Commenting on the Environmental Working Group, Stossel called them "the totalitarian left. They want to silence people who criticize them." That's how the Left and, particularly, the Greens work these days because anyone with any common sense knows that people around the world are living longer lives precisely because we've had a Green Revolution to feed them and the new one involving genetically modified foods promises to end the ancient scourge of mankind, famine, without deforesting the world for new farmland.

The program, when aired, received higher ratings than the popular "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", showing that some Americans are still interested in the truth. That said, the audience of "Law and Order", an entertainment program, was nearly two percentage points higher.

Writing in the May issue of Imprimis, Stossel said, "When I started 30 years ago as a consumer reporter, took the approach that most young reporters take today. My attitude was that capitalism is essentially cruel and unfair, and that the job of government, with the help of lawyers and the press, is to protect people from it." This is your standard liberal attitude.

"I and other consumer activists said, 'We've got to have regulation", wrote Stossel, confessing "I'm embarrassed at how long it took me to realize that these regulations make things worse, not better, for ordinary people. The damage done by regulation is so vast, it's often hard to see." He attributed this as "largely due to the prevalence of misleading scare stories in the press," noting that "we see in society an increasing fear of innovation."

"What's happened to America?" asked Stossel. "Why do we allow government to make decisions for us as if we were children? We're living longer than ever. A century ago, most people my age were already dead. If we were better informed, we'd realize that what's behind this longevity is the spirit of enterprise, and that what gives us this spirit -- what makes America thrive -- isn't regulation. It's freedom."

The answer, in part, is that we have been increasingly losing our freedoms and our privacy as we have permitted our federal government to grow larger and larger with every passing week. Worse, most Americans have grown indifferent to what is happening in Washington, D.C. They no longer pay attention to the debates in Congress over issues that intrude increasingly into every aspect of their lives.

Visitors to Internet sites like this one want to know the truth. They must, however, be much more vocal in fighting the well-funded Greens and their constant deluge of propaganda. They must write to their congressmen and women. They must write letters to the editors of their local newspapers. They must support conservative candidates and organizations with their dollars.

Freedom and liberty must be defended every day. That's the lesson of the Fourth of July. Stossel is a patriot in the purest sense of the word. You can be one too by speaking up whenever you read or hear the lies that would rob you of the rights guaranteed in the oldest living Constitution in the world.

Alan Caruba is founder of The National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about scare campaigns to influence public opinion and policy. The Center maintains an Internet site at www.anxietycenter.com.

Copyright, Alan Caruba, 2001
Published by permission.