Editor’s Desk, Winter, 2005

Our cover says it all, doesn’t it? We’ve reprinted the most provocative of the Danish cartoons—images which have propelled Islamists into paroxysms of death fatwas, sent spineless media superstars cowering beneath their desks, and convinced quaking publishers to hand the keys of their editorial offices over to rampaging jihadists.

So the theme of this issue is courage—intellectual, moral, physical. Since that virtue has become a stranger to the mainstream press, we provide some helpful examples of it here, just to let them know what it looks like. They really need read no further than the letters column, starting on the following page, where our feisty correspondents show that they aren’t afraid to challenge revered icons, or each other.

Besides the modern newsroom, Hollywood is another place where there’s a paucity of moral courage and a glut of anti-American sentiment. Michelle Marder Kamhi reminds us that it didn’t used to be that way—that during World War II patriotic filmmakers actually tried to inspire the citizenry to support the troops on the battlefield. “Where Is Today’s ‘Mrs. Miniver?” she asks. Good question.

Ed Hudgins then explores, in depth, the Danish cartoon controversy and its ominous implications for freedom of expression. In “The Jihad Against Free Speech,” he invites us to reflect upon the meaning, the importance—and the limits—of tolerance in a free society.

Regarding those limits, especially during wartime, constitutional law expert Henry Mark Holzer raises the question: “When Does Speech Become Treason?” The answer, he points out, is surprisingly clear in the U.S. Constitution.
With so many in the West acting like stampeding lemmings whenever confronted by snarling thugs, it’s plausible to ask whether self-sacrifice may be an innate part of modern man’s genetic wiring. Evolutionary psychologists wonder “How Individualist Is Human Nature?” Roger Donway considers the results of their investigations.

The hallmark of intellectual and moral courage is the willingness to say completely impolitic things without sugar coating. In Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington, journalist Paul Sperry has investigated the disquieting extent of Islamist influence in our society, and come to uncomfortable conclusions. Who better to report his politically incorrect findings than intrepid, mince-no-words columnist Ilana Mercer?

Another woman of courage was Joan Kennedy Taylor. A prominent figure in the early Objectivist movement, Joan also was a pivotal force behind Vietnam-era opposition to conscription, and, until her recent death, a pioneer of individualist feminism. Filmmaker Duncan Scott looks back on her remarkable life and achievements.

Finally, I take my own licks at the mainstream media’s Cartoon Journalists—those blow-dried blowhards who are trying to hide their naked cowardice under the fig leaves of multiculturalist blather. Okay, I admit it: it was an easy editorial to write. But how could I pass up such a target-rich environment?