Our rights are violated all the time. The TSA, the Patriot Act, the NSA surveillance, free speech zones, DUI checkpoints, stop-and-frisk, unfettered border searches, constitution-free zones, draconian copyright laws, the drug war, etc., all show that. What's your point, other than to state the obvious fact that the government is full of evil thugs who do not care about freedom? It seems that's the way you want it.
Not at all, but it seems like you'd like to create some kind of hippy utopia, good luck with that. Those of us that deal in the real world realize that you must strike a balance between the rights of one and the rights of another. Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.
You might be okay with that, but I'm not.
Good to have a benchmark for your lunacy.
You don't know what it means to be free. Using your logic, people from China or North Korea have just as much free speech as people in the US; sure, if they say the wrong thing, the government might severely punish them, but they're still technically free to speak.
In those cases the government specifically prohibits certain kinds of speech and directly punishes them, that isn't what we're talking about here.
Hint: If free speech didn't mean being free from government thugs punishing you for your speech, the first amendment would be pointless, and the world would be far more unpleasant than it is now. You people are the ones who don't understand what it means to be free.
Hint: shouldn't they be allowed some measure of control over the things they create? Would it be better that they didn't create because they knew that they would have no control over the product they make?
Now, if by "consequences," you mean normal people forming opinions of you and perhaps criticizing you, then you're right; your speech can have such consequences. However, if you meant government interference, then you're wrong. Free speech is completely different from the mere ability to speak.
the government doesn't interfere. The copyright holder uses the legal system to address your infringing on his rights. When you speak you can make choices about how you speak. You don't live in a freedom bubble getting to pass through the world pissing all over everyone else just because you ride someone else's coattails and can't be bothered to have an original thought of your own.