Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George Norri
Speaker 1: back with Judge Jim Gray. His website is his name
Speaker 1: linked up at Coast to coastam dot com. Several of
Speaker 1: his books include Wearing the Robe, Why our drug laws
Speaker 1: have failed and what we can do about it and
Speaker 1: also twenty thirty Kids. Judge, we have lost and I
Speaker 1: don't know when it happened, but you're right. We've lost
Speaker 1: the ability to discuss things with people without other people
Speaker 1: going ballistic. What happened? You know? I trace it back
Speaker 1: to when we got all these cable TV channels and
Speaker 1: I thought, wow, that's going to be wonderful. Well, A're
Speaker 1: all going to get different information. But I was wrong,
Speaker 1: because now you'll find these different cable TV channels that
Speaker 1: will find exactly your thoughts, George, and your biases and
Speaker 1: will cater everything right to you. And I think made
Speaker 1: us very polarized. We don't have any Walter Kronkites anymore
Speaker 1: that try to talk to everybody. They just talk to individuals.
Speaker 1: And you do this sometime where we have an important story,
Speaker 1: listen to about five different broadcasts and different stations, and
Speaker 1: they'll get the names right and everything else will be
Speaker 1: slanted one way or the other. It's just it's a
Speaker 1: sorry thing, and I think it's resulted in our being
Speaker 1: so polarized, which is a disaster. Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 1: It really is. Do you have hope that we're going
Speaker 1: to pull ourselves out of it? George. We're resilient, I
Speaker 1: do certainly. So. We've faced a lot of difficulty in
Speaker 1: our past. But we need some leadership and we need
Speaker 1: people to stand up. And by the way, it's our government, George,
Speaker 1: and if it's not working, we have no one to
Speaker 1: blame but ourselves. That's a rather overwhelming task. But it's
Speaker 1: up to all of us to hold people accountable, to
Speaker 1: contact our elected officials and say, wait a minute, what
Speaker 1: about this and what are you doing about that? And
Speaker 1: you mentioned one of our books. I'm proud to say
Speaker 1: that I wrote with my wife, Grace Walker Gray. It's
Speaker 1: called twenty thirty Kids We are Rising Heroes of the Planet,
Speaker 1: and it talks about I think the most important issue
Speaker 1: facing our country today, which is we have too many
Speaker 1: public schools failing our children. And it's unnecessary and it
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't have to happen, but it's a tragedy and
Speaker 1: almost always gravitates into lower economic areas, which regretfully, are
Speaker 1: a lot of African Americans, Hispanics and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: It's not racial, but it's economic. But we've written a
Speaker 1: novel to try to empower parents to understand that if
Speaker 1: they could choose where their government money would be spent
Speaker 1: for the education of their children, they would demand excellence
Speaker 1: and they would receive it. So, if you think about it, George,
Speaker 1: and this is something that's really leading our country astray.
Speaker 1: Public education is the only area in our economy where
Speaker 1: the provider dictates what the purchaser will buy, and so
Speaker 1: they don't have to compete. But if you bring in choice,
Speaker 1: you bring in empowering parents to choose. Now you'll have
Speaker 1: competition and everybody will get better except teach years that
Speaker 1: can or won't teach, they'll be fired, fortunately, and we
Speaker 1: will have to go off and do something different. But
Speaker 1: losing our children at such an early age for not
Speaker 1: getting a quality education is a disaster and we must
Speaker 1: change that. I looked at that title for that book
Speaker 1: twenty thirty and it seemed like it was millions of
Speaker 1: years away. It's only seven years away from now. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, that's correct. Yeah, it's amazing. We take a
Speaker 1: fourth grade student and you know, seven or eight years
Speaker 1: from now, he's going to be graduating from high school
Speaker 1: and he's going to be out there in the world,
Speaker 1: and what type of person will he or she be? Uh?
