Well then, aren't death threats a form of speech? Because they're clearly illegal. What about a nazi saying "death to all <insert minority>"? It's just words at the end of the day, and most of them won't act on it, right?
> people nearly always come back with some sort of "that's not actually speech" weird categorization defence here
Grand parent neatly predicted your response, you are trying to categorize every kind of illegal speech forms as something else than speech. Either you can say whatever you want or you can't. There's no absolutism with restrictions.
First: I'm not saying "that's not actually speech". I'm saying that the crime isn't that it's speech; the crime is that it's fraud. You can't take fraud, speak it, and now it's OK because speech. No, it's still fraud, and it's still illegal because of the fraud, not because of the speech.
Second: There's no "free speech absolutism". Not only does speech not erase other crimes, there are also certain restrictions on free speech as speech. Imminent incitement to violence is one of them.
> people nearly always come back with some sort of "that's not actually speech" weird categorization defence here
Grand parent neatly predicted your response, you are trying to categorize every kind of illegal speech forms as something else than speech. Either you can say whatever you want or you can't. There's no absolutism with restrictions.