A long time ago, in a state far, far away, I was a teaching assistant for Duke’s “Political Ideologies” class.
At the time, it was a required course for Political Science majors, and the core mission of the class was to provide overviews of Liberalism, Nazism, Communism, and Fascism. It was striking how sympathetic students were to Benito Mussolini’s arguments for fascism, which surprised and attracted them.
Why? Well, first, you need to know that Fascism is a more sophisticated political theory than Americans know, and bears a striking resemblance to communitarianism, a popular political theory of the left. As much as anything, it is a response to what a lot of people see as the moral vacuity of pluralistic Liberalism.
One of the things we read was Mussolini’s The Doctrine of Fascism, in which he lays out the moral foundation for the theory, and in particular explains Fascism’s moral justification of war, which he saw as an integral and healthy part of political life. War, he argued, is the condition that requires men to elevate themselves for the greater good. War and struggle are the conditions under which the spiritual is elevated over the material.
Thus many of the practical expressions of Fascism such as party organization, system of education, and discipline can only be understood when considered in relation to its general attitude toward life. A spiritual attitude. Fascism sees in the world not only those superficial, material aspects in which man appears as an individual, standing by himself, self-centered, subject to natural law, which instinctively urges him toward a life of selfish momentary pleasure; it sees not only theindividual but the nation and the country; individuals and generations bound together by a moral law, with common traditions and a mission which suppressing the instinct for life closed in a brief circle of pleasure, builds up a higher life, bounded on duty, a life free from the limitations of time and space, in which the individual, by selfsacrifice, the renunciation of self-interest, by death itself, can achieve that purely spiritual existence in which his value as a man consists.
The conception is therefore a spiritual one, arising from the general reaction of the century against the materialistic positivism of the 19th century. Antipositivistic but positive; neither skeptical nor agnostic; neither pessimistic nor supinely optimistic as are, generally speaking, the doctrines (all negative) which place the center of life outside man; whereas, by the exercise of his free will, man can and must create his own world.
Fascism wants man to be active and to engage in action with all his energies; it wants him to be manfully aware of the difficulties besetting him and ready to face them. It conceives of life as a struggle in which it behooves a man to win for himself a really worthy place, first of all by fitting himself (physically, morally, intellectually) to become the implement required for winning it. As for the individual, so for the nation, and so for mankind.
Hence the high value of culture in all its forms (artistic, religious, scientific) and the outstanding importance of education. Hence also the essential value of work, by which man subjugates nature and creates the human world (economic, political, ethical, and intellectual).
This positive conception of life is obviously an ethical one. It invests the whole field of reality as well as the human activities which master it. No action is exempt from moral judgment; no activity can be despoiled of the value which a moral purpose confers on all things. Therefore life, as conceived of by the Fascist, is serious, austere, and religious; all its manifestations are poised in a world sustained by moral forces and subject to spiritual responsibilities. The Fascist disdains an “easy” life.
This is why the state plays such an important role in fascist ideology. The spiritual state of man is brought out by the state, and it is in sacrifice for the state that man truly becomes a moral being instead of an animal that consumes and pursues pleasure in life. Obviously, war is not the only moral activity, but the struggle and sacrifice in war bring out the best in men, according to Mussolini.
Now listen to Stephanie Ruhle, the MS-Now pundit:
Under no circumstances do you ‘have to hand it to them.’
MS NOW’s Stephanie Ruhle commends Iran for “the fact that they have a deep belief in something. That’s unfathomable to [Trump]. That they will die for.” pic.twitter.com/I9aJhtWwrs— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) April 9, 2026
My first reaction was, “No, you don’t have to hand it to them.” What the Iranians of whom she speaks are “sacrificing” for is pure evil. While it is true that self-sacrifice is a key component of any moral system, and the pursuit of pure pleasure is morally degenerate, the “what” of that which one is willing to sacrifice matters as much or more than the mere fact of being willing to die for a cause.
Suicide bombers die for a cause. Do I have to “hand it to them?” Parents who put their children in harm’s way to make them martyrs are sacrificing. That is morally abhorrent.
Flashback: Um Osama, wife of a senior Hamas leader, openly urges Palestinian mothers to raise their sons for martyrdom.
She says plainly: No Muslim child will strap on explosives and blow himself up against Jews—unless his mother plants the love of jihad and martyrdom in his… pic.twitter.com/5k50N2GA3R
— Yossi BenYakar (@YossiBenYakar) March 23, 2026
Flashback: Um Osama, wife of a senior Hamas leader, openly urges Palestinian mothers to raise their sons for martyrdom.
She says plainly: No Muslim child will strap on explosives and blow himself up against Jews—unless his mother plants the love of jihad and martyrdom in his heart from childhood. She must teach him to kill Jews and die for Allah.
This isn’t hidden extremism—it’s broadcast proudly in their own media. Western outlets bury it deep to preserve the “religion of peace” narrative.
The truth: a culture that glorifies child sacrifice for holy war isn’t compatible with peace. It’s engineered for endless conflict.
Share this clip widely.
You can find countless examples of people willing to die for an evil cause, and you can find countless examples of people willing to die for a good cause.
pic.twitter.com/bpwEoabpHs
Flashback: A Palestinian mother from Gaza brought her son for life-saving treatment in an Israeli hospital. She says she wants him to become a martyr rather than die from a disease. She let Jews save his life so he could grow up and blow himself up in…— Liza Rosen (@LizaRosen0000) March 21, 2026
Flashback: A Palestinian mother from Gaza brought her son for life-saving treatment in an Israeli hospital. She says she wants him to become a martyr rather than die from a disease. She let Jews save his life so he could grow up and blow himself up in crowded place in Israel, possibly the same hospital where Jews saved him.
In the video, she explains that Allah (the so-called god of Muslims) obligates all Muslims to wage jihad and practice martyrdom (human sacrifice). She adds that, unlike Jews or Christians in Israel who mourn when children die, Muslims are happy when their children are martyred in jihad (Islam’s holy war) because Allah rewards them with a one-way ticket to paradise.
To place the supporters of Jihadi terrorism on a higher moral plane is not just morally bankrupt; people who give up on moral and spiritual fulfillment and descend into pure pleasure-seeking are morally bankrupt.
This is much worse. Celebrating evil because it can mirror the behavior of morally good men and women is, itself, evil. If you are unwilling to distinguish between the martyr who is willing to die for his faith on a cross and a martyr who died in a suicide bombing, is spiritually corrupt.
Ruhle looks excited as she expresses admiration for a regime that committed mass murder on a scale that boggles the mind. Tens of thousands of Iranians were mowed down in service to that regime, and she seems unbothered by that.
“GET OVER IT!”
Georgetown Professor @JonathanACBrown tells British female victims of MUSLIM rape gangs to “get over it”.
This is the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization and a Muslim rape apologist.
👉Share now to let @Georgetown know who they’re employing. pic.twitter.com/LEuu1WBciw
— Shirion Collective (@ShirionOrg) April 9, 2026
This is a common sentiment on the left. Defenders of the Iranian regime are indifferent to the suffering of the Iranian people because they despise liberalism. The Iranians are part of the Axis of Resistance, and the Iranians who oppose the regime are siding with America in their eyes.
Mehdi Hasan on the Ayatollah of the Islamic Republic:
“We don’t even know if the ayatollah ever did anything wrong.”
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) March 12, 2026
The left agrees with the fascists on the spiritual corruption of the West. We value freedom, and to them, freedom breeds immorality.
Whether it is communists or fascists, this idea above all others unites them.
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