LM#83--How Democracies Confront A Death Cult

Cold Open: A Killer’s Pride

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Three years ago today, a young man stood inside a home in southern Israel and picked up a phone. It wasn't his phone. It belonged to a woman he had just murdered. He used it to call his parents. He wanted them to know how proud they should be. Let's talk about it on this Liberty Minute.

October 7 And The Scale

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Welcome to the Theory to Action Podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.

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Hello, I am David, and welcome back to this Liberty Minute, special Liberty Minute today. As we record this, it's October 7th, 2026, three years ago. This morning, Hamas started a bastardly war. The terrorists broke through a border fence in Gaza. And what followed was the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. In a matter of hours, some twelve hundred people were murdered, most of them civilians. Two hundred and fifty-one hostages were dragged from Gaza. From babies to grandmothers. Not fighting age males. From babies to grandmothers. Young people dancing in a musical festival. They were hunted down in open fields. Whole families were burned alive in their homes. This was not war. War, you see, has soldiers in front lines. This was a hunt.

Douglas Murray On Death Cults

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And our book of the day is from the great British journalist Douglas Murray on Democracies and Death Cults. Israel and the Future of Civilization. Jim Murray is a British author journalist. He's also the associate editor of The Spectator, and he's bestselling author of a book we just finished earlier. A couple months ago, The Strange Death of Europe. Fascinating book, explains everything that's been happening in Europe since 2015. We're gonna cover it more extensively. He's also written The Madness of Crowds and the War on the West, which I read some three or four years ago. And for years he's asked the one hard question that even some of the United States don't ask. Does the West still have the will to defend itself? You see, after October 7th, Murray, in this book, he didn't write it from his desk in London. He went to Israel again and again and again. You walk through the burned out kibbutzum. He sat with the survivors. You sat with the widows, the childless parents. You reported from the front lines. The book was published last year, and here's what he found. Go on to the book.

The Phone Call From A Victim’s Phone

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The excitement in his voice was obvious. Hi Dad, the three minute call begins. Open my WhatsApp now and you will see all those killed. Look how many I kill with my own hands. Your son killed Jews. The father replies, May God protect you. The son is exulting. Dad, I'm talking to you from a Jewish woman's phone. I killed her, I killed her husband. I killed ten with my own hands. He goes on and on, repeating himself, boasting. Dad, I killed her. I killed ten. Ten with my own hands. Put mom on. Oh my son, God bless you, says the parents. Their son keeps making the same boast to his mother. I wish I was with you, she replies. Mom, your son is a hero, he boasts. Kill, kill, kill. The next the man's brother comes on the line, and the young man brags to him too. I killed ten. I swear. Hold your head up, father, hold your head up. One of the men on the other end says, Come back, come back. What do you mean come back? replies the son. There's no going back. It is either death or victory. Open the WhatsApp. See the dead. Open it. Open WhatsApp on my phone and see the dead. How I killed them with my own hands. And again, that was a quote from the book on Democracies and Death Cults. It's in the introduction.

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Israeli forces later released the recording.

Three Clues In The Recording

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Pay attention to those three details. First, the son is not ashamed. He's excited. He counts his victims the way a boy would count touchdowns. The father doesn't scream or weep or ask what his son has done. There's no value to life. He says, May God protect you. It's a very strange god they worship. Third, and maybe the worst. Put mom on. The son wants his mother to share in his joy. And this is what Murray means by a death cult. And he's right. It isn't one sick young man. It's a family. It's a culture. It's a movement. That treats the murder of Jews or any infidel as an achievement worth calling home about. That's disgusting. That's horrific.

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And they say this is a religion of peace. Not sure about that.

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Actions are speaking louder than words. Let's go to Murray's second quote.

