[themartorana]

There's the rub, though, isn't it? If the protest is against something that isn't in the public interest (cops killing black people indiscriminately without indictment, let's say) when is the public better served? By powers held over them by an authoritarian state, or by the protest against that state?

Everything in the above paragraph is a slight overstatement. But while there's arguably between 0-1 good times to yell "fire" in a theater (it could be argued that panicking doesn't help the situation), protesting actions by authority isn't quite so black and white.

Just as the exercise of free speech can prove annoying or vexing to a bystander that doesn't agree with that speech, so too can other exercises of more controversial rights, without those rights necessarily being a violation of the Constitution - at least the spirit of it.