Speaker 1: And there's so much better. We have them decide to
Speaker 1: all be investigators and so they're gonna they're going to
Speaker 1: decide to make a table well, because you have to measure,
Speaker 1: and you have to add up, and you have to
Speaker 1: you know, all this sort of stuff. So we have
Speaker 1: them much more active in their school. Uh. And uh,
Speaker 1: it really it's it's just exciting, exciting possibility, and it's
Speaker 1: starting to sweep the country. And Arizona has gone into
Speaker 1: this now, lots of places in Florida, Milwaukee, Wisconsin has
Speaker 1: at it for years. It's something everybody should look into
Speaker 1: and support. Are the schools different than when we went
Speaker 1: to school? Yes, I think so. I got a very
Speaker 1: quality education, but we were upper middle class and I
Speaker 1: was public schools all the way too. I met Milton
Speaker 1: Friedman one time. Actually, I was running a drug policy
Speaker 1: for him. He was there and in the intermission, he
Speaker 1: was talking about school choice and I said, well, doctor Freedman,
Speaker 1: I was a product of public schools. I don't want
Speaker 1: to harm our public schools. And he said, Jim, I
Speaker 1: may ask you two questions. Number One, if you're the
Speaker 1: parent of a high school age child, what country in
Speaker 1: the world would you want to that child to go
Speaker 1: to to get the best public education that he or
Speaker 1: she could? And I said, well, I'm not sure, but
Speaker 1: probably not the United States of America. He said, I
Speaker 1: think you're right. Second question, if you're the parent of
Speaker 1: a college age child, what country in the world would
Speaker 1: you want that child to go to to get the
Speaker 1: best quality public education that he or she could? And
Speaker 1: I said, well, there, I think it would be the
Speaker 1: United States. He said, I agree with that as well.
Speaker 1: You know the difference parents can choose where their money
Speaker 1: is going to be spent for college, They cannot choose
Speaker 1: for high school. He converted me at that moment, it's
Speaker 1: critically important. What about private schools, Well, it could be
Speaker 1: private school, it could be military school of vocational school.
Speaker 1: The parents are in much better position to understand the
Speaker 1: best place for their child to go and the best
Speaker 1: type of education. You know, some are going to be
Speaker 1: doctors of philosophy and others want to be mechanics. So
Speaker 1: maybe a vocational school would be best for some liberal
Speaker 1: arts school. You know, let the parents choose and let
Speaker 1: the money go where those choices are made, and they
Speaker 1: will demand excellence again and it will be a lot
Speaker 1: more catered to the needs of that individual child. Do
Speaker 1: you think we should make drugs legal? No, but only
Speaker 1: in a technical word. I would regulate and control them
Speaker 1: basically like wine, as far as some of them, like marijuana,
Speaker 1: But as far as the other mind altering drugs, I'd
Speaker 1: probably put them in the control of medical doctors, the
Speaker 1: medical profession. So then if you're going and they could
Speaker 1: prescribe them, but they would then educate you. George said,
Speaker 1: think about it this way with regard to mind altering
Speaker 1: sometimes addicting substances, the best quality program we have had
Speaker 1: in the United States in the last forty years is
Speaker 1: with cigarettes. You know, we have not made them illegal
Speaker 1: for adults, but we put education out there, we put
Speaker 1: actual morays out there, we put restrictions with regard to
Speaker 1: where you can smoke, and it's worked. We have many,
Speaker 1: many fewer young people smoking cigarettes than certainly when I
Speaker 1: was growing up. And so a program of that kind,
Speaker 1: where you rely on education and responsibility is where we
Speaker 1: should go with these other substances as well. And then
Speaker 1: you get into a disaster, which is fentanyl, and fentanyl
Speaker 1: people do not overdose on fentyl, George. That's a drug poisoning,
Speaker 1: and it's caused by drug prohibition because we have no
Speaker 1: quality control. You don't know what you're putting into your body,
Speaker 1: you don't know what the substances are, you don't know
Speaker 1: what the ranks are, and that's why people die. When
Speaker 1: we had alcohol prohibition, we had the same problem with
Speaker 1: white lightning, with impurities and the alcohol, people go blind.
