IMHO, the freedom to protest is NOT a very important freedom. It is the cause of considerable anguish, it greatly impedes progress, and it is generally exercised irresponsibly.
We'd all be better off if it were curtailed a bit, or if it were only available in even-numbered years.
It's not the freedom to protest that worries me; it's that the freedom was conceived in an era when people had a common view of what morality consists of and the importance of depending on your fellow man to get things done -- therefore you did not insult the common morality lightly.
Now we have become so extraordinarily affluent in comparison that people no longer understand the impact of their words on their fellow man, just as they no longer have to weed the garden, milk the cow or kill the chicken to eat dinner.
I must disagree with your view.
The right of protest is the single most essential aspect of those natural rights recognized by the specifically enumerated limits imposed on government power by the First Amendment.
I agree that we'd be better off if those who protest displayed some self-restraint, but I cannot agree that it should be "curtailed a bit" (implicit: curtailed by law) - that is unconstitutional.