However, when you tweet that you support a presidential candidate and lose your job or when you expose some shady dealings as a journalist and your house is attacked by a mob or you state your opinion about anything and get death threats - these are not consequences of your speech. These are examples of revenge or retaliation. We do mean that freedom to speak is freedom from retaliation. We actually have laws against retaliation in specific cases and, yes, even against retaliation by private parties.
You're not free from all retaliation, especially if those laws are only in specific cases.
For example, there are laws for retaliation, even. You can say whatever you want, but if that speech happens to be untrue and directed at some party you could be subject to a defamation suit. That is not the government punishing you for your speech, but it is a legal retaliation for what was said.
And in your example it's not a retaliation - you can only successfully sue if you have actual damages so if the speech caused damages then the lawsuit is a consequence (just like in the similar example in my previous post about fraud).
Hiding behind the word "consequence" doesn't fool anybody, you know. It's well understood that it refers to doxxing, intimidation, and attempts to injure the subject's livelihood by inducing their employer to terminate them without cause, none of which is legal.
But the GP is actually right - people misunderstand that "freedom of speech" means "freedom [from government interference in my] speech [except under very specific circumstances]." Any other interpretation has no basis in law or reality. Like the scene from Liar, Liar, my employer can compel me to say that the blue pen is actually red, and fire me if I don't. Me taking the pen to court and showing it to the judge won't prove anything, won't get my job back, etc.
Picking obviously abhorrent things like anti-miscegenation makes the argument easier. If a coworker was vocally against interracial marriage I would expect and demand that my employer terminate them, but I would be against the government making it a crime to speak out against interracial marriage.
> "If a coworker was vocally advocating that abortion is legal I would expect and demand that my employer terminate them, but I would be against the government making it a crime to speak out in favor of allowing abortion to be legal."
See the problem now? Anything that one side makes permissible can be used by others political movements for their own ends in ways you might not like.
Moreover, it's not really clear that coordinated efforts to induce an employer to terminate someone are legal, see for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference You use an example for a co-worker but most often these terminations are caused by external pressure.
No, because I am a free speech advocate.
The thing about free speech is the content is irrelevant. You changed the message and political leaning of the statement, which is fine, but if that changes your opinion about the speech you're not a free speech advocate. Whether it's a pro-choice or anti-choice argument is irrelevant. You're free to say it, and your employer is free to take whatever action they see fit from it - from nothing, to promoting you, to terminating you.
Err, if you say something, the government also protects you from other citizens attacking you physically, not just the government. They often fail, but there's no hint of "if you say something and somebody is upset, they're free to punch you".
If you say you're going to kill me (not protected speech), and a reasonable person would believe you, I can hit you in self defense (affirmative defense for criminal battery).
Not if your speech is protected, that's the point. And that's also what cancel culture, doxxing etc is about. They're not going after people announcing plans to kill the President or shoot up a school.
Free speech without the government enforcing the physical integrity of the speaker is meaningless.
Actually, the point is that your speech is protected from the government (and with certain specific exceptions). Your speech is specifically, emphatically not protected from non-government actors.
All of them are legal, except some forms of “intimidation”. And, actually, it's “inducing their employer to terminate them with a cause ThrowawayR2 doesn't like” not “without cause”.
The government isn’t cracking down on people for what they say. But if you broadcast something that goes against your employer’s values (whatever they may be) you can probably expect some blowback—for example.
And you nailed it when you said tweeting is akin to broadcasting, because it is. It is not akin to having a discussion with a group of people. It just doesn’t feel like broadcasting maybe—so people have a false sense about it.