Ron Paul says US `slipping into a fascist system'

[TexasTowelie]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul warned the U.S. is "slipping into a fascist system" dominated by government and businesses as he held a fiery rally Saturday night upstaging established Republican Party banquets a short distance away.

The Texas congressman drew a couple thousand standing and chanting people to Kansas City's Union Station as the party's establishment dined on steak across the street at the Missouri GOP's annual conference. Kansas Republicans were holding a similar convention in a suburb across the state line.

Paul staged his rally near the nation's World War I museum, asserting that the U.S. got off track about 100 years ago during the era of President Woodrow Wilson, who led the nation through World War I and unsuccessfully advocated for the nation's involvement in a forerunner of the United Nations.

"We've slipped away from a true Republic," Paul said. "Now we're slipping into a fascist system where it's a combination of government and big business and authoritarian rule and the suppression of the individual rights of each and every American citizen."

http://lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2012-02-18/ron-paul-says-us-slipping-fascist-system

[onehandle]

1. Clueless, gutless, Libertarian fuck. Have the balls to run third party. nt

[DCBob]

7. He cant run third party. / correction.. actually I think he can.

Last edited Sun Feb 19, 2012, 01:51 PM - Edit history (2)

In most states, once a candidate participates in state's primary they are barred from running third party.. the so called "sore loser" laws. I suppose he could drop out now and then he would still have a bunch of states left he could run in but it does not seem he is going to do that.

========

Added: What I just discovered doing some googling just now is that most states have sore loser laws but they dont apply to running for President.

http://www.ballot-access.org/2007/01/12/sore-loser-laws-dont-generally-apply-to-presidential-candidates/

[peacebird]

15. Guess that LIEbermans state was lacking a sore loser law, since he ran as independent against

the dem who beat him in the primary

[DCBob]

17. Corrrect, Connecticutt does not have one.

What I just discovered doing some googling just now is that most states have sore loser laws but they dont apply to running for President.

http://www.ballot-access.org/2007/01/12/sore-loser-laws-dont-generally-apply-to-presidential-candidates/

[treestar]

2. Insane ravings

Of course he can't point to any group that is actively trying to do any such thing.

[geckosfeet]

4. Except for big business buying and owning every politician in town.

Face it, big business owns this country. And they will completely own us as soon they are able.

[kenfrequed]

18. uhm..

Ron Paul would do absolutely NOTHING to affect corporate power save the only thing that big business and corporations want more that compromised or corrupted regulation and that is Deregulation.

As to facism I think Ron Paul needs to read a few friggin books about facism. It is clear he has absolutely no idea what the word means.

[geckosfeet]

32. Not falling in line with Paul. Just making an observation.

Clearly the corporate ownership of government, economy and citizens is taking on a new face. Corporate entities are not stupid enough to roll out a fascist agenda that is a clone of Mussolini's Italy. They know that failed. And they also know that the methods were well documented and it would be recognized even by the most doltish among us.

[kenfrequed]

37. Actually

The violent thugs in Italy and Germany preceeded their corporate sponsorship. I think you need to use the term facism carefully. If you want to use the term autocracy or plutocracy that might be a closer match. I know that 'facist' has a strong visceral tone but in some ways we are farther from the identifying functional elements of facism than we were a decade ago.

And again, Ron Paul is a moron who doesn't even have a working definition of facism that makes sense.

[geckosfeet]

38. Corporatism? Capitolacracy? Industrialism? Or is it just plain cronyism?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism
Aside from humans, certain animal species are known to exhibit strong corporate social organization, such as penguins.

Corporatist types of community and social interaction are common to many ideologies, including: absolutism, capitalism, conservatism, fascism, liberalism, progressivism, reactionism, social democracy (social corporatism), and syndicalism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism

In any event, it stinks.

[kenfrequed]

39. It does

"Citizen United" was a great step backwards for us all. And Ron Paul has given no indication that he opposes it. He is not a solution. He is a capitalist fundamentalist that has no idea about the complexities of the society we live in. Our founding fathers even renounced his level of absence of government.

[Lawlbringer]

42. I have been saying this

but I can't find many sources to back it up. It would actually help me win an argument if I could get a citation stating that the founding fathers thought that diminished central gov't wasn't such a good idea after all lol

[former9thward]

5. Insane?

Everyday I read posts on DU that Wall Street owns the government. Many posters routinely describe the U.S. as fascist. How is what Paul saying different? I would not describe our system as fascist but I do think the large corporations and the government are merging. It is becoming more authoritarian and we are losing rights.

[NYC Liberal]

20. Because Paul would let corporations run rampant,

even more so than they do now. If we are "slipping into fascism" then he is right there behind it.

[socialist_n_TN]

22. Well that's what I was thinking too. Along with.........

that he should feel right at home considering his neo Nazi background.

[bahrbearian]

3. He is half right "a combination of government and big business "

[Brettongarcia]

26. And big religion

[Brettongarcia]

27. And nationalism/patriotism/miltarism; "support the troops" and war, as solution for everything

That's classic Italian fascism. And? The GOP.

Ron Paul was my congressman; I've talked to him several times, and worked with him. He's a good congressman - but would be a disaster as President.

Interestingly, about half the time he identifies himself as a Libertarian ... but then the other half, as a good Republican.

[madinmaryland]

6. And it is HIS party that has driven this country towards a fascist system.

Bush was the epitome of a fascist government in the 21st century.

[greatauntoftriplets]

8. To quote EarlG.....

Fuck Ron Paul!!!

