Not having read what you're replying to, I'm going to blindly throw in my one cent (only
half of General Wesc's writeups do make sense.)
If you can't say something unpopular without dire retributions (thrown in prison) then it's only prior restraint that's restricted. (Prior restraint was ruled not allowed in New York Times co. v. United States) It's a very limited form a freedom of speech, if you can even call it that. "After the fact" punishment of speech in meant to prevent future infractions and based on the illegality of the action. Therefore it's that saying the speech that it's punishing is not protected.
For relevant freedom of speech there can be no special retribution and we have to protect the speaker from such retribution. (We can retribute by calling them dumbasses but we can't throw them in jail.)
The U.S. has that. The U.S. has freedom of speech. Not absolute--you can't directly incite people into illegal action (Shenk v. U.S.) or use fighting words, (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire)--but we can speak out against the government. We have more freedom than most countries allow, we just don't have absolute freedom of speech. That's a good thing. Does anyone really want child porn legal?