Sorry only read the first two paragraphs, not much of a reader. Sucks getting fired and I may have missed the whole point of your post. I was in management for awhile before retiring for good at age 44. How can I put this, people are assholes and I seen people being fired for looking at the boss wrong or just say something the boss did not like. It is what it is, maybe take the time to consult a lawyer and move on to better things or even start a small business. I know not any help but I gave it a shot.
Right or wrong, surely you're aware that it's your mouth that got you fired. Maybe subconsciously you wanted to go, and did it on purpose And yes, its all fun and games and free speech, unless it says otherwise in your contract. PS How do you feel about unions? Would you defend a company's right to free speech? To death I mean
It seems quite obvious your employer had already decided to let you go. For whatever reason. I have sort of been in a similar situation where I was shown a metric as grounds for "you need to work harder or else...". I tried explaining that the system I work with does not readily have eg. all the templates ready so generating material will take more time. I also (possibly this was the last drop) commented that the time allocated is not enough to reach a high quality result. Also the case they used as an example was a job where I continued from another person's work. In short he had done part 1 and I had to do part 2. When I started it became clear part 1 was nowhere near finished, there were unfinished models, modeling errors, missing components, some questionable decisions on joints (mechanical engineering). I had to spend the first week finishing part 1 and that was all the allocated time already. Part 2 was creating all assembly and manufacturing drawings. The drawing I was given as reference was a joke, yes it's quick to do but is useless for a workshop. My boss wouldn't really listen but just repeat what he said and start asking really weird questions like do I sleep during work day! At that point it was clear to me they just wanted me out. But maybe that was because on another task, my first one, I proposed a solution to a problem that my boss wanted to change. When presented to the customer, the customer required the solution be changed to match my proposition. Guess that was too much for his ego to take... good riddance though, my later jobs have been better anyway.
Whats going on dog? It's down again. Have you been contacted by "the authorities"? Don't answer that. Why not take this to some legal/law forum and see if you have any legal recourse.
