Paul: U.S. "slipping into a fascist system"

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, speaks to supporters at a rally held at Union Station Saturday, Feb. 18, 2012, in Kansas City, Mo. / AP Photo/Ed Zurga

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."

Although campaign aides were aware, Paul told reporters after his speech that he did not know his rally was coinciding with long-established Missouri and Kansas Republican Party events, where Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell — a vice presidential prospect — was the keynote speaker.

Several Republicans slipped away from the banquets to join the Paul rally. Among them was Ralph Munyan, a Republican committeeman in Kansas City's home county, who said he agreed with Paul's warnings of a "fascist system" and his pledge to the end nation's involvement in wars overseas and against drugs.

"His foreign policy is one of peace," Munyan said.

Paul repeatedly denounced President Barack Obama's recent enactment of a law requiring military custody of anyone suspected to be associated with al Qaeda and involved in planning an attack on the U.S. Obama said when he signed the legislation that his administration would not authorize the indefinite military detention of American citizens without a trial.

[Vlad-RF]

Beg your pardon for my English, but ... I believed in US when I was younger and the more I have discovered about USA and its external policy the less I trusted it - I'm talking about the government, not regular people, I know some, made friends with some good americans... US has broke my dream and the further it goes the more I believe in my country. US government has forgotten what the democracy is, US is ruining our world. After these US wars in Iraq, Libya, now Syria I very often recall a pic I came across in the Internet: B-52 in the air dropping the bombs down and a statement below: "If you done come to democracy, democracy will come to you". I'm not trying to say that we in Russia have a true democracy, no, but obviously we're on our own way, not following the example of US democracy where americans are forced to chose between republicans and democrats. Democracy first of all means choice - obviously americans have no choice but "choose" the continuously interchanging Reps and Dems for decades, both in conjunction with corporations stick to the same principles keeping folks in fear. Seems like you even have no freedom of word anymore - should anyone in US critisize US president in rough language, the next day men in black will come after a poor folk and he'z gone.. now Russian opposition puts so much **** on Putin these days in mass media with support of western media and feels like you can do as much as you want - you will not be chased at all... anyway, I want to believe in future for my country and my children, as well as for yours... I hope the current external policy of US will change anytime soon and US will cease wars and focus on internal issues.... no responses required

[sigin88]

We are indeed. The only solace is in the fact that the people who deny it will have their lives cut down along with the rest of us in the end.

[occupy_cbs]

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the Corporate States of America

With our our corporate infested politics the problem lies where money influences public policy. Politicians need money in our current system to get elected so that they can run ads, send out fliers, fly themselves across the country to give talks, and so on. To do that, they need to turn to the biggest sources of money: the corporations. In true business style, they turn tricks for cash.

The "Citizens United' ruling has opened the floodgates of making our oligarchic plutocracy even stronger, at the demise of We The People.

[occupy_cbs]

DarrenMson: "You can bicker about the specifics all you want but the bottom line is that our country is morphing into something that is not what our founders intended. It is no longer a government for the people but is now for the corporations and the politicians."



Your definition fits our oligarchic plutocracy, run by the few and not WE THE PEOPLE, with the 'Citizens United' ruling fueling the PAC's by the wealthiest Americans in the 2012 election!

[venusvegasvada]

Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Or:

Declaration of Exploitation:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created to be exploited to the fullest extent possible by law, except those in charge of the exploited that are endowed by their Creator with the financial means to avoid being exploited themselves and to enjoy their unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Which one is actually closer to the truth?

[obbop]

"Declaration of Exploitation"

Decades of life experience, education, extensive non-fiction reading and general research into many aspects of that comprising the "whole" that results in the existence of the USA tells me that you are correct.

[occupy_cbs]

"I pledge allegiance, to the stocks and bonds, of the corporate states of America, and to the capital for which it stands, one chairman, under the board, highly divisive, with profit and revenue for me."

[occupy_cbs]

Fascists are very pro-violence, anti-democracy, and anti-communism, that identify enemies/scapegoats as unifying causes for the population, with a supremacy of the military and obsession with national security, as religion and government are intertwined and corporate power is protected, with a government that is male dominated and labor power and unions are suppressed, that have disdain for the intellectuals and the arts and an obsession with crimes and punishment.


Sounds just like the far-right extremists of the republican party, waving their guns and bibles, calling everyone they don't like "Communists," and waging an endless war against unions, intellectuals and women (and all other minorities), while protecting corporate power with a huge expansion of the military-industrial complex and the prison/justice system!

[occupy_cbs]

TexasStar99: "Fascism is neither left nor right"




Please try educating yourself!

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology that is commonly described as "extreme right" due to its social conservatism and authoritarian means of opposing egalitarianism.

Mussolini said that Fascism is revolutionary against liberalism "since it wants to reduce the size of the State to its necessary functions." Mussolini claimed that Italian Fascism's economic system of corporatism could be identified as state capitalism which he claimed was state socialism "turned on its head".

Italian Fascists described fascism as a right-wing ideology in the political program 'The Doctrine of Fascism,' stating: "We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right,' a fascist century."

[McClarinJ]

The National Defense Authorization Act is no help in refuting Paul's concern. Besides gearing up for a long-planned attack on Iran there are ominous preparations underway for a clampdown on Americans in America. When Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party are demonstrating side-by-side against the NDAA it should tell you that this concern is not crass partisan politics. No matter who is elected in November I don't want them to have the unconstitutional power to kill, seize, and hold without trial American citizens in America. This is the kind of tyranny we fought our war of independence over.

[GeraldMon]

In the twentieth century, every war has been led by a democrat in the white house with the exception of the Persian Gulf Conflict. WWI, Wilson, WWII, Roosevelt, Korea, Truman, Vietnam, Johnson. People will say its the republicans in congress, but since 1931, the republicans have been inpower a total of 16 years, many times the democrats held a filibuster proof majority, especially during the vietnam war, at one point in the 70s, there was a 74-16 democrat majority. and even so, the president has to present it to congress and sign it into action
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090121095931AA74kmB

[commonworkingman]

Even Paul didn't live a hundred years ago, so how does he know how it was back then? Until you've lived it, you don't know. From the history I've read, it wasn't so great