Jihad against free speech

'Don't judge a book by its cover' is usually an exhortation to remember that lurid artwork on the wrapper may well conceal better material within.

Well, if this review at 'Noodle Food' of The New Individualist is correct, here we have something else: a cover (right) that's way, way better than what's on offer inside. And that sure is a great cover -- a cover with balls -- arguably the first American magazine to feature the Danish cartoons on their cover -- but not the first magazine cover available in America to go for the Islamo-fascist jugular. Issue 70 of The Free Radical (cover below) wears that accolade. Subscribe here.

So what about that content then? Noodle Food's reviewer found in the title essay of The New Individualist "only a tepid mess where there could and should have been a strong presentation and defense of the values at stake -- an answer to why such a bold and provocative cover must exist." For the opposite of a tepid mess, and a pithy summation of the issues at stake, you might like to compare it to the much shorter, much punchier title essay of The Free Radical, Lindsay Perigo's 'Death to Islam.'

Fortunately, both articles are online, so you can judge for yourself which is pithier and which makes its case better (and also whether or not the characterisation of Hudgin's title article is indeed a "train wreck," as described):

• Ed Hudgins: 'The Jihad Against Free Speech'
• Lindsay Perigo: 'Death to Islam'

LINKS: Judging things by their cover - Noodle Food
That Muhammad cartoon: because SOMEBODY had to print it - The Bidinotto Blog
Free Radical Issue 70 - SOLO Passion
The jihad against free speech' - Ed Hudgins, The New Individualist
Death to Islam - Lindsay Perigo, The Free Radical

TAGS: Multiculturalism, Religion, War, Objectivism