How can he be a fascist when he's strongly opposed to any increase in state power (PATRIOT Act and the like)?
"Not all, obviously" means that he isn't "quite the fascist" on all, or even most, political issues.
I'm thinking more the fact that he (and American "Libertarianism" in general) represents a rather extreme (if unimportant) backlash against both the established political and social order and against the political Left.
I think the problem here is that when people think of "fascist" they think of militarism, authoritarianism and so on... and while these things were all important features of fascist states, by concentrating just on those things I think that we sometimes miss something more fundamental to the ideology itself, or at least why people supported it.
Perhaps I should have been clearer to minimise offense.
O/c what ever Paul is, I'm quite sure of one thing that he isn't a "Classical Liberal". There's nothing liberal about Paul, in any sense of the word.
Classical liberal yes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalismClassical liberalism (also known as traditional liberalism[1] and laissez-faire liberalism[2]) is a doctrine stressing the importance of human rationality, individual property rights, natural rights, the protection of civil liberties, constitutional limitations of government, free markets, and individual freedom from restraint as exemplified in the writings of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill,[3] and others. As such, it is seen as the fusion of economic liberalism with political liberalism.[4] The "normative core" of classical liberalism is the idea that laissez-faire economics will bring about a spontaneous order or invisible hand that benefits the society,[5] though it does not necessarily oppose the state's provision of a few basic public goods that the market is seen as being incapable of providing.[6] The qualification classical was applied in retrospect to distinguish early nineteenth-century liberalism from the "new liberalism" associated with Thomas Hill Green, Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse,[7] and Franklin D. Roosevelt,[8] which grants a more interventionist role for the state.
Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman are credited with a revival of classical liberalism in the 20th century after it fell out of favor beginning in the late nineteenth century and much of the twentieth century.[9]
Libertarians of a minarchist persuasion use the term "classical liberalism" almost interchangeably with the term "libertarianism",[10] while the correctness of this usage is disputed (see "Classical liberalism" and libertarianism, below). Nevertheless, if the two philosophies are not the same, classical liberalism does resemble modern libertarianism in many ways.[11]
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