The Undocumented Mark Steyn

October 23, 2014

Writer

Mark Steyn is one of the smartest commentators around today, and Glenn had the opportunity to chat with him about his new book on radio today. Mark believes the battleground needs to be in culture, arguing liberals focus their efforts there while conservatives only care about an election every other November and are surprised nothing changes.

WATCH:

Below is a rough transcript of the interview

GLENN: My opinion there are probably two people that come really right off the top of my head that I think have been some of the most courageous people when it comes to the fight against radicalized Islam that have been mainstream for a long time early on. And that is Michelle Malkin and Mark Steyn. They've been very clear, unafraid and have really been persecuted for their viewpoint. If I'm not mistaken, mark, his Canadian citizenship was prosecuted for hate speech because he spoke out years ago about radicalized Islam and he said, warning this is a real problem. Now, in his own country, we are all Canadians today. Now, in his own country, two people were shot. Canadian parliament is meeting now and at least their prime minister has come out and said, this is terrorism. None of this, mumbo, jumbo and political correct crap that is coming out of the mouth of our politicians. They're somewhat clear that this is Muslim -- I don't want to say extremism. This is Islamic psychopaths that have done this. And Mark Steyn is with us today. He has the book, The Undocumented. Mark Steyn. Don't say you weren't warned. How accurate is that, don't say you weren't warned, Mark?

MARK: Yeah, that's sadly true. It doesn't give me any pleasure. I know the Canadian parliament really well. At the time of the hate speech stuff that you mentioned just now, I testified there to the House of Commons in that block where that barbarian was rampaging down yesterday morning and where, thank God, he was taken out by the sergeant of arms, who is basically a ceremonial figure. It's what a military man or a retired police officer does in the years before he goes off to enjoy his pension. And thank God that that brave guy realized that his ceremonial role had turned real and took down that savage yesterday because otherwise there would have been a lot more dead people.

GLENN: So, Mark, there's two things here. They're doing a moment of silence now in Ottawa. There's live coverage everywhere. Canada is somewhat in a state of shock. I have to say we were all going numb to some of this stuff which is a really bad sign. But there's two things that come to mind. There's two paths. We're at a fork for Canada right now. They could go the Patriot Act way and beat their chest and start to, you know, go unfortunately some of the ways that we went. Or they could just sober up, wake up, get rid of political correctness and actually start dealing with the issues. Which way do they go?

MARK: I hope they don't go the Patriot Act way. I love America, but I'm tired of the big national security state, which is why Capitol city-wise I preferred in recent years to wander around Ottawa rather than Washington, D.C. where they get into the -- an obscure office of the department of paperwork. You have to go through 45 minutes of background checks and show your Social Security number.

We have a kind of 40-car motorcade culture, where we seal off our ruling class from the people they rule. We have absurd regulations like the -- just the head of Thanksgiving, I talk about this in the book, the absurd kind of things. The consistency of pumpkin pie you take home for Auntie Mabel at Thanksgiving. If it's like dry and tasteless like the Nevada desert, you can take it on the plane. But if it's moist and succulent, it counts as a liquid. And a jihadist could weaponize your pumpkin pie.

And instead of going down that kind of big security state route, I think we need to be honest. We need to recognize we're up against an ideology. We're not fighting pumpkin pies. We're not fighting gel. We're not fighting shoes. We're up against an ideology, and we need to drive a stake through that ideology. So I don't want to go the Patriot Act route.

GLENN: But do you think they have the courage to do that? Look what they did to you.

MARK: Yes, but to be fair to the Canadian parliament, they had a lot of these hate speech laws -- I mean, if you look at Canada as like a particularly insane American college campus, that's how it was for hate speech laws.

And the great thing about my case is that, God bless them, the Canadian parliament understood that the hate speech laws had gone too far, and they repealed them. And it was a difficult process, and a lot of those fellows weren't on board with it because they think it means you're in favor of hate and you don't like the people, but eventually that went through the House of Commons and the Senate, and it got royal assent, and that law was repealed. And I think that's the sign that Canada has opened up and recognized reality.

