Robert Gehl writes that a new survey of young Americans provides some very troubling insight into what this country may look like in a few decades.

While – as expected – younger Americans are more idealistic and more liberal than us older folks – what wasn’t expected was how intolerant they would be to the simple idea of free speech.

The poll, conducted worldwide by Populus on behalf of a non-profit educational foundation, shows that only 62 percent of “Generation Z” respondents – people aged 18-21 – agree with the statement that “People should have the right to non-violent free speech in all circumstances even when what they say is offensive to a religion.”

When asked if that same speech is offensive to “minority groups,” only 57 percent of young Americans agree with the right.

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Amazingly, there are plenty of countries whose young people are champions of free speech. More than three quarters of young people in Turkey and seven in ten in Argentina are supportive of non-violent free speech, even if it offends.

With the political climate as polarizing as ever and so-called “non-violent” demonstrations frequently turning into violent riots (mostly from the left), young Americans are equating “speech” with “violence.” And when the left has slogans like “Punch a Nazi,” it’s not difficult to see how intolerance of any kind of speech that diverts from the mainstream media narrative can be legitimized.

The fascists (and they were fascists, folks, look at their shields), who were among those marching about in Charlottesville had a perfect right to peacefully assemble, protest, and “petition their government.”

But when one of their own mows down a crowd of counter-protesters, the spotlight turns not on the criminal, but on the fact that they were there in the first place: assembling and petitioning.

As The Economist puts it:

The right to free speech is not absolute, as anyone who shouts “fire” in a crowded theatre will soon discover. At the same time, the recent polling data bolster the view that today′s youth are embracing a right not to be offended, which threatens to squelch necessary debate. Time will tell whether this group starts to dedicate itself to winning arguments rather than to preventing them from occurring.

The left thinks this is a good thing. “Hate speech,” they call it, and it must be silenced – even though the Supreme Court has unanimously ruled there’s really no such thing as a “hate speech” exemption in the First Amendment.

When Black Lives Matter, or the Antifa or Fascists or White Supremacists march in the street, chanting and parading about, criminalizing their peaceful activities will only give power to their message. Their rhetoric goes underground, becomes scandalous and makes it even more attractive to naïve young people. Look at the rise of neo-Nazis in Germany, where any talk of supporting Hitler and the Nazi regime is banned.

The best weapon we have against fascists, violent communists, the Black Panthers and white supremacists who gallivant around spewing racial nonsense is to let them speak.

Let them march. Let what they say echo around the country and fall on the deaf ears of ordinary Americans who reject this kind of nonsense.

Banning speech that offends is not the answer. Beating them with American ideals of freedom, equality and liberty is.