The information necessary to the ongoing success of a society is only made available through the interaction of the ideas expressed by the individual participants of that society.
When the members of a society devote resources to the task of limiting the sphere of allowed ideas they do so at the risk of forgoing information that might otherwise contribute to the success of the society.
I’d like to know who and where the bad people are so I can avoid them. Laws that prevent them from expressing their bad ideas have the effect of obscuring those bad ideas which makes them less available for the scrutiny necessary to their rejection.
The extent to which this risk is accurately appreciated by a society is probably highly correlated with the ongoing success of that society.
A reliable sign of a society that is struggling to accurately appreciate the risks of constraining individual expression is found in it’s inability to agree upon the boundary between the peaceful withdrawal of consent (boycotting, disassociation, etc) and the need to employ MATERIAL violence in order to avert imminent general social catastrophe (yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater).
I am happy to live in a society that allows bad ideas, hurt feelings, and emotional hostility because I know that without the information produced by these undesirable elements I have little hope that this same society will survive the more imminent threats to its ongoing success.