Tea party hero Ron Paul (R-TX) told residents of the former capital of the Confederacy on Monday that "nullification" would eventually have to be used to "ignore the feds" because President Barack Obama's health care reform law.

At a campaign stop to bolster Ken Cuccinelli's (R) fading hopes to become the next governor of Virginia, Paul told a crowd in Richmond that "Obamacare is a monster."

"Ken knew this and took the federal government on," he explained. "Jefferson obviously was a clear leader on the principle of nullification. I’ve been working on the assumption that nullification is going to come. It’s going to be a de facto nullification."

"It’s ugly, but pretty soon things are going to get so bad that we’re just going to ignore the feds and live our own lives in our own states," he added.

Politico, which first flagged Paul's speech, noted that the concept of "nullification" was loaded with connotations in a city that once served as the capital of the Confederate States during the Civil War.

"This law is not done crushing liberty," Paul said, alluding to the debunked "death panel" myth. “The next thing they’re going to do is tell those doctors how to treat you and then whether to treat you. Let’s be very clear about what’s at stake here.”

The former Republican presidential candidate insisted that the "founders were very clear" that the Second Amendment was designed to stop "an intrusion of your rights by a federal government."

"I keep saying, the Second Amendment wasn't set up there to make sure you can shoot rabbits," he said.

(h/t: Talking Points Memo)