A few things:

1) Constitutional "freedom of speech" only applies to censorship by the government. Losing a friend over a disagreement is...losing a friend over a disagreement. Which has been going on forever. It's why they used to say never discuss religion or politics. If you discussed religion or politics and somebody got mad, that's not "canceling" it's a reminder that old adages have some truth to them.

Everyone has a right to speak, no one has (or has ever had) a right to speak without consequences.

2) I'd like to see a list of everyone who was actually fired from their job for something that wasn't so egregiously offensive they deserved it. I suspect it's a really, really short list. Everybody loves to wring their hands and wail about "cancel culture" but how much evidence is there really? Mostly what I see is proof by anecdote...which isn't actually proof.

3) When was this freedom we used to have? My whole live I've had rightwing Christians telling me what I can and can't say, hear, watch, read and do. Now some other people are trying to lay down some guidelines and suddenly everybody is freaking out. Straight White Christian men have always had a lot of freedom to do, well, pretty much anything they want.

As a non-Christian I have never in my life had a right to speak on the subject of religion without fear of punishment. Anyone who is LGBTQ has never had the freedom to speak, or even let their true self show, without fear. People of color have always had to censor themselves or risk being attacked.

What's different today? People other than straight White Christians are starting to demand a level of accountability from people who've always been free of it. I'm not a fan of censorship, but I'm ****ing tired of all this cancel culture whining. Guess what, the rest of us have always had to keep our thoughts to ourselves or risk consequences. Welcome to the club.