Ron Paul and the Dark Secret of I-35

Perhaps you have seen the signs around Columbia, or people holding the signs, for back-running presidential candidate Ron Paul. He is the only one of the GOP candidates who has questioned the Iraq War, Gitmo, or the Bush administration's internal security measures, and often comes off like a refreshingly candid fellow. Ron Paul is also, I am afraid, a believer and promoter of nativist (anti-immigrant) conspiracy theories. Along with CNN host Lou Dobbs and a surprising number of other legitimate figures, Paul believes that secret plans are afoot to create a North American Union out of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. I am especially partial to this theory, because part of it involves the Most Boring Freeway in the Universe, one which I have driven up and down 100s of times between Kansas City and Minnesota, Interstate 35.

As FactCheck.org reports,

"According to Paul, a secret organization run by unaccountable government figures is in league with foreign corporations who are all bent on usurping American sovereignty. That's not from the script for a new X-Files movie. (Or not that we know of.) It's the gist of Paul's description of a supposed 'NAFTA Superhighway.' Paul describes it on his Web site as 'a ten-lane colossus the width of several football fields, with freight and rail lines, fiber-optic cable lines, and oil and natural gas pipelines running alongside.' And that's not all. According to Paul, the ultimate plan is to form a North American Union with a single currency and unlimited travel within its borders, all headed up by 'an unholy alliance of foreign consortiums and officials from several governments' that together form the shadowy 'quasi-government organization called the ‘Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,’ or SPP.'

The problem with Paul's claim is that there are no plans to build a NAFTA Superhighway. Or a North American Union, for that matter. And while the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America does exist, it’s just a boring bureaucracy."

The rest of this story is very much worth reading.