Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), a contender for the Republican Party’s nomination to the presidency, has numerous fans and detractors who agree upon very little — but one thing nearly everyone who sees him can agree to is that he’s remarkably consistent about his political positions.

For a long time, Paul has called for government regulations on airport security to be repealed, leaving that responsibility to the airlines, so the statements below aren’t entirely new.

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However, in an interview Friday with the conservative Fox News Channel, he again pitched this position, but with an ear-grabbing new approach, insisting that by not allowing private citizens to carry firearms on jumbo-jets, U.S. officials literally “set the stage for 9/11.”

He also appeared to support the practice of racial profiling over what he called the victimization of average Americans — a position that may be every bit as controversial as the TSA’s current policy of invasive pat-downs and x-ray scanning machines.

This video is from MSNBC, broadcast by Fox News on July 8, 2011, snipped courtesy of Think Progress.