You're right - companies are, in most cases, legally free to fire employees whose speech/expression they disagree with.

But my article wasn't a rebuke of that idea, nor was it about free speech as a legal right. It was about free speech as a cultural value.

Gina Carano's post did no harm to anyone. I doubt it did any harm to Disney's image (remember how quickly the controversy around Trader Joe's' "racist" food packaging died down when they refused to bow to woke authoritarians?).

The concept of free speech isn't particularly strong when it's simply protected by the government - it's at its strongest when it's upheld by a society that can withstand the occasional discomfort it often causes. Free speech crumbles when limited on the basis of hurt feelings. When hurt feelings - or the potential to hurt feelings - are all that's needed to turn someone into a Thought Criminal, then *all* speech is a potential emotional WMD. *Any* piece of speech - no matter how trivial or innocent - can be the source of *any* person's ruination.

I offer you a challenge: dig up an offensive social media post or text of yours from your past, share it with the world, and see how well your belief holds up when the mob comes for you and your friends abandon you.