The radical eco-activists who trashed Seattle in 1999 are planning an encore performance in metropolitan Detroit next month. They aim to intimidate Ford Motor Co. into building cars and SUVs the activists — not the car-buying marketplace — consider environmentally and socially acceptable.

Two San Francisco groups — the notorious Rainforest Action Network and the more benign Global Exchange — say they plan on disrupting Ford’s centennial celebration because it is dropping plans to increase the fuel economy of its vehicles. They also plan to protest at Ford dealerships around the county on June 7. (The groups were among the lead demonstrators who rampaged through downtown Seattle four years ago to protest a meeting of global-trade negotiators.)

In April, Ford cited a drop in sales, unfavorable market conditions, and technological roadblocks as the main reasons for deciding to hold off on further downsizing of its vehicles to achieve higher gas mileages. Ford, of course, is responding to the only vote that takes place on a daily basis in this democracy or any other — that of the free marketplace.

Prospective automobile buyers in the United States can buy at least ten models with fuel-economy averages of more than 40 miles per gallon in both highway and city driving, according to the EPA’s 2003 Fuel Economy Guide. Dozens of other models average more than 30 miles per gallon. The problem, of course, is that they don’t sell very well. Many of them, in fact, are known within the car industry as “loss leaders” — vehicles that cost more to build than to sell, or which must be sold at a net loss in order to meet government average-fuel-economy standards.

Fervent environmentalists of the Rainforest Action Network/Greenpeace/EarthFirst stripe apparently aren’t motivated to back up their green beliefs with greenbacks. Like zealots from time immemorial, they’d rather tell the rest of us what to do — and what to drive.

For the rest of us, extremely small cars represent a huge trade-off in terms of safety and convenience. Government data on fatal accidents extracted from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s show that congressionally mandated small, fuel-efficient cars are responsible for up to 4,000 additional highway fatalities each year. Smaller, lightweight cars simply are less crashworthy than larger cars — no matter how many air bags they’re fitted with.

In addition, most compact-sized cars seat two in comfort — and four in discomfort. People of larger girth — an increasing number of Americans, according to the Surgeon General’s recent shocking report on obesity — can’t be accommodated at all. And even when four people manage to get shoe-horned into these motorized cubicles, there’s no way to transport a reasonable amount of their luggage — much less a soccer mom and her squad of rambunctious kick ballers.

One suspects the real reason the eco-activists have singled out Ford Motor Company — as opposed to GM, Honda, or Volvo — for their protest is that the Dearborn, Michigan, firm is one of the major symbols of America’s participatory democracy around the world.

Henry Ford not only invented the assembly line, he also had the foresight to pay his workers enough money to buy his products. His original factory in the Detroit enclave of Hazel Park expanded the concept of democracy to include freedom of mobility, and, in the process, made America the dream destination of a whole new generation of immigrants. America’s automobile industry, for all of its flaws, is about giving common people the most cherished freedom on earth: the freedom of choice. The unending traffic that flows on our highways pays tribute to that particular freedom.

Groups like the Rainforest Action Network and Global Exchange are about restricting choice, not expanding it. They have no chance of getting America’s voters, or its consumers, to endorse their extreme views. Instead, they seek to enforce their views by threatening to trash cities, disrupt celebrations, and shout down opposing viewpoints. And they benefit from a bonanza of newsprint and airtime from partial media outlets that never seem to delve deeply into their views, their motives, or their funding.

So, when you see their protests next month on the evening news, ask yourself who contributed more to you and your family’s well-being — the control freaks at the Rainforest Action Network, or the automotive engineers at Ford and other auto manufacturers.

— Eric Peters is the auto columnist for America Online, Netscape, and CompuServe.