Speaker 1: We heard that and people could die. That went away
Speaker 1: almost overnight when we came to our senses and repealed
Speaker 1: alcohol prohibition. So it's the lack of quality control, and
Speaker 1: of course the drug money. Already talked about juvenile street gangs,
Speaker 1: but just look at Mexico, George, Look what our drug
Speaker 1: money has done for life in Mexico, where the cartels
Speaker 1: now almost outgunned the military, the government. They have more
Speaker 1: money too, and it's just been a bloody disaster literally.
Speaker 1: So it's all caused by our policy of drug prohibition,
Speaker 1: shame on us. Do you have plans to run from
Speaker 1: political office again? No, I'm running away from political office
Speaker 1: at this point, George. I tell people you mentioned it
Speaker 1: that I ran for Congress as a Republican in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight, I ran as a libertarian for US Senate
Speaker 1: in two thousand and four, and I was the Libertarian
Speaker 1: nominee for Vice president in two and twelve. Didn't get
Speaker 1: to winning any of those elections. So I tell people
Speaker 1: with all sincerity that I'm not a politician, and I
Speaker 1: have the votes to prove it. I think people are
Speaker 1: tired of politicians, aren't they? I am. I don't see
Speaker 1: any leaders in our forget whatever political views you have,
Speaker 1: I don't see any leadership where people are standing up
Speaker 1: and educating saying this is the reason, this is why
Speaker 1: we should do such and such. Basically. In fact, I
Speaker 1: just got something today with a man that's going to
Speaker 1: run for presidents, a libertarian, and he says, in fact,
Speaker 1: his name is Lars Mapstead. He says, if you think
Speaker 1: the problems government caused their bad, wait till you see
Speaker 1: there's proposed solutions. And in our government's just off base.
Speaker 1: It is not the right way to go. It doesn't
Speaker 1: do things nearly as well as the private sector. George,
Speaker 1: I talk about controversial. I would do away with FEMA,
Speaker 1: you know, the Federal Emergency Response and just have private
Speaker 1: contracts with the Red Cross when we have a disaster.
Speaker 1: They do a far better job than government always did. Yes,
Speaker 1: yes we should. We have a huge prisoner population listenership, Jim, Yes, huge.
Speaker 1: And how many of those people should really be in jail.
Speaker 1: Some should be in jail, some should be in prison
Speaker 1: for a while, but a vast majority could have gone
Speaker 1: on probation. Without that, we overincarcerate, particularly mindlessly long periods
Speaker 1: of time incarceration. Now, I'm not talking about Charles Manson
Speaker 1: and sir hands her hand, that sort of serial killer,
Speaker 1: mortalize all that, But there's so many people that, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe they made a mistake, maybe they're factually innocent, you know,
Speaker 1: but they had a snitch who was going to testify
Speaker 1: wrongly that oh he confessed to me or whatever, and
Speaker 1: they're facing thirty years in prison if you go to
Speaker 1: trial and they believe the snitch, and they're offering you
Speaker 1: two years in prison if you plead guilty. Some people
Speaker 1: that are factually innocent, are literally coerced in depleting guilty. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not damning the its higher system, George. I think
Speaker 1: our system is basically pretty good, but it's certainly has
Speaker 1: some holes in it, and certainly I think that the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Prisons needs to be examined. We need to
Speaker 1: get some transparency, much more into our prisons. We have
Speaker 1: too many people that died of COVID. We have lack
Speaker 1: of medical care in prison that is I think a disgrace.
