“It does, however, also allow others to exercise their free speech protections to shout down and mask the vitriolic voices of hate and divisiveness.”

Masked men helping people “mask” hateful, divisive voices? Illuminating choice of words, but simply masking hate and divisiveness doesn’t make it go away, it only festers(antifa itself is proof of that). A more productive approach might be to address some of the roots of those issues not add fuel to the bonfire.

How often are masked/hooded  men defenders of liberty and justice? A pretty rare event, I’d say. Not all antifa fall under the label of thugs, but enough are to taint them as little better than those they’re supposed to be “defending” the populace from. Very hard to take them seriously as a positive force.