Replace “doesn’t make sense” with “isn’t competitive.” If exceptionalism is a mirage, freedom of speech incurs a cost on a country for no gain. Ceteris paribus others without that drag will have an advantage.
Is your correction supposed to be an improvement? I mean, the statement "If exceptionalism is a fiction, freedom of speech isn't competitive" makes even less sense. It makes no sense at all to talk about freedom of speech incurring a cost. There is absolutely zero cost in not persecuting anyone for having a different opinion.
Of course there is. If anti-vax and anti-mask advocates could be silenced by the state, public health would improve in the short term.
Freedom of speech is effortful to maintain. It takes effort and self control for a society to tolerate opposing views within itself. Forgetting this risks the freedom itself.
This comment makes no sense at all. The threat which freedom of speech is designed to protect us from is not attacks on exceptionalism, but oppression and control by the hands of a dictatorship. It matters nothing if you feel you're exceptional or you just happen to disagree with anyone in power over any subject, be it critical or irrelevant. What matters is that no one should have the right to deny you the ability to freely express your ideas, because that would represent control over all aspects of your life and existence.