Disproportionate retribution is when someone is attacked, and in response does a counter-attack that is considered "justice" or at least "justified". This is a cultural norm that we hold in America, and is held in many other countries.

Many cultures have a tradition of justice (being penalized for wronging others), but in America and many other countries like Israel there is a narrative that once someone is attacked, all gloves are off and they are free to do whatever they like in response to the attack. This is not justice. For example, one rocket from Gaza will land in an empty Israeli field and explode, and then this is used for justification for a counter-attack that flattens thousands of buildings and kills hundreds of Palestinians. If they are questioned, the explanation is always "Do you not want Israel to defend itself?" but it is clear this is not defense. This is disproportionate retribution. And Americans generally see this as OK.

If you think about it, these Yale SJW people with the Halloween costumes are using the exact same tactic, although they might not realize it. They frame the argument in a way such that they are being "attacked" (by the administrators allowing students to express themselves freely via their costumes) and are therefore justified in any counter-attack. So you see them yelling and screaming in response to simple questions, but it's because they're emotionally reacting and they are certain they are right. They are in a state of righteous indignation, which they feel is justified. There's no mental luxury so great as righteous fury. When you're in a state of righteous anger, there's no need to try anymore. You can just let it all fly, which is what these SJW people want to do most. They want to tell people off and speak their mind without filter or awareness of social decorum, based on the assumption (which they see as fact) that they are siding with the downtrodden. It's like White Knighting, in a way.

Even my cat uses this strategy. It doesn't take a genius to pull it off, just someone who pays attention to incentives. She doesn't like the other cats and loves to see them get in trouble. So sometimes she will play the victim and ham it up like she got attacked really bad even if it was just a tiny scrach, which leads to me getting mad at the other cats. She knows this, and she uses it like a tool. It's annoying as shit and now that I'm wise to it I've changed the incentives so that behavior isn't easy and is instead difficult and unrewarding. Which is exactly what needs to happen in American culture. It needs to be socially difficult to be a jerk, and easy to be nice. Like that video of the horse pinning its ears. Instead it's mostly the opposite in mainstream society. The people who are jerks make it all over the news, and the nice people are generally ignored because they're not attention-grabbing enough. We are all fascinated with watching train-wrecks of people spout off about stuff, and we need to stop being fascinated with it because it's merely empowering the train-wrecks and giving them an audience. Like reality shows. Like corporate news.

Everyone is doing it. It's a power game, of "who can be the biggest victim and is therefore entitled to the biggest slice of the pie" which only arises because we have such a focus as a culture on trying to help out victims, and not enough on just empowering average people. Victimhood dominates our news, justice system, political process, and military actions. Like how 9/11 justified the invasion of a country that ended up killing around a million people, even though it had nothing to do with it. We were victims and we lashed out, and the public at large supports this kind of thinking on a small scale and a large scale.

Helping out victims is of course a good thing, please don't get me wrong. Downtrodden people need help. Period. The problem arises however when the most obvious and accessible route to power in our society comes through playing the victim as thoroughly as possible. This drives people to become professional victims, as a means to sustain themselves. This is where the problem arises, because then their entire identity, self-worth, and maybe even income, is tied to this idea that they're a victim. If the stop seeing themselves as a victim, they no longer enjoy the social and financial benefits of being able to claim victimhood status. This keeps people from bettering their situation and wallowing and over-focusing on the areas in which they are victims, which creates bizarre people who group together to create bizarre social groups, which creates these bizarre situations we've been seeing in the news lately.

Everyone gets offended because our society disproportionately rewards people who get offended. And we don't reward people who try to better themselves enough, instead we just take away the extra support as they start succeeding which creates an headwind against climbing out of the victim status.

Think of all the angry customers and complaint letters that have changed things over the years. If those people were ignored instead of catered to, we might have a chance at fixing our society. Basically everyone needs to stop humoring idiots because it's profitable, and because it's socially easy. Stop catering to the lowest common denominator, the offended idiot. If victimhood gives you power and money, then everyone will cater to victimhood and we have a society with a pecking order based on who can demonstrate themselves to be the biggest victim.

This is totally broken. The only way to fix it is to change the incentives, which means calling out people on their BS! The fear of doing this is exactly why it continues to grow. Crocodile tears run the world. Everyone is terrified to say the emperor has no clothes because of how much power these people have, and how over-sensitive they are, and how much society at large sides with these victims out of misguided well intentions.