The Undocumented Mark Steyn

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.

The West is dying—Will we let enemies write our ending?

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The blood of martyrs, prophets, poets, and soldiers built our civilization. Their sacrifice demands courage in the present to preserve it.

Lamentations asks, “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?”

That question has been weighing on me heavily. Not just as a broadcaster, but as a citizen, a father, a husband, a believer. It is a question that every person who cares about this nation, this culture, and this civilization must confront: Is all of this worth saving?

We have squandered this inheritance. We forgot who we were — and our enemies are eager to write our ending.

Western civilization — a project born in Judea, refined in Athens, tested in Rome, reawakened in Wittenberg, and baptized again on the shores of Plymouth Rock — is a gift. We didn’t earn it. We didn’t purchase it. We were handed it. And now, we must ask ourselves: Do we even want it?

Across Europe, streets are restless. Not merely with protests, but with ancient, festering hatred — the kind that once marched under swastikas and fueled ovens. Today, it marches under banners of peace while chanting calls for genocide. Violence and division crack societies open. Here in America, it’s left against right, flesh against spirit, neighbor against neighbor.

Truth struggles to find a home. Even the church is slumbering — or worse, collaborating.

Our society tells us that everything must be reset: tradition, marriage, gender, faith, even love. The only sin left is believing in absolute truth. Screens replace Scripture. Entertainment replaces education. Pleasure replaces purpose. Our children are confused, medicated, addicted, fatherless, suicidal. Universities mock virtue. Congress is indifferent. Media programs rather than informs. Schools recondition rather than educate.

Is this worth saving? If not, we should stop fighting and throw up our hands. But if it is, then we must act — and we must act now.

The West: An idea worth saving

What is the West? It’s not a location, race, flag, or a particular constitution. The West is an idea — an idea that man is made in the image of God, that liberty comes from responsibility, not government; that truth exists; that evil exists; and that courage is required every day. The West teaches that education, reason, and revelation walk hand in hand. Beauty matters. Kindness matters. Empathy matters. Sacrifice is holy. Justice is blind. Mercy is near.

We have squandered this inheritance. We forgot who we were — and our enemies are eager to write our ending.

If not now, when? If not us, who? If this is worth saving, we must know why. Western civilization is worth dying for, worth living for, worth defending. It was built on the blood of martyrs, prophets, poets, pilgrims, moms, dads, and soldiers. They did not die for markets, pronouns, surveillance, or currency. They died for something higher, something bigger.

MATTHIEU RONDEL/AFP via Getty Images | Getty Images

Yet hope remains. Resurrection is real — not only in the tomb outside Jerusalem, but in the bones of any individual or group that returns to truth, honor, and God. It is never too late to return to family, community, accountability, and responsibility.

Pick up your torch

We were chosen for this time. We were made for a moment like this. The events unfolding in Europe and South Korea, the unrest and moral collapse, will all come down to us. Somewhere inside, we know we were called to carry this fire.

We are not called to win. We are called to stand. To hold the torch. To ask ourselves, every day: Is it worth standing? Is it worth saving?

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Pick up your torch. If you choose to carry it, buckle up. The work is only beginning.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Stop coasting: How self-education can save America’s future

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Coasting through life is no longer an option. Charlie Kirk’s pursuit of knowledge challenges all of us to learn, act, and grow every day.

Last year, my wife and I made a commitment: to stop coasting, to learn something new every day, and to grow — not just spiritually, but intellectually. Charlie Kirk’s tragic death crystallized that resolve. It forced a hard look in the mirror, revealing how much I had coasted in both my spiritual and educational life. Coasting implies going downhill. You can’t coast uphill.

Last night, my wife and I re-engaged. We enrolled in Hillsdale College’s free online courses, inspired by the fact that Charlie had done the same. He had quietly completed around 30 courses before I even knew, mastering the classics, civics, and the foundations of liberty. Watching his relentless pursuit of knowledge reminded me that growth never stops, no matter your age.

The path forward must be reclaiming education, agency, and the power to shape our minds and futures.

This lesson is particularly urgent for two groups: young adults stepping into the world and those who may have settled into complacency. Learning is life. Stop learning, and you start dying. To young adults, especially, the college promise has become a trap. Twelve years of K-12 education now leave graduates unprepared for life. Only 35% of seniors are proficient in reading, and just 22% in math. They are asked to bet $100,000 or more for four years of college that will often leave them underemployed and deeply indebted.

Degrees in many “new” fields now carry negative returns. Parents who have already sacrificed for public education find themselves on the hook again, paying for a system that often fails to deliver.

This is one of the reasons why Charlie often described college as a “scam.” Debt accumulates, wages are not what students were promised, doors remain closed, and many are tempted to throw more time and money after a system that won’t yield results. Graduate school, in many cases, compounds the problem. The education system has become a factory of despair, teaching cynicism rather than knowledge and virtue.

Reclaiming educational agency

Yet the solution is not radical revolt against education — it is empowerment to reclaim agency over one’s education. Independent learning, self-guided study, and disciplined curiosity are the modern “Napster moment.” Just as Napster broke the old record industry by digitizing music, the internet has placed knowledge directly in the hands of the individual. Artists like Taylor Swift now thrive outside traditional gatekeepers. Likewise, students and lifelong learners can reclaim intellectual freedom outside of the ivory towers.

Each individual possesses the ability to think, create, and act. This is the power God grants to every human being. Knowledge, faith, and personal responsibility are inseparable. Learning is not a commodity to buy with tuition; it is a birthright to claim with effort.

David Butow / Contributor | Getty Images

Charlie Kirk’s life reminds us that self-education is an act of defiance and empowerment. In his pursuit of knowledge, in his engagement with civics and philosophy, he exemplified the principle that liberty depends on informed, capable citizens. We honor him best by taking up that mantle — by learning relentlessly, thinking critically, and refusing to surrender our minds to a system that profits from ignorance.

The path forward must be reclaiming education, agency, and the power to shape our minds and futures. Every day, seek to grow, create, and act. Charlie showed the way. It is now our responsibility to follow.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins TPUSA tour to honor Charlie Kirk

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If they thought the murder of Charlie Kirk would scare us into silence, they were wrong!

If anything, Turning Point will hit the road louder than ever. On Monday, September 22, less than two weeks after the assassination, Charlie's friends united under the Turning Point USA banner to carry his torch and honor his legacy by doing what he did best: bringing honest and truthful debate to Universities across the nation.

Naturally, Glenn has rallied to the cause and has accepted an invitation to join the TPUSA tour at the University of North Dakota on October 9th.

Want to join Glenn at the University of North Dakota to honor Charlie Kirk and keep his mission alive? Click HERE to sign up or find more information.

Glenn's daughter honors Charlie Kirk with emotional tribute song

MELISSA MAJCHRZAK / Contributor | Getty Images

On September 17th, Glenn commemorated his late friend Charlie Kirk by hosting The Charlie Kirk Show Podcast, where he celebrated and remembered the life of a remarkable young man.

During the broadcast, Glenn shared an emotional new song performed by his daughter, Cheyenne, who was standing only feet away from Charlie when he was assassinated. The song, titled "We Are One," has been dedicated to Charlie Kirk as a tribute and was written and co-performed by David Osmond, son of Alan Osmond, founding member of The Osmonds.

Glenn first asked David Osmond to write "We Are One" in 2018, as he predicted that dark days were on the horizon, but he never imagined that it would be sung by his daughter in honor of Charlie Kirk. The Lord works in mysterious ways; could there have been a more fitting song to honor such a brave man?

"We Are One" is available for download or listening on Spotify HERE