Texas Congressman and GOP Presidential candidate Ron Paul has offered support for "some of the Occupy Wall Street protests" that have now spread nationwide, The Hill reported Monday.
"If they were demonstrating peacefully, and making a point, and arguing our case, and drawing attention to the Fed — I would say, good!" he told Reason magazine Friday after a town hall meeting in New Hampshire.
Paul, a longtime critic of the Federal Reserve, denounced what he called the "militarization of our police forces" during the town hall meeting.
Reason reported:
On a related note, during the town hall meeting, Paul was asked to react to NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly's recent assertion that his department has the ability to shoot down aircraft. "Yeah, I have concern about that," Paul said. "That's not exactly your friendly policeman on the block to go to when you're in trouble. The militarization of our police force–the SWAT teams and all–I think it's a bad sign."
"I do think that when the federal government gets involved," Paul continued, "and Homeland Security provides a lot of these weapons, and gives the weapons to them–I think it's all a dangerous trend."
He also condemned the practice of police keeping and using property seized in raids.
"One thing though, that I also don't like, is if there's a drug bust, or the police come and they confiscate a boat or a plane–guess what? The police get to keep it. I mean, that is outrageous! What, do you think there would be a motivation then, for them to crack down and get a truck or a boat or a car? And then they get to use it?"
Paul expressed concern about a report last weekend in which a New York police officer was caught on camera pepper-spraying protesters.
"I hadn't heard that, since I have to admit I didn't keep up on all the details of it," Paul said. "I didn't read the stories about it. But that means government doesn't like to be receiving any criticism at all. And my argument is, government should be in the open — the people's privacy ought to be protected. So I don't like it."
The protests have spread nationwide from Asheville, NC to Spokane, WA.
Organizers have posted a proposed list of demands that include everything from a $20.00 per hour minimum wage to open borders and free health care.
One organizer told MSNBC's Al Sharpton that revolution is the goal of the protests.
"And putting a revolution, putting a revolutionary change into political terms is very difficult to do. Because we're trying to get away from all the problems," said Harrison Schultz, one of the Wall Street organizers.
"Again, we don't really want to fix them: it's revolution, not reform," he said.
Conservative author and commentator Ann Coulter compared the protests to the French Revolution and said it could be the "beginning of totalitarianism."
“All of those quotes could have been said in 1789 in France before the French Revolution, or the Russian Revolution, or with only slight modifications when the Nazis were coming to power, in Cuba under Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela," she told Fox Business' Eric Bolling.
"This is always the beginning of totalitarianism.”
Although it is doubtful Paul supports totalitarianism, his support of the protests will certainly cause angst among the conservative base of the Republican Party, and it certainly will not help his bid for the White House.
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