In a radio interview earlier this week, U.S. congressman Ron Paul said it may become necessary for citizens to resort to physical opposition if the government continues to erode civil liberties and commit international acts of aggression.

Asked by radio show host Alex Jones if he believed in the use of violence or other physical action to oppose an unjust government, Paul, a one-time presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party and a contender for the Republican presidential nomination until he dropped out of the race earlier this year, answered in the affirmative.

"Well, there's always that possibility that, that time will come." he said. "I believe in that."

Paul then cited Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian spiritual leader who led nonviolent demonstrations to promote the independence of India from Great Britain, and Martin Luther King, who used the same nonviolent techniques on behalf of the American civil rights movement in the 1960s, as examples of physical protest.

"When the state goes off track, you usually do have to stand up," he said. When to do so, he said, is "an individual personal decision."

Paul was interviewed by telephone from the Houston, Texas hospital where his wife, Carol Paul, is a patient.

On other matters, Paul said tickets for the Rally for the Republic, a September 2 event in Minneapolis, Minn. of which he is a chief sponsor, have been selling well. He said he expects to address the gathering in spite of his wife's poor health and hospitalization. His wife recently emerged from 12 days on a respirator, and her condition is improving, Paul said.

On the economy, Paul said he did not expect an improvement any time soon. "We' ve only had 25 percent of the correction that is necessary" Paul said. "I think it's going to get much worse."

Paul compared the American economic situation to Japan's downturn in the late 1980s. "Japan still essentially hasn't recovered," he said. The current economic downturn, said Paul, "could last a decade or longer."

"What they're doing" is just prolonging the agony, Paul said, referring to the bailout of investment banks and other measures initiated earlier this year by the Federal Reserve, the nation's central bank. Paul said the Fed's easy money policy was like continuing to give a drug addict a fix, which he said makes the patient feel better, "but the patient dies."   //Peter Duveen