Yet Stossel hasn't been able to overcome the fact that he is a totally shit journalist who's only real function is to sell cars and toothpaste, ah well.
I'm sure you're trying to poke holes in my comment, but you have to try harder. The Fox News set has a religion-like obsession with the Founding Fathers irrespective of actual history. See for example, Michele Bachmann's impassioned speeches about how hard they tried to end slavery. My point is that they are human beings who forged a human enterprise. And, while the US is a great experiment in government, there is no reason to think that people are any different now than they were a couple centuries ago. Engaging with the "ideas" of a man like Stossel is a silly thing to attempt, because they're not honest to begin with; they're propaganda for the expressed purposes of electing a specific set of representatives who will do their best to make his bosses and their advertisers a lot of money.
The Fox News set also tends to influence opinion by slinging mud, e.g. Bill O'Reilly's book Pinheads and Patriots: Where You Stand in the Age of Obama (judging simply by the title). Can we do better? Stossel claims that "Since the 80s, there has been a 300 percent increase in disability claims for hard-to-prove illnesses like back pain, stress and other 'non-exertional restrictions.'" That's interesting. That sounds like bad news. It's also a fact (true or false), regardless of the source. Let's fact-check his ass, and see if he is making it up. Did he correct for population growth? How many of the claims were honored? It's easy to call someone "totally shit" and "a tool" and make excuses for why we don't have to take their arguments seriously. But if we put a little effort in, we might learn something.
I just don't get the point anymore of even pointing out how wrong they are on just about everything. It's so well documented what a bunch of propagandists they are that fact checking them is a pointless exercise in patting ourselves on the back. Not all opinions are created equal, and many beliefs have no basis in reality. That there is a fact or two thrown into their arguments doesn't make them valid.
If your goal is to change Stossel's mind, I agree that you shouldn't waste your time. Do you care about the rate of disability claims in the U.S.? If that rate is rising or falling, do you want to know about it? By fact-checking John Stossel, you can become more informed. If you share your findings with the rest of us, instead of name-calling, we might learn something too. I expect that many people in the Fox News set also trust what they have been told about "the other side" and don't feel the need to do any personal research or critical thinking.