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. The diagnosis may be correct, but his cure of leeches and blood-letting isn't. nt

[KarenS]

10. amen to that!! n/t

[napoleon_in_rags]

13. Lol! There you go. nt

[kenfrequed]

19. hmm

The viral infection of paulitis has diagnosed the opportunistic bacterial (money in politics) one that it aids and abets.

[MarkCharles]

11. Ron Paul is a simpleton's concept of what a

Libertarian should be. But really he's just another rich racist white male egomaniac and a simpleton, himself, too.

For his simpleton followers to actually think he published those newsletters in the 1990's and didn't know what they contained....beyond belief.

Clueless, gutless, Libertarian fuck, I like what the other poster said, too. Very true.

[socialist_n_TN]

23. RE: your second paragraph/sentence.........

If it's true, then he should feel right at home based on those newsletters and his neo Nazi background and supporters.

[MarkCharles]

24. Consider this: would a doctor and a lawmaker allow something...

racially inflammatory to be published in his own newsletter with his name at the top of it without knowing exactly what it contained?

There's nothing believable about his denials of knowledge of what was published under his already well-known name.

His denials are evidence of his cowardice to own up to his own previously published opinions.

[socialist_n_TN]

25. Of course not. He's a fascist himself..........

I suspect this is one of those times when the politician uses the oratory of his opposition to gain votes among disaffected opponents.

[think]

14. There should be a law against speech like this. The Patriot Act just doesn't go far enough....

[woo me with science]

31. Thank you.

Defensiveness is particularly ugly when it turns into a malignant denial.

We are moving toward corporate fascism, and it is a bipartisan problem.

You cannot fix a problem if you refuse to acknowledge it.

[kestrel91316]

16. .....says Mr. Business-Before-All-Else himself........

[Douglas Carpenter]

21. here is a message that truly captures the real Ron Paul

[jonthebru]

28. Ron Paul knows he has no chance,

I see three things going on. He is making a good living at it, he gets his agenda on the news and in front of people and he is setting his son up for future runs...A very dangerous scenario actually.

[Cosmocat]

29. Agreed

He knows his party will never let him out of his box, but he gets to jet all over the place and be treated like one of the Beatles by his fans, and at the very worst, he got his son into the senate.

[Fozzledick]

30. and I take it that he's in favor of it?

[Cherchez la Femme]

33. He's right on that

he's right on a couple other things too

-- but he's still as crazy and evil as they come... being right on a couple things far from makes one a good, humanistic person!

[fusilier0770]

34. So says the biggest fascist leghumper of them all...

The thing that cracks me up is how Ron Paul calls out his own hipocrisy with a straight face and his worshipers lap it up like its the most forward thinking thing in the world. Ron Paul may not be bought by corporations because he will do their bidding for free. Thats the difference between him and the "mainstream" GOP. Ron Paul is an anti-social fuckwit as are his most vehement supporters. He may hate corporations, but he hates government even more ( so says the Congressman who has spent over 20 years holding a government office). Ron Paul is the kind of low moral guy who would sees someone getting mugged and would scuttle by thinking to himself, "its none of my business." If you want to unplug from the grid and call it liberty, by all means do so. But don't attempt to drag this great nation down to your level. Is our government horribly corrupted by corporate money? Unequivocally yes. I rather try to regain our government as an advocate than just crush it and go it alone like Paul and libertarian utopians believe and strive for so desparately. This may be the last time we will mercifully have to listen to Papa Doc this election cycle, but Baby Doc is in the on deck circle and already getting the messianic treatment. He will inherit his father's cretin base in 2016 and beyond.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

35. Where has Paul been

since, oh, 2001-2002?


How many speeches did he give denouncing Bush's power grabs? It seems like the Republican Tea Party likes to pretend that all this stuff is brand new even though it's been going on since post-9/11 and Congress has either ratified the power grabs and/or prevented Obama from making a lot of substantive changes to how Bush/Cheney handled terror suspects (i.e. blocking Gitmo closure, blocking trying of suspects in non-military courts, etc). I'd be interested to see Ron Paul's voting record on any of these things.................

[JTFrog]

36. Fuck Ron Paul. n/t

[Bruce Wayne]

40. What a lightweight.

Sorry, but I've been to North Korea. I've traveled extensively in China, Markovia, Modora, Pokolistan, the Congo, and Qurac. I know what an actual fascist country looks like--how it operates. America ain't perfect, but not even our Republicans (well, not most of them) have plans that deserve the label "fascist."

Our country has a problem with corruption and aristocracy and kleptocracy and cronyism and even latent monarchial tendencies. But we don't have a fascist problem. That's a whole other creature.

[MrSlayer]

41. He's kind of right about this.

The merging of government and big business is fascism. That's pretty much where we are with one party completely owned by the corporations and the other mostly owned by them.

[Arneoker]

45. No, our masked friend is right.

Except that I would stick with describing what we are becoming as "plutocracy," rule of the rich. "Autocracy" is rule by one.

And I agree with others that the word "fascism" has been tossed around way too loosely. I would point out that rightwingers do that too, when they are not idiotically branding people as "socialists."

[DevonRex]

43. FRP. nt

Meaning fuck Ron Paul.

[joshcryer]

44. Heh, Ron Paul's corporate cuddling = unlimited corporate drone surveillance

His being against national parks = unlimited privately own parks

The list goes on and on and I frankly don't have the energy to explain how Ron Paul himself is a fascist.