A Survivor Warns Of Worse Hate

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It's pretty profound. Go on to the book. In the days after the seventh, many people tried to make sense of the facts such as these. What if anything could explain such hate? What could any man or woman do against this hate? As I thought about this, my mind went back to the late friend of mine named George Wendenfeld. George was a Viennese Jew who was born in nineteen nineteen. He had died in 2016 after having lived to a fine old age. He had fled the Nazis escaping from Austria after the Anschluss with the German annexation of the country in 1938. He came to England, meeting, among others, the great author and Habsburg admirer Joseph Roth in Paris along the way. George was a repository of stories about those times, but after outliving the Nazi regime, he spent much of the rest of his long life trying to understand it. As a publisher, he often controversially agreed to publish books by and about Nazis, including the memoirs of Albert Spare. But as the historian Andrew Roberts also remembered, toward the end of his life, George often reflected on the fact that in his view, quote, there are many people who are worse anti-Semites than the Nazis. And again, that was a quote from Demar on Democracies and Death Cults by Douglas

Nazis Hid Crimes Hamas Broadcast Them

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Murray. Think about who George Wendenfeld was, Jewish boy from Vienna who ran from the Nazis in 1938. And then he spent the rest of his long life trying to understand the men who wanted him to die just because of his religion. He even published out Albert Speer, who is Hitler's own architect. He published his memoirs for more people to be aware of the hate. Few men alive knew more about the Nazis than George Wendenfeld. This was the man who said there are people who are worse anti-Semites than Nazis. That's our nugget of wisdom for today. Worse than the Nazis. Is that even possible? You see, there's one thing the Nazis did that tells us a great deal. They tried to hide it. They built their death camps far from the cities. They used soft, empty words like resettlement or a final solution. Murray even points out in the book, 1943, Heydrich Himmler made an important speech to his SS officers that the killing of the Jews was a page of history that would never be written again. The Nazis knew the world would turn away in absolute whore for what they were doing. And so they had shame.

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They covered their tracks, or tried to. Did Hamas cover its tracks?

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Nope. They did the opposite. They strapped cameras to their bodies. They streamed the murders on their victims' own social media accounts. And we just heard it. They called home to brag to their parents. The Nazis hid the crimes. Hamas broadcast theirs. Now that difference is everything. Hiding a crime means some part of you still knows it's wrong. Bragging about it. It means part of you, if not most of you, is dead. When hatred stops hiding, it is stop feeling shame, and hatred with no shame has no breaks. Some might even say no soul. George Wendenfeld died in 2016. Thankfully, he never saw October 7th. But a man who survived the Nazis saw this coming. He saw a deep hatred with no shame left in it. Three years ago today, the world saw that too.

Paying Courage Forward In Real Life

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What could any man or woman do against such hate? George Wendenfeld answered that question with his own life. When he fled Vienna in 1938, Christians in Britain helped him find safety. He never forgot it. He was grateful. And in 2015, at the age of 95, he paid a rescue, he paid to rescue Christian families that were fleeing ISIS in Syria. It's a wonderful story. He said it was a debt that he had to repay. One old man remembered who stood with him, and he stood with the others in turn. Boy, is that not the best of humanity. That's what any one of us can do is to live the virtuous life.

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Treat human beings with respect. It's not everything, but it's something.

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And that's what it looks like for you and for me. We have to refuse to look away. For too long the West has looked away. It's a religion of peace. Not sure about that.

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Actions are speaking louder than words.

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Read the books about October seventh. Don't let anyone soften it. Don't get the talking points. Don't just listen to this podcast. Read it. Watch the videos. Name it plainly. It wasn't resistance. It wasn't context. It was plain, simple, cold murder.

Refusing Silence As Antisemitism Rises

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Israelis weren't in Gaza.

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They exited it at the request of Palestinians. Staying with your Jewish neighbors.

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Since October 7th, the hatred of Jews has risen on campuses and city streets, unlike anything we've seen, probably since the 1930s. It's happening all across the West. It's happening in our own country. Silence is not neutral.

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You gotta speak up for the respect of life.

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We gotta teach our sons and our daughters the difference between civilization that mourns its dead and a cult that celebrates killing.

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That last one is the whole fight.

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At least according to Murray, and I'm and I agree with you. A democracy that weeps over every life, it loses. This death cult sends its sons out to die and calls it glory. Oh heavens, no. We will not pretend, we will never pretend those two are the same.

