Boston

It looks like - contrary to TV news who tend to play up drama - that Boston did it right and avoided violent confrontations.

There is no question that the timing was stupid.  But are we really going to cheer on suppression of free speech?  I can agree with the position that any armed protests and Nazi/KKK protests carry with them an explicit threat, and threatening speech is not protected.

But I'm not sure that the free speech protesters in Boston were KKK and Nazis.  The proper thing to do is to shut them down by the power of numbers, but there was abuse present (if not violence) and that can't be the default position of the Left.

Jon Chait got a lot of grief for saying that the Campus Left represented a new intolerant force that people who care about liberty and free expression should fight back against.  I wonder if he was right.  What's more, I worry that every action where the Left shuts down conservative speech - as opposed to hate speech - becomes a win for the narrative that empowers actual Nazis.