Free speech concerns

Recently there was a protest against a speech given by a conservative person on the University of California, Berkeley, and the same place where the most contentious speeches have been made previously. But this time it was different as the supposedly peaceful protest turned into violence and the University had to cancel the whole speech before it even started. A similar thing has happened in New York University that a conservative person had to cancel the speech in view of the protests orchestrated by some students. Now I understand that since the election of the new President, things have not been running as smoothly as before and there has been a great divide between liberal and conservatives. But this time, people don’t even want to hear what the conservatives have to say and have resorted to violence and reportedly they have planned to keep up this kind of pressure. As you already know that I am a big proponent of freedom of speech and this includes speeches which are deemed uncomfortable by some and may hurt the sentiments of many people. But here is my point that even if the speech is hurtful, everybody should be given a chance to present their point of view and if you don’t like it present your point of view and convince the other side that they are wrong. Resorting to violence means that you have already convinced people that you don’t have a counter argument and the only way is to shut the other person. Freedom of speech is for everyone and it should be respected by all.