Posted on 12/23/2007 6:44:53 PM PST by AmericanMade1776
White House hopeful Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said Sunday that the U.S. is moving toward fascism, stating that corporations are increasingly “running the show” and citizens are being deprived of their liberties.
Paul clarified that he did not refer to the type of fascism that Adolf Hitler practiced in Germany. “We’re not moving toward Hitler-type fascism, but we’re moving toward a softer fascism,” Paul said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “Loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business.”
The lawmaker said the U.S. is moving toward “corporatism.” He also lashed out at a system in which those are criticized as unpatriotic who do not support the war in Iraq or the Patriot Act.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Full transcript of Ron Paul on Meet the Press:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22342301/
I’m not a Ron Paul fan but I agree completely with his statement. We are fast turning into the United Socialist States of America Inc. if not already there.
A well-founded suspicion.
It is not just a suspicion, it is fact, George Soros has contributed to Ron Paul
“The lawmaker said the U.S. is moving toward “corporatism.””
Anyone who follows US trade policy, as well as some domestic policies that clearly are made to protect corporations, would find this hard to disagree with.
Agree he does not belong in the GOP - the GOP is a corporation’s party too, if freepers somehow missed, for example, the amnesty/border fence issue and how the GOP, president included, behaved.
WE DON’T NEED YOU..OR HIM.
This person does’nt get to say their piece...?
“Big Media pressures Congress to change the laws as they see fit but that does not mean that the corporations run our foreign or domestic policy to a significant degree.
“
They certainly run trade policy - why is china in the WTO? Why are we allowing major corporations to essentially build china’s industrial base?
Thanks... loved this one... from Russert
MR. RUSSERT: When I looked at your record, you talked about big government and how opposed you are to it, but you seem to have a different attitude about your own congressional district. For example, “Congress decided to send billions of dollars to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Guess how Ron Paul voted. `Is bailing out people” that choose—”that chose to live on the coastline a proper function of the federal government?’ he asks.” And you said no. And yet, this: “Paul’s current district, which includes Galveston and reaches into” the “Brazoria County, draws a substantial amount of federal flood insurance payments.” For your own congressional district.
This is the Houston Chronicle: “Representative Ron Paul has long crusaded against a big central government. But he also” “represented a congressional district that’s consistently among the top in Texas in its reliance on dollars from Washington.
I'll vote for Duncan Hunter in the primary...And if he doesn't win, I'll write in Pat Buchanan since I wasted my vote on Bush the last two times instead of voting for Buchanan...
That was a good one. Not to mention Paul total hyprocrisy when asked about Reagan and term limits. To paraphrase an old liberal saying,,,”If it wasn’t for DOUBLE STANDARDS...Paul wouldn’t have any”!
REP. PAUL: You got it completely wrong. I’ve never voted for an earmark in my life.
MR. RUSSERT: No, but you put them in the bill.
REP. PAUL: I put it in because I represent people who are asking for some of their money back. But it doesn’t cut any spending to vote against an earmark. And the Congress has the responsibility to spend the money. Why leave the money in the executive branch and let them spend the money?
MR. RUSSERT: Well, that’s like, that’s like saying you voted for it before you voted against it.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about drugs and go back again to your ‘90—’88 campaign and see where you stand today. “All drugs should be decriminalized. Drugs should be distributed by any adult to other adults. There should be no controls on production, supply or purchase for adults.” Is that still your position?
REP. PAUL: Yeah. It’s sort of like alcohol. Alcohol’s a deadly drug, kills more people than anything else. And today the absurdity on this war on drugs, Tim, has just been horrible. We now, the federal government, takes over and rules—overrules state laws where state laws permit medicinal marijuana for people dying of cancer. The federal government goes in and arrests these people, put them in prison with mandatory, sometimes life sentences. This war on drugs is totally out of control.
“It’s a controversial statement, but it is also a true statement.”
The signal-to-noise ratio on this thread is quite low, but you are one of the few voices of reason.
Those screaming various insults are not actually debating the points made, with a few exceptions. This inability to rationally address points reflects poorly on the quality of people contributing to this forum, but it probably provides some insight into the mindset of the general GOP membership as well.
Of course the classic is simply attacking posters for saying anything remotely in agreement with Paul’s statement, without addressing the statement as well.
As usual, Ron Paul is about half right. Conservatives have long noted that the form of government favored by big-government liberals is similar to fascism in practice. It is the government in charge, though, and the idealogues. The big corporations go along, and become cheerleaders for the whole mess, which gives a superficial appearance that they are in control. Actually, they are gutless and amoral, and will go wherever government threats and the money lead them.
Von Mises called the economic situation under fascism or national-socialism “Zwangswirtschaft,” or forced economy. It was successful under Hitler by comparison with fully socialist systems because it did not involve dismantling all the means of production, or killing all the skilled people (as in the collectivizations under Stalin).
The fascist regimes in Europe varied by country, but strictly speaking Hitler’s was not a fascist regime. It was national-socialist, and there was a big difference. It was atheistic in tendency. Fascism in Spain was pro-clerical, and so was the movement of Codreanu in Romania, and of Englebert Dollfuss in Austria. The later was assassinated by the followers of Hitler, although he had been supported by Mussolini.
Mussolini was a former socialist, and was rather anti-clerical himself, but he did not persecute the Catholic church for political reasons, and came to terms with the Vatican. One could say, then, that fascism occupied a southern belt, with Nazis to the north. The racial theories were characteristically prominent in Nazi ideology to the north, and included the policy of Aufnordung (promotion of Nordics) which would have been inappropriate to the south of Austria.
All fascist and national-socialist regimes were anti-individualist, like modern American “liberalism.” At every turn, liberals are in favor of eroding rights for the greater good: abortion (which means no rights for the unborn), gun-control, high-taxation, restrictions on free speech (lest it cause “discomfort” within the masses), interfering with the market to “protect the environment” or to manage medical care or to control the weather, rigging of elections, &c. About the only feature which separates today’s American liberals from fascists is that the liberals are generally anti-religious, or at best are affiliated with liberalized sects like (for example) the UCC. Comparing the two, the fascists begin to look good, because at least they resisted communism, which the liberals generally did not (as, for example, in the Vietnam War). Except on defense, liberals should never complain too much about fascism, because it is quite similar to their own way.
MR. RUSSERT: I was intrigued by your comments about Abe Lincoln. “According to Paul, Abe Lincoln should never have gone to war; there were better ways of getting rid of slavery.”
REP. PAUL: Absolutely. Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war. No, he shouldn’t have gone, gone to war. He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic. I mean, it was the—that iron, iron fist..
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