"It saddens me when intelligent people refer to their efforts as "self-righteous rants""

Jim - you've got the wrong end of the stick...

I wasn't referring to "Me Too"..

I've stated earlier that they are a much needed movement for justice.

Nor am I referring to calm objective reasonable thinkers on this issue like yourself [most of the time],
and most others in this thread

BUT I am criticizing the aggressively vociferous self righteous zealots and their lynch mob mentality
that stirs up false accusations and violence against innocent people...
Or demands the infliction of disproportionately severe punishment on the most minor offenders.

I've made it more than clear I don't care about Yarrow as an individual.
I wouldn't have shed a tear for Gary Glitter if he'd been hung in Thailand
[or wherever it was he was rearrested for persisting in his serial abuse]

But it's the principles of either give 'em a 2nd chance,
or give 'em a life of shunning and vilification
that deserve rigorously intelligent rational non-emotive debate...

We certainly should not be shouted down, or guilted into silence,
by folks who habitually rely on those discussion ending strategies...