Bill...
Define "peaceful protest", will ya? Slander and Treason okay? What about sedition if nobody gets hurt? I guess that's acceptable because the lame-stream media preaches it everyday.
I suppose feces and urine toss at returning soldiers is just a sport to the lefties, so how should we be prepared if the situation calls for action, rather than words? You are preparing to fight with two sets of rules...the one that they use, and the one that will be used against you.
Slander is not OK, but the answer is a civil suit in a court of law.
Treason and sedition are crimes and not something that ordinary citizens can legally enforce.
Tossing things at others is a crime. Preferably, the police will respond, but in some situations one may take action in reasonable self-defense or defense of others.
The leftists do use different rules than us, but we are not going to go down to their level.
Also, the "rules" or the behavior varies from leftist group to group. The Pinkos sent a couple whimps and a woman over to harass us the first time we countered them at Walter Reed: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1374288/posts However, they are relatively tame. It's the anarchists that you don't want to counter without heavy police presence, see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1326853/posts and read the "BARBARIANS AT THE GATES" section.