Rubio In Athens Names The Threat

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Now I do want to end on a hopeful note on this October 7th because unlike the past administration, we have some real leaders in this administration. And this evening, as the sun went down over Greece, our great Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, stood at Pinnax Hill in Athens with a Parthenon behind him. And he gave nearly a 30-minute address that was purposely done on the day on the third anniversary of the Hamas massacre in Israel. And I want you to just take in where he was standing. The Acropolis was very close. The Acropolis that we heard of Saint Paul going to. So on the day we also remember a death cult's worst work, America's top diplomat stood at Democracy's Cradle. That's Murray's title, Come to Life, Democracy's on One Side and the Death Cult on the Other. Rubio didn't soften the moment. He told the audience the West is at an inflection point, not only for America, but for the whole of our civilization. And then he named the enemy. Go on to the speech. Our heroes, the heroes of the West, are those who chose to remain faithful to their duty precisely when it was most difficult and painful to do so. The man who is bound by his word, the soldier who will not abandon his post, the captain, the proverbial captain, who goes down with his ship. This is wholly different from what we see even now from the examples, from the for the example, from fanatics, like the radical mullahs of Iran, whose cult of death hails child suicide bombers as national heroes, and who portrays martyrdom as an end to itself. Our heroes. Our heroes may be willing to die for the cause, but our heroes do not worship death. It is precisely because we value life that we come to recognize the heroism and those who would sooner sacrifice it than betray their principles. Again, that was our great Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, in Greece today. Murray called it a death cult. Rubio calls it a cult of death. Two men looking from two different places, seeing and identifying the same thing. And remember, who funds Hamas? Iran. Earlier today in Athens, Rubio accused Iran's rulers of spending their own country's money on Hezbollah, on Hamas, on Iraqi militias, and the Houtis instead of on and for their own people. Rightly so. The father who blessed his murdering son didn't invent this radical hatred. It was taught, it was paid for, and it was celebrated. It's been that way for 1400 years.

Stop The Shame Choose Strength Unite

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So how do we combat it? How do we fight it? That's why I loved about Rubio's speech. Because he said, stop being ashamed for who we are. Rubio said the West tore down its monuments, condemned its own history, and taught children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit. That's rubbish. Rubio called it out. Stop being ashamed of who we are.

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We are the greatest civilization, the Western civilization. He also told us to choose strength.

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He said America has chosen to rebuild its defenses, bring back its industry, and take control of its critical supply chains. And finally, we need to stand together. At his press conference earlier in the day, Rubio announced an important new agreement with Greece to share counterterrorism information between their law enforcement agencies and ours so the threats can be stopped before they strike. So three major points stop being ashamed of who we are, choose strength, and stand together. And if we look back at that first point, because it's the one that belongs to you and me. The young man on the phone had no doubt. He was proud of what he did, and his father was proud of him. A civilization that's ashamed of itself can't stand against an enemy that has no shame at all. It might be a death cult, but they're convicted. And that's the real contest. It isn't only rockets against the Iron Dome, it's conviction against conviction. A death cult raises its sons to be proud of murder. We have to raise ours to be proud of what's actually worth defending. The right to vote on a hill in Athens, the right to worship in peace, live in peace, and the right of a Jewish family to sleep safely in its home.

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They might call us infidels.

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But we need to stop backing down. Rubio closed with a challenge. He called Europe to awaken from its long slumber and rekindle the fire that was lit in Athens some thousand years ago. That's the answer to Murray's question. What can any man do against such radical hate? He can rekindle the fire in his own home first. He can learn about Western civilization. He can read the books. He can understand Christendom. He can rekindle his faith. A faith that will look into the heart of pure evil in its eye and say, I will not submit. No more.

The Challenge For Your Family

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And so in today's Liberty Minute, here's your challenge. Pick up on Democracies and Death Cults, read the introduction, and then sit down with your family and tell them what happened three years ago today. Tell them why it matters, tell them why we're defending it. And George Wendenfeld spent his life repaying that one act of courage that people did for him. And we can start paying it forward. We can start with our own family. And we can rekindle this fire in Western civilization. We can stand up to this death call. And we can win. As always, let's keep fighting the good fight.

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Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at TeamMojoAcademy.com, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.