When I look at the dishonesty about what Major Hasan did at Fort Hood. When I listen to the president yesterday using phrases like "senseless violence" -- I mean, he always sounds so sedated when he's asked to react to something like this. And you keep thinking, come on, man, a bit of righteous indignation wouldn't -- you could at least look as if you're kind of upset or angry about what's going on. But he could never do it.

And that kind of sedated attitude to these events, most obviously when the poor fellow had his head chopped off by ISIS, and Obama gives his usual listless performance and then goes back to the vineyard country club about 20 minutes later, at some point, you have to -- if you're not getting angry about this, about the world we're building for our children, where somehow we're expected to put up with a little bit of low-level beheading every now and then, or some guy is going to run you over in his car because he's gone freelance jihad -- I don't want my kids living in that world. And I think we shouldn't be changing the way we live to accommodate lunatics.

GLENN: So what are we headed for? We have kids now in Australia. Kids leaving to go join ISIS. We had two girls from Colorado that went to join jihad. Where are we headed?

MARK: You know, I think it's like -- I think that's what's so disturbing about a lot of what has been in the news recently. The fellows who did this thing in Ottawa and San Jon Sarish (phonetic) there, where people who were born in Canada and converted to Islam. The fellow in Moore, Oklahoma, who beheaded a woman was a recent convert. The fellows that hacked drummer Rigby to death in the streets of London were Nigerian Christians who converted to Islam.

So it is almost -- I think we're at the stage -- and they're not converting because they suddenly saw on the road to Damascus, and they've come -- and they've undergone some kind of spiritual divine transformation.

What conversion means there is that they're joining the coolest gang on the planet. And if it's now not something to do with being born in Waziristan or Yemen or whatever, but a Quebec quire Catholic can suddenly decide he'd like to be one of the jihad boys, or some fellow in Oklahoma can suddenly decide, wow, this is the coolest gang to belong to, then I think that is actually far more dangerous than some fellow sitting in a cave in Afghanistan dreaming about destroying the great Satan because it's not a foreign war anymore. It's within us. They are us and we are them. And that's a very dark place to go.

GLENN: So what happens next? Let's talk about nuts and bolts. Let's talk about the sporting event that is politics and the election. Okay. So I want to know a couple things. What happens, in your opinion to this election? Does it -- and does it even matter? What happens to the presidential election? And would you want to be president of the United States with all the damage that has been done and the wreckage that has yet to be reconciled?

MARK: Well, that last one is a terrible -- we're approaching the stage where this president has outspent two and a third centuries of his -- he's run up more debt than two and a third centuries of presidents combined. And whoever succeeds him is going to have to be serious about the implications of that.

I've listened to you for years. And you're absolutely right that -- when the choice is between people who want to go off a cliff full-throttle and somebody else who says, no, let's go off the cliff in third gear, that doesn't make any difference to how you land when you're at the bottom. You're still dead.

And I would like a real choice, and I would like someone who is willing to move the meter. At the end of my book, I write about a couple of contemporary figures and a far more remote one. About Reagan, Thatcher, and William Wilberforce who was an obscure backbencher who got slavery abolished, which was a feature of life across the entire planet for all societies. And they didn't take a focus group. And they didn't run the numbers. They actually changed the way people thought. And they move -- they didn't move toward the center, as the consultants tell you to do, they moved the center toward them. And that's what I'm looking for. So that's what I'm looking for this November, and that's what I'm looking for in two November's time.

GLENN: Have you seen that? Have you seen William Wilber? Paging William Wilber for us. Paging William Wilber for us. To the campaign trail. Stat.

MARK: No, I have a great fear that the -- the smart guys in Washington would say, he's way too crazy. We don't want the money going to him.

GLENN: Right. So let me ask you this: First of all, you're a Canadian citizen.

MARK: Right. And I live in New Hampshire, and this is where my children are.

GLENN: All right. All right. This is all a beard. Okay. This New Hampshire thing is a beard. The Canadian thing is a beard. What's with the English accent, Mr. Canadian? You carpetbagger.

