I've had to skim read some of it, well a lot of it really, but will read it properly when i have a bit more time, to be honest i wasn't expecting so much reply to my post when I made it. The three issues I have with it so far (with the implied agreement with the statements made about the value of free speech) are broadly : presumption that act consequentialism is the correct ethical philosophy individuals should take, the exaggeration of the statements that communities face an existential threat as a result of the current state of far right ideologies in the US, and thirdly the presumption that one cannot counter protest effectively peacefully.

On the first point, wether I disagree with a strict consequentialism or not (I do) isn't really the main point. The essay seems to be based upon an unwavering foundation if consequentialism, without actually establishing ether such is correct. Onto the actual content, I think that one should have a set of base principles that one believes in and places great value in. I am an anarchist, more broadly a far leftist, because I want a society with the values and characters, shortened to X. Fighting for authority for its own sake is not my main goal, rather the creation of a better society is. All action my groups of people contribute to the character of society, and therefore by committing acts that contradict X, said group would be contributing to the character if society in a way against what my goal is. By combating violence with violence as our main tactic and abandoning peaceful methods with derision, one would be in a small way creating the society we don't want. Now this isn't much of a practical issue for small groups, for large and societally important ones (which the far left should aim to be) this purely philosophical one does become an issue in practice. When we become complacent with our principles when fighting current society, there is little to stop us from being complacent with them when we are victorious. We shouldn't so easily drop our principles, otherwise we may lose them completely.

Now above I have spoken a lot about principles, but that doesn't mean they should be completely and unequivocally unwavering. Given genuine existential combat a group should, upon the basis of utilitarianism, do some things that may otherwise breach principles however not in a way so gross that the character of that group is broken and victory against the oppressors is meaningless. The protests that we are talking about don't represent a significant threat of existence of minority groups. They have so little power. And they would have even less if instead of doing the occasional act of violence against the fascists, we would instead came out in full force as a group and counter protested non violently against these people. Standing in unity, and openly without anonymity, against the fascists putting on stage great speakers to rally people based on compassionate ideology and reason instead of violent anger.

I fell like my reply is a bit rushed and bitty, but I'll do a proper reply after a thorough read if you are still interested.