Depends on the nature of the speech, and the particular right that it infringes. But damages can be very substantial. Copyright laws, for example, are a restraint on free speech, and infringing them can cost you a lot of money.
if you’re looking at free speech as it affects flag-displaying, yes, clearly. While there are many countries that are just as free as the US when it comes to flag-displaying, it’s hardly possible that any country could be more free.
But there are more forms of speech than flag-displaying. If I live in a country where I’m not free to fly, say, an ISIS flag, but I am free to make multiple copies of Hollywood movies and sell them for my own profit without any restraint from, or liability to, the producers of those films, is my speech more free, or less free, than it would be in the United States?
The US constitution is a document of its time. It’s demarcation of rights, especially free press and free speech (and freedom of peaceable assembly) are pretty clear, and take precedence over any laws. The writers knew what sort of laws an unhindered authority could make up and were determined to prevent such.
By contrast, the Canadian constitution was written by lawyers and professional politicians to appease all sides. It’s full of weasel clauses such as exceptions that are “reasonable” in a democratic society, and the option for legislatures to “opt out” of many clauses for 5 years at a time. The UK, as I understand it, does not even have a written constitution, parliament can do anything, so there are no guarantees, only what judges see as common-law protection provides this year.
The ACLU is well aware that politicians will pile on any bad news with “there oughtta be a law!” even if there already is a law. We’ve seen plenty of bad and redundant laws thanks to knee-jerk reactions (cough Patriot Act cough). If you don’t defend free speech (not violent assembly, but free speech and peaceful assembly) when it comes to Nazis or Communists, then someday someone will use that same power to limit Black Lives Matter or anti-corruption protests, or use libel chill.
(I should also not that Justice Holmes made the “can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre” remark famous in a case where they were deporting anarchists for distributing anti-war, resist the draft flyers during WWI - a case where that analogy certainly did not hold, and one he later called the worst decision of his career and has subsequently been mostly overturned by new precedents. Even the best are not immune from knee-jerk reactions.)
There’s free speech, but free speech isn’t always what it seems. You can’t examine the freedom of speech without also examining its place in terms of other related freedoms like freedom of the press. Interestingly enough, the United States has dropped like a rock in this regard, from a ranking of 17th in 2002 (and arguably pretty close to being somewhere in the top 10 or close to it in the preceding decades, to #43 in 2017. Sure, the Constitution allows people to speak freely, but if a the Patriot Act gives law enforcement unfettered discretion to monitor people’s speech, if the DoJ allows broad warrants to ‘search’ blog IP records, if journalists are threatened with jail time if they don’t reveal their sources…how “freely” can Americans speak?