MARK: I love the people who is it's a phony accent. It's like hell to keep up.

GLENN: We meet you in the street at night and you're like, hey, how you doing?

PAT: You actually attended the same school as JRR Tolkien.

MARK: Yeah, that's right. I had his old Greek dictionary. I wasn't the same time as him. Because I would have told him, lay off all that troll stuff. It's not going to go anywhere. I had his old Greek dictionary, and I actually had an exchange of letters with him when I was 11 or 12 years old. The best selling authors I regret to say aren't always when you send them handwritten letters, and so I went to school --

GLENN: So funny, I just went through his handwritten letters. I have a library. And so we're collecting a lot of stuff. And I just went through some handwritten letters. One is explaining about Gandalf and why he named him Gandalf and everything. Some amazing stuff. I was going through these letters and some of them were just to fans who said, hey, I want to thank you for this. What he would write back to them. I had that very thought. Who does that now? Who has the time to write people back in hand, not typewritten. What did he write to you.

MARK: I know. Well, he wrote to me again about an obscure point in The Hobbit I had raised. And he wrote me a nice handwritten letter explaining that. And the idea. And as you say, who has the time to do that now? And these days people get annoyed if you, you know, if you email someone or you tweet someone and they don't instantly respond in five, six, seven seconds.

And the idea of someone painstakingly writing this out in hand. And putting it in an envelope. Putting a stamp on it and taking it to the post office to mail. It's like, he doesn't need me, and yet he did it for me.

GLENN: Do you still have the letter?

MARK: Yeah, I have it in the attic at my mum's house, but it's still there.

GLENN: Say it with me. Mom.

SPEAKER: It creeps across the border.

GLENN: Don't worry. Don't worry. We've got everything creeping across our borders. We don't seem to care anymore. It's very hard for me to watch a James Bond with my son because he's like, is she his mom? Why does he keep calling her mum? I'm like, I don't know. Mum sometimes means mom. Sometimes it means ma'am. I don't know. They're English.

MARK: Yes, it's like the queen you call, ma'am. Which rhymes with jam. And James Bond calls M halfway between -- he calls Judi Dench halfway between ma'am and mum. So she's like a maternal queenly figure.

Actually, in the book, there's a whole big chunk of stuff about James Bond, so you can get your full thing of Ian Fleming and ma'am/jam thing going there?

GLENN: Mark, I don't know why you're not on more. I thoroughly enjoy you. You're really truly one of the bravest men alive today because you will not shut up or sit down. I hope that continues. New book: The Undocumented. Mark Steyn. Don't say you weren't warned. Mark, thanks a lot.

MARK: Thanks a lot, Glenn. And I may yet cover have a Ramahanukwanzmas. As life goes on, I think it's actually one of the most profound statements of what has happened to us.

GLENN: You know, I have not heard Ramahanukwanzmas for a long time. I can't believe you even remember that. But we should pull that out for this Christmas.

MARK: We've got it all worked out.

GLENN: Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. God bless.

Breaking point: Will America stand up to the mob?

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Colorado counselor fights back after faith declared “illegal”

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins Megyn Kelly LIVE — One night ONLY in Fort Worth!

Get ready for sparks to fly. For the first time in years, Glenn will come face-to-face with Megyn Kelly — and this time, he’s the one in the hot seat. On October 25, 2025, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Glenn joins Megyn on her “Megyn Kelly Live Tour” for a no-holds-barred conversation that promises laughs, surprises, and maybe even a few uncomfortable questions.

What will happen when two of America’s sharpest voices collide under the spotlight? Will Glenn finally reveal the major announcement he’s been teasing on the radio for weeks? You’ll have to be there to find out.

This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

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What our response to Israel reveals about us

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Contributor | Getty Images

I have been honored to receive the Defender of Israel Award from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem Post recently named me one of the strongest Christian voices in support of Israel.

And yet, my support is not blind loyalty. It’s not a rubber stamp for any government or policy. I support Israel because I believe it is my duty — first as a Christian, but even if I weren’t a believer, I would still support her as a man of reason, morality, and common sense.

