Free speech campus assassins 
ThinkProgress anti-Milo piece indicates neither reasonable thought nor favorable advancement

Because an exhaustive study of the article at issue would be unpleasant for all concerned, only its odious philosophical undergirding will here be dealt with.

"Berkeley plans $1 million dollar spend on Milo Yiannopoulos' event amid massive budget cuts," was recently posted on the ThinkProgress site. Credited to Kira Lerner and Joshua Eaton, the piece puts forward the revolting conceits that freedom of speech is contrary to the general interest, and that it is morally just for identity groups claiming pre-event apprehension to exercise veto authority over disfavored voices.

https://thinkprogress.org/berkeley-free-speech-cost-c140085b8cc0/

The authors implicitly lay blame for unaddressed student want at the feet of event speakers, quoting campus representatives as complaining of underfunded nutrition programs. Were Universities not spending for security, they argue, those monies could be directed toward such human need.

"The security plan that's already in place, which the university says it's moving forward with until further notice, would waste resources on a campus where students say they need more financial support," say the ThinkProgress authors. 

Nowhere do the writers properly assign culpability to potential rioters, though it is because of their anti-liberty agitations that security is required. Milo does probably desire the residual publicity. But in principle, no speaker, regardless of their viewpoint, should be held responsible for costs stemming from opponents' destructive actions.

The jackboot fancy cherished in the article is at utter odds with the First Amendment. But it is also in lockstep with current prejudices against Constitutional rights and freedoms, including untrammeled political and cultural expression. 

Brookings' John Villasenor recently published a study of college students' relevant attitudes. Fewer than half, representing various demographics and political affiliations, believe that "hate speech" enjoys legal protection. (An astounding fallacy, given the abundance of judicial precedent to the contrary). 

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/09/18/views-among-college-students-regarding-the-first-amendment-results-from-a-new-survey/

51% of study respondents supported shouting down objectionable speakers -- an interference with their First Amendment rights. 19% even believed violence to be an acceptable response to 'offensive' speech. 

(Washington Post writer Catherine Rampell recently asserted: "Here's the problem with suggesting that upsetting speech warrants 'safe spaces,' or otherwise conflating mere speech with physical assault: If speech is violence, then violence becomes a justifiable response to speech.")

There is no need to unfurl a list of once-unpopular ideas that eventually bettered America. Nor must a given thought offer that potential in order to merit legal safeguarding. 

Popularity is not a legitimate gauge against which speech can be measured for validity. And I'm talking, not about any particular content, but the quality of speech, itself. The liberty to believe what seems most likely, to endorse values and form opinions, and to give public utterance to those perceptions, is a treasure no good man would seek to deny his fellows.

For decades, indeed centuries, great minds have deliberated over the rights of the individual in a democratic society. Judicial and legislative efforts in that same noble task have all proceeded from the mighty foundation of the Constitution, a remarkable, America-founding document that literally altered the course of man's history.

Today, all of that stands imperiled by callow, authoritarian, intellectually superficial miscreants who don't recognize the enormity of their wrongdoing. That once precious and time-honored liberties are destroyed, they cannot later be restored to original soundness.