agitating for an international revolution.
However, what I am trying to say is this: Sure, a galactic alien with all the tact and deep understanding of human behavior that Lt. Commander Data possess could describe the events as "phenomena where communists faced consequences for their freely exercised speech actions because they found out their speech was wildly unpopular with some other people, without government doing censorship", but any sensible human being would recognize that there was political violence with express purpose of limiting the political speech of the left side. If you think these people had right to express their political message, it was repressed, with violence.
Now, I write about this episode of Northeast European history exactly because it is a distant analogue about any current situation anywhere in the world. But one can not pretend that if you inflict any kind of cost to other people either because they did something or because you want to change their behavior, the costs you inflict are some impersonal "consequences" which somehow makes it so that any other context of situation does not apply -- for example, your purpose for inflicting the consequences.
Like, I live in Finland. Here is an illustrative episode from what I remember from school. In Finnish case, the first world war manifested as a brutal civil war where about 1 % population died. The interwar period was characterized by political instability and sectarian violence, where it was near always people aligned with the "White" anticommunist side (victors of the civil war) doing the violence. People who publicly professed communist or socialist ideas often got roughhoused and in some incidents were killed; many times, their printing presses were burned by right-wing activists. The government turned a blind eye to these actions, but it wasn't something government orchestrated -- the actual activities were genuine "grassroots" effort from a part of populace that found any idea of communist action as totally opposed their mental image of Finnish nation, and certain democratic norms were not running very deep. (During some specific moments, the politicians were often afraid of facing a popular right-wing coup.) And granted, some of the communist action during that time was supported by the Soviet Russia and was publicly agitating for an international revolution.
However, what I am trying to say is this: Sure, a galactic alien with all the tact and deep understanding of human behavior that Lt. Commander Data possess could describe the events as "phenomena where communists faced consequences for their freely exercised speech actions because they found out their speech was wildly unpopular with some other people, without government doing censorship", but any sensible human being would recognize that there was political violence with express purpose of limiting the political speech of the left side. If you think these people had right to express their political message, it was repressed, with violence.
Now, I write about this episode of Northeast European history exactly because it is a distant analogue about any current situation anywhere in the world. But one can not pretend that if you inflict any kind of cost to other people either because they did something or because you want to change their behavior, the costs you inflict are some impersonal "consequences" which somehow makes it so that any other context of situation does not apply -- for example, your purpose for inflicting the consequences.