Because faith isn’t required to understand this: Israel’s existence is not just about one nation’s survival — it is about the survival of Western civilization itself.

It is a lone beacon of shared values in the Middle East. It is a bulwark standing against radical Islam — the same evil that seeks to dismantle our own nation from within.

And my support is not rooted in politics. It is rooted in something simpler and older than politics: a people’s moral and historical right to their homeland, and their right to live in peace.

Israel has that right — and the right to defend herself against those who openly, repeatedly vow her destruction.

Let’s make it personal: if someone told me again and again that they wanted to kill me and my entire family — and then acted on that threat — would I not defend myself? Wouldn’t you? If Hamas were Canada, and we were Israel, and they did to us what Hamas has done to them, there wouldn’t be a single building left standing north of our border. That’s not a question of morality.

That’s just the truth. All people — every people — have a God-given right to protect themselves. And Israel is doing exactly that.

My support for Israel’s right to finish the fight against Hamas comes after eighty years of rejected peace offers and failed two-state solutions. Hamas has never hidden its mission — the eradication of Israel. That’s not a political disagreement.

That’s not a land dispute. That is an annihilationist ideology. And while I do not believe this is America’s war to fight, I do believe — with every fiber of my being — that it is Israel’s right, and moral duty, to defend her people.

Criticism of military tactics is fair. That’s not antisemitism. But denying Israel’s right to exist, or excusing — even celebrating — the barbarity of Hamas? That’s something far darker.

We saw it on October 7th — the face of evil itself. Women and children slaughtered. Babies burned alive. Innocent people raped and dragged through the streets. And now, to see our own fellow citizens march in defense of that evil… that is nothing short of a moral collapse.

If the chants in our streets were, “Hamas, return the hostages — Israel, stop the bombing,” we could have a conversation.

But that’s not what we hear.

What we hear is open sympathy for genocidal hatred. And that is a chasm — not just from decency, but from humanity itself. And here lies the danger: that same hatred is taking root here — in Dearborn, in London, in Paris — not as horror, but as heroism. If we are not vigilant, the enemy Israel faces today will be the enemy the free world faces tomorrow.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. It’s about the courage to call evil by its name and to say “Never again” — and mean it.

And you don’t have to open a Bible to understand this. But if you do — if you are a believer — then this issue cuts even deeper. Because the question becomes: what did God promise, and does He keep His word?

He told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” He promised to make Abraham the father of many nations and to give him “the whole land of Canaan.” And though Abraham had other sons, God reaffirmed that promise through Isaac. And then again through Isaac’s son, Jacob — Israel — saying: “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you and to your descendants after you.”

That’s an everlasting promise.

And from those descendants came a child — born in Bethlehem — who claimed to be the Savior of the world. Jesus never rejected His title as “son of David,” the great King of Israel.

He said plainly that He came “for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And when He returns, Scripture says He will return as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And where do you think He will go? Back to His homeland — Israel.

Tamir Kalifa / Stringer | Getty Images

And what will He find when He gets there? His brothers — or his brothers’ enemies? Will the roads where He once walked be preserved? Or will they lie in rubble, as Gaza does today? If what He finds looks like the aftermath of October 7th, then tell me — what will be my defense as a Christian?

Some Christians argue that God’s promises to Israel have been transferred exclusively to the Church. I don’t believe that. But even if you do, then ask yourself this: if we’ve inherited the promises, do we not also inherit the land? Can we claim the birthright and then, like Esau, treat it as worthless when the world tries to steal it?

So, when terrorists come to slaughter Israelis simply for living in the land promised to Abraham, will we stand by? Or will we step forward — into the line of fire — and say,

“Take me instead”?

Because this is not just about Israel’s right to exist.

It’s about whether we still know the difference between good and evil.

It’s about whether we still have the courage to stand where God stands.

And if we cannot — if we will not — then maybe the question isn’t whether Israel will survive. Maybe the question is whether we will.

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