Speaker 1: From what I can tell, I have a good friend
Speaker 1: who's a medical doctor who is in a women's prison
Speaker 1: and just monitoring it. He said, it's just terrible, and
Speaker 1: these people are in our custody and they should have
Speaker 1: a threshold of security, healthcare, nutrition, exercise. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just basic to who we are. It's in fact, it
Speaker 1: is DOFCISKI I think it was who said that you
Speaker 1: can tell more about a society by walking into its
Speaker 1: prisons than you can't any other way. And I don't
Speaker 1: think our society would look very good. From what I
Speaker 1: can tell, I hear the prison system in Mexico is deplorable. Oh,
Speaker 1: do not get arrested in Mexico, by the way, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to go to Turkey. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of bad places that But you know, you
Speaker 1: go into Switzerland, you go into Sweden, you go into
Speaker 1: most of the European countries. They have a far lower
Speaker 1: number of people in prison for a far lower period
Speaker 1: of time. And when they are there, they actually address
Speaker 1: their needs. Like I told you, I address the needs
Speaker 1: of alcoholics. But you know, if you have a mental illness,
Speaker 1: they help you with that. If you don't have a job,
Speaker 1: they help you get job skills. George, the recidivism rate
Speaker 1: for people that have a job is plummets, and if
Speaker 1: you don't have a job, it's increased. You're almost you're
Speaker 1: almost guaranteed to go back into prison. So help people
Speaker 1: get some job skills while they're in custody. We call
Speaker 1: them correctional institutes, but they're only correctional in the name only.
Speaker 1: We don't mostly help people get a degree, learn some
Speaker 1: job skills, and be able to go out and support yourself,
Speaker 1: which most people want to be able to do. What's
Speaker 1: going on with carjackings and car thefts and stuff, it's
Speaker 1: at a record pace right now. It's out of control.
Speaker 1: Videos of people pumping gas at a gas station and
Speaker 1: a couple of thugs will come by, jump in that
Speaker 1: car that maybe was foolishly running still or something like that,
Speaker 1: and take off and steal it. What's happening, Jim, We
Speaker 1: are into a lawless thing. You know. We have declared
Speaker 1: war on police in a lot of ways, you know,
Speaker 1: defund the police. So the police and they know if
Speaker 1: they go out and and they get into a little
Speaker 1: bit of trouble, they're gonna get hounded. So they're much
Speaker 1: more reticent. Dudes who got out and do I was
Speaker 1: in Oakland about two months ago, City of Oakland. I
Speaker 1: went to Amsterdam University. They were having a which is
Speaker 1: marijuana related, marijuana education related. And while we were there
Speaker 1: in this wonderful old theater, some people broke into a car.
Speaker 1: They smashed the rear window, they took a bunch of
Speaker 1: camera equipment, and so the guy that had the car
Speaker 1: found out called nine one one didn't get a response,
Speaker 1: and a friend of mine who was with me, who's
Speaker 1: a former police officer, saw a police car going by,
Speaker 1: flagged them down, told them what had happened, and the
Speaker 1: guys weren't even interested. They weren't even going to go
Speaker 1: over and look at it or file a report. It's like,
Speaker 1: I mean, goodness, sakes, if the police, if you get
Speaker 1: these carjackers, know that they're not going to be tracked down. Hey,
Speaker 1: that's an open invitation and that's where we're going. But
Speaker 1: at least people have that feeling, which is a disaster
Speaker 1: for us all. I wrote an editorial op ed piece
Speaker 1: with my friend, submitted it to the Oakland newspapers. They
Speaker 1: weren't even interested. I said, you know, this is what happened.
Speaker 1: This is why crime is increasing in Oakland and other
Speaker 1: places because the police are not doing their job because
Speaker 1: they know that sometimes if they make a mistake, they're
Speaker 1: going to get persecuted. So I would, as a judge
Speaker 1: in a few times. They do make mistakes. Obvious, of
Speaker 1: course they do. Everyone does. But I tell people I
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to speak to prosecutors and police officers.
Speaker 1: I look them square in the face and say, you
Speaker 1: have an absolute mandate to do the right thing for
Speaker 1: the right reason every time. Now we know you're going
Speaker 1: to make mistakes sometimes to it. If you try to
Speaker 1: do the right thing, we've got your back. Don't worry
Speaker 1: We've got your back. But if you do things for
Speaker 1: political reasons, or do things like seemingly happened in Memphis
Speaker 1: which I can't even discuss, but you know if you are,
Speaker 1: we're going to investigate and prosecute. Listen to more Coast
Speaker 1: to Coast AM every weeknight at one a m. Eastern
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