When you first meet Beneil Dariush, you may be a little thrown.
He fights in the UFC, but he’s not your prototypical fighter. He’s slightly soft-spoken, deeply thoughtful, and firmly in touch with his Christianity.
He can be described in one word — likable.
He is a man to root for in the Octagon, but don’t let his likability fool you — he’s a competitor, and he’s not afraid to express his beliefs.
Born in Iran, Dariush has seen the evils of an oppressive government, and he’s using his platform to call them out.
After his last fight at UFC 262 — a win over Tony Ferguson — Dariush used his moment in victory to call out the evils of Marxism.
“First things first, I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that’s number one,” Dariush told Joe Rogan after the fight. “Number two, I want to dedicate this fight to all the people who’ve been hurt by Marxist ideologies. There are millions of you.”
“It’s just a fight, I know it’s not much, but I want you to know that I love you. I understand the pain … I don’t completely understand, but I love you. I understand your pain.”
This week, Dariush appeared on the latest episode of The Daily Wire’s Candace and explained the reasoning behind his statements.
“Well, there’s a couple of things. The catalyst to it was Thug Rose,” Dariush said on Candace. “I don’t know if you were familiar with her … She just became champion again. She fought Weili Zhang and she came out and said, ‘Better dead than Red.’ And her family, I believe, was Lithuanian. And that was their slogan, ‘Better dead than Red’. And she got a terrible backlash. And I just couldn’t understand it. She’s not saying anything crazy. You don’t want communism. You don’t want this socialism. This is what destroys countries and lives.”
In speaking with Dariush, it’s clear that he understands the way the Left uses words to get their point across, twisting them in any way they deem useful in order to get their way.
“I saw how the media played it, they turn it, and they say ‘communism … it’s not even an issue in America,’ things like that,” said Dariush. “And they kind of put a lot of pressure on her. And I actually felt bad for her. She should be able to say that as much as she wants and pretty much everybody should. So with that being said, I said I was going to actually just say the same thing she said, but the issue is it’s the way they play with words.”
“So you say communism, they say ‘We’re not really talking about communism. We’re talking about socialism.’ And you say socialism, they say, ‘Well, it’s not that kind of socialism, it’s this.’”
So, Dariush settled on one word to describe totalitarian governments — Marxism.
“I just said ‘Marxism’. It covers it all. The only difference between these is one of them is a slower poison that is going to kill you later on. And the other one kills you faster. So, I think we’ve got to make sure we start calling it just Marxism. It’s all one. It’s all the same thing.”
His wife has experience with it as well. Her family left Vietnam in order to escape Marxism. Unlike the spoiled youth of America who see socialism as the future — and a way to receive handouts — Dariush sees it for what it is, and he’s willing to call it out.
“My wife is Vietnamese, so her parents are from Vietnam. And they ran away from Marxism,” Dariush told Candace. “They ran away from that. They told me the stories.”
“Her father basically came on a boat and he would tell us like nine out of ten didn’t make it. He was on one of the ten boats that did make it. And then the stories her mom would tell me about how they got out of the house last minute. If they had stayed an extra day, they would be in a camp or they’d be in prison.”
While Iran is not itself a Marxist country, it’s still a totalitarian government, one that controls its people. And Dariush sees no difference between the two.
“And then in my country, the ayatollah came and they promised all these free things and they said, ‘Just let us take over and we’re going to do all this stuff for you.’”
“They made the government God. And it’s the same. It’s no different. It’s Marxist ideology,” Dariush said. “You make the government number one, and people give up their rights. The government — once it takes power —nobody takes that away. You don’t take it. If it’s gained freely, it’ll be taken back in blood, that’s the only way you get away from Communism, Marxism.”
You can catch the entirety of Dariush’s appearance on the latest episode of Candace Tuesday night at 8:00 p.m. CT.