It might not be created by the government, but within our Constitution only the government is limited by the First.
If people can’t abridge speech then book companies have to publish everybody, newspapers can’t fire anybody, non-disclosure agreements can’t exist, and Democrats can put Obama signs in your front yard leaving you with no recourse.
You can look at it as you signing it away, but the effect is the same. Your employer can set the speech rules for you, that’s the effect. Reversing the active verb doesn’t change the situation.
True. But again I was only using the quote as an argument that the Right to Free Speech is an independent, pre-existing right. That “within our Constitution only the government is limited by the First” makes no difference to the argument at hand which is: Freedom of Speech is among the Rights Governments are instituted to secure therefore arguably the government (which includes Federal, State and Local levels) is (or should be) involved.
“...then book companies have to publish everybody, newspapers can’t fire anybody, non-disclosure agreements can’t exist, and Democrats can put Obama signs in your front yard leaving you with no recourse” does not follow from “If people can’t abridge speech”
A book company declining to publish someone’s work doesn't stop someone from publishing it elsewhere or doing it themselves if they can.
A newspapers firing somebody doesn't prevent that somebody from starting their own newspaper if they can.
If someone signs a non-disclosure agreement, they have promised or contracted to not exercise their free speech rights, which they can do.
A Democrat putting an Obama sign in someone else’s front yard when that someone doesn't want it there can put such a sign on his own property instead.
“You can look at it as you signing it away, but the effect is the same.”
The effect may be the same but the cause is different and that counts. The effect is the same whether someone is murdered or commits suicide. The cause of the effect is different, and that's important.