Obligatory: "The purpose of free speech is to protect unpopular speech. If the speech were popular, it would already be free without any guarantee."

How about the tolerance paradox? Tolerant society that tolerates intolerance will cease to be tolerant.

More critically, it's to protect that speech from the government. Because you don't really need protection from anyone else, as no one else has a monopoly on violence.

An online mob can turn into violence. Or, the least look to silence opinion, either directly or by soliciting favor through boycotts, etc.

The violence of an online mob is not protected by the government. So who cares? Arrest the mobsters and move on with life.

A boycott is not even violence. So, again, who cares? We're not even in physical danger in the case of a boycott. In fact, the boycott is actually free speech. (Or, more precisely, free expression).

But consider, if the government comes after you, who will you arrest? Who can you get to defend you? In this case, the Constitutional protections of our freedoms are essential.

The threat from the government is the danger that the Founders were insistent on mitigating. And they were right to do so. The government is the main entity that we need protection from vis-a-vis restriction of rights.

let's not start stretching things too much now.

“Hate speech” is actually a great example. I’m a fan of the fact trans people are getting better treatment in today’s society, but if some obnoxious jerk says “there are only two genders” or “Chelsea Manning is a dude”, that may make him an asshole but it’s not a crime, it’s not aggresssion or violence.

Yet “hate speech” is literally a phrase created to justify oppression against people for having opinions you don’t like.

I may choose not to associate with a jerk like in my example, but the perpetrators of “hate speech” concept want to deny him basic human rights, and often do violence against him.

Ironically for the “crime” of being different.

Basic human rights s are rights for everyone.

Genuine liberals used to advocate for the right of the KKK to march. The ACLU even filed a lawsuit Withings the past ten years defending their right to make white robes fools of themselves.

When “liberals” stopped defending human rights, you lost the plot and the whole point of being liberal.

Many leftists are now coming to different conclusions about free speech: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

You guys talk about "left" and "right" as if there is a difference.

Both are characterized by marked intolerance. A small minority of both are what I would term "Violently Intolerant". You can get yourself killed for being a congressman at a baseball game, or for being black and going to bible study or walking up a street. The "Left" and the "Right", particularly their extremists, are just bad business all around when it comes to what we would typically term "tolerance".

Nah, I'm intolerant of nazis, and that's not the same as being intolerant of jews.

No one said it's the same. This is the problem, you take an extreme case and you say, "See! Since this [insert ridiculously extremist case here] is obviously bad then my [insert more reasonable case here] is good!"

No one's talking about the obvious stuff here. Like Nazis, or forcing blacks back into slavery or something. I'm talking about being intolerant of reasonable ideas.

It's perfectly reasonable for a bunch of congressmen to get together for a baseball game without being shot.

It's perfectly reasonable for young black military officers to walk up a city street without having a knife stuck in his chest.

Don't even get me started on how reasonable it is for little old ladies to go to churches.

Who are “the liberals”? You surely cannot think that all “liberals” or even a majority I think we should be banning speech. If you do think that I’d love some data because as a self identified liberal I don’t want to ban hate speech. I think you’re painting a straw man here.