The neoconservatives over at the Free Beacon, a thought-monitoring website in the mold of ThinkProgress on the left, took time out of their customary schedule of spreading Islamic radicalism around the world to criticize Rand Paul for recommending a few books on foreign policy whose conclusions are not “USA! USA!” and “they hate us for our awesomeness.” (I understand the senator has taken the reading list down, but the Free Beacon kept a screenshot.)

It is “anti-Israel,” we are told, to believe that something other than American awesomeness could account for why the United States went from being deeply respected throughout the Middle East — so much so that Syrians wanted to be governed by the U.S. as a League of Nations mandate after World War I — to being denounced and despised just about everywhere. Yes, I have read books about Islamic violence over the centuries, too, but if that were the whole story, the jihadists wouldn’t make recruitment tapes filled with gruesome evidence of the fruits of Western intervention. They’d just cite the Koran and be done with it.

As usual, the article reads like something out of communist East Germany, solemnly unbosoming the forbidden thoughts to be found in these books as if simply to list them is refutation enough. These men have committed thoughtcrime, citizen. Is that not all you need to know?

Since you’ll probably never, ever guess what has the Free Beacon so upset, I’ll tell you: it’s the suggestion that Israel might — might, I say — have a little bit of influence in the making of U.S. foreign policy. Where could anyone get an idea like that? Who could think such a thing? Why, only a crazy person who hates people, of course.

They’re also upset that Ron Paul thinks a Christian ought to have a hard time endorsing some recent U.S. wars.

These people are filled with hate, citizen! We must silence them! We the silencers, on the other hand, who write Stasi-style editorials, are deeply committed to the brotherhood of man.