Secretary of State Marco Rubio has formally decided to bar some on the political “left” from visiting America, according to a diplomatic cable he sent to embassies this week.

When I obtained a copy of the internal cable banning those in vaguely “aligned groups” of “far-left terrorists,” I couldn’t help but laugh at the timing. The next day, Rubio was in Greece where, with the Acropolis behind him, he celebrated “free debate and public discussion, the contest of mind with mind.”

Rubio even praised Socrates, whom Athens executed on charges of “impiety” and “corrupting the youth.” In the same speech, Rubio leveled basically the same charge, saying that “in too many places, we taught our children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit.”

Under the pretext that certain forms of speech can lead to violence, or even more vaguely, can pose some kind of threat to America’s economy, Rubio has laid out all of the ways that the federal government can decide which ideas are too dangerous and thus can be the basis for denying a visa.