Barr urges 'Tea Party' protesters to stay involved

With tens of thousands of Americans gathering all across the country to protest runaway government spending and taxation, everybody wants to take credit for the "Tea Parties" held on April 15.

Remember Bob Barr? He was the Libertarian Party candidate for president in November.

Barr, who received 523,000 votes of the 131.2 million ballots cast, wants "tea partiers" to stay involved and join the Libertarian Party, which he says inspired the tea parties.

"If the protests are simply a one-day event it will have no impact on Washington," Barr said at a press conference from the Libertarian National Committee's Watergate offices in Washington, D.C. "It is incumbent on the people who are out there today to stay involved. There has to be a sustained effort. Otherwise the tide of government will wash right over us as if nothing happened."

Barr said many Libertarians took part in the tax protests and "it was Libertarians who started the whole notion of organizing ourselves as freedom-loving men and women for an April 15 event."

Barr pointed to the use of Internet and social networking Web sites such as Facebook to organize thousands of nationwide events.

"The Internet is being used much as the gazettes and flyers were being used in the pre-Revolutionary War period to spread the word of freedom and organize the citizens," Barr said. "That is, to educate the citizenry as to what is going on in the government, as a medium to organize the citizenry to become involved, to have a common purpose."

Barr also took a shot at the Democrats who now control Washington:

"It's important for people to realize just what government is doing to them. The national debt right now, and it grows by millions of dollars every single day, is approaching $11.5 trillion. Every man, woman and child in this country, not just taxpayers, but every man women and child, owes, because of that debt, approximately $40,000. That's money coming out their pocket, it comes out of their businesses, it is dramatically limiting the freedom people have in this country to do what they want to do with their lives. And that's power the government is taking from them."