Who are these people that have been punished for speech? It seems to me more a boogeyman of “if I say X, people will not like it” which is normal, sometimes people find some ideas repugnant, than a real scare.

And yes I am using a relatively broad definition of powerful, I’m not talking Bezos etc in the 0.01%, I’m talking more upper middle class and up mostly white men. Who maybe are not correctly defined as the powerful but they are traditionally the people protected by law & USA cultural norms (which isn’t power in the traditional sense of political power or wealth but means quite a bit in one’s day-to-day life).

And one more time to say the original counter argument of mine again, if there was free speech explain to me COINTELPRO.