cutting off a one means of income from a wealthy, controversial influencer is not comparable to being put to death, no. that’s incredibly callous.
Or. Could a certified driving instructor lose their license for telling their clients to drive aggressively, regardless of safety concerns? They might just become a brave martyr challenging the safety-obsessed culture that coddles our drivers.
The revoking of professional licenses is not (and should not be) intended as punishment of the individual in question, but rather limiting the damage to society of their recklessness.
That can sometimes be a slippery slope of its own, but I will argue that it’s a somewhat different slope (the “for the greater good” slope) from the “totalitarian government hates nonconformity” slope. Sometimes they intersect though.