Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr campaigns at Lynchburg College

One of the six presidential candidates who will be on this November’s ballot in Virginia made a campaign stop in Lynchburg on Monday to promote the Libertarian Party’s belief that people and not government should make most of society’s decisions.

Bob Barr, a former congressman from Georgia and the Libertarian Party’s candidate for president this year, told a small crowd at Lynchburg College that both Democrats and Republicans believe stronger government can solve problems.

The nation’s economic crisis already has concentrated more power in government hands without any hearings and little input from the public, Barr said, just as the 2001 terrorist attacks gave the government more power to listen to people’s conversations and read their e-mails. Government officials gain new power “by playing on fear” of another attack or economic crisis, Barr said.

“Their faith is not ‘in God we trust,’ it is ‘in government we trust,’” Barr said. Neither major party is willing to strip away any of those powers, he said.

Barr spent the first 10 minutes of his talk mostly criticizing Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin for keeping their debates within their “comfort zones.”

Instead, debates should be opened up for unfettered questions about how candidates would deal with foreign leaders, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and what they understand about other nations’ psyches, Barr said.

Besides Democrat Barack Obama and Republican McCain, other presidential candidates whose names will be in front of voters in November are Barr, independent Ralph Nader, Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney, and Chuck Baldwin of the Independent Green Party.

Barr, who was a GOP congressman from Georgia from 1995 to 2003, gathered national attention by pushing for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment.

Barr’s running mate on the Libertarian ticket is Wayne A. Root, a Las Vegas sports handicapper, author and TV producer.

In 2004, the Libertarian ticket of Michael Badnarik, of Texas, and Richard Campagna, of Iowa, received 81 votes in Lynchburg, or 0.31 percent of the 26,000-plus votes cast. Statewide, the Libertarians received 0.34 percent of the vote.

Obama and Barr are the only two nominated candidates who have visited Lynchburg during this year’s presidential campaign.

Mike Huckabee, of Arkansas, spoke at Liberty University last November and at Thomas Road Baptist Church in February during his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.