Will Cooper - BOOK - How America Works...and Why It Doesn't

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Thomas, wishing you a very veryhappy Friday Eve, bottom of the area,
as that we do every Thursday.I heard media aviation expert Jay Rather
in the meantime, I am pleasedto welcome to the fifty five KRS Morning
Show fellow attorney. He's an authoralso national columnist. William Cooper's writings have
appeared in hundreds of publications globally,including I know you've heard of these,

(00:21):
New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Newsweek, CNN,
Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle,New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun.
I could go on, but we'dspend all the time talking about all the
publications he's published in. William Cooper, Welcome to the fifty five KRSE Morning
Shooter. Talk about your book,How America Works and why it doesn't.
Thank you great to be here,my pleasure, William. Okay, let's

(00:43):
just start with the initial pred Ithink we can all come up in our
minds with well works. What doesit mean when you think of the concept
of America working versus in America thatis not working? What is working?
I think working is the government functioningboth as it's intended and in a way

(01:04):
that helps the people and betters thelives of the people. That's how I
define working, Okay, And whyisn't it working? Is it our specific
any given leader? Is it thepresident currently? Is it the presidential candidates?
Is that the division between the twoparty system that we seem to be

(01:26):
stuck with with no alternative to choosefrom. Where's your primary criticism? Where?
What are your primary criticisms? William? I think it's broadly the American
people themselves, and this crosses thepolitical aisle. I think the partisanship,
the short sightedness, the focus onyou know, myopic political squabbles has been

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going on for so long and reachsuch intensity on both sides of the aisle
that that really is the root causefor why things aren't working the way they're
supposed to do well. You know, it's interesting because the Internet has exacerbated
this beyond anybody's wildest dreams, becausethat bright, shiny moment in time object
that we're all paying attention to isreally immaterial when it comes to the grand

(02:13):
scheme of things. And I goback to, you know, you talk
about, you know, short sightednessof our elected officials. Fine, they're
bickering and moaning over one little minusculepoint. But we are on a fiscal
train wreck here. We have incurredalmost thirty trillion dollars in a hole in
the ground that we have to paydebt service on. And the CBO figures
that just came out the other dayare horrific. I mean, they only

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project out ten years, but they'reprojecting two trillion plus excess spending beyond what
they take in in revenue. Inother words, further deficit digging into the
foreseeable future that I mean that isat an unsustainable reality, William Absolutely,
And that's a great example of whatI'm talking about. The headlines, the
tweets, the social media viral messagesare talking about squabbles between AOC and Marjorie

(03:02):
Taylor Green or things of that nature. And meanwhile, there are numerous very
large scale, very significant trends andproblems the country's facing that are just not
being addressed in a rational way.And you provided a great example of one.
How do we fix it? Though, I mean, you point to

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the American people, and I agreewith you that you know we're largely to
blame because the vast majority of us, unlike you or I, I mean,
I live politics it's my job.I always have. It's been my
hobby for years, and that's whyI got a political science screen for my
law degree. I just like it, so I pay attention to it constantly.
But the vast majority of Americans don'thave any time in their day for
it. They're either too busy bingewatching something on Netflix, or they got

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kids they got to take to selectsoccer. Trying to live their lives and
find enough time to exhale and relax. Nobody wants to dive into politics.
I think everyn just has this expectationthat what's in it for me? I
think that's a part of the equation, and I think one of the things
we can do. You know,when you don't really follow something closely and
you're not involved, you have somehumility about your opinions. Don't be so

(04:12):
confident that the other side is asterrible as you think they are. Don't
be so confident that that news storyyou read, you know, slamming some
politician actually gets it right. Recognizethat you don't have enough time to follow
it closely. Be a little morehumble. I also think it would be
good in a minimal way, andI know it's hard and prescribing as broadly

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is not practical, but in aminimal way, if people starting from school
all the way up, you know, through their adulthood, could spend more
time than we as a nation havebeen in the last several decades focusing on
civics and on the basics of howthings are supposed to work. I think
that would be helpful. It wouldbe helpful, but there have to be

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time in the day and within thecurriculum to focus on that. And that's
one of the big criticisms I havefrom my listening audience and my personal criticism.
Our education system is failing our children. I mean, you just take
Baltimore for example, where only whatfive percent of eighth graders can read at
level that is a recipe for disaster. There is no kid that can go
through K through twelve education without havinga mastery of reading that is going to

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be able to move on toward highereducation or even be able to fend for
themselves. I mean, there's afix just waiting for waiting to happen that
no one seems to want to address. Totally agree. There's a chapter on
the book about public policy failures,and the education system is one of them.
It's very high on the lesson.It's really a shame. I mean,

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if you look at a nation's schools, you're looking at that nation's present
day conscience, but you're also lookingat their future, right, that's the
future of the country. And thefact that we as as a nation have
allowed so much of our school system, not all of it, but so
much of it to decay and beleft behind. It ignored to me.

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It's a condemnation both of what we'redoing now and really we need to adjust
our prospects for the future if wedon't fix it fast. Well. I
know, one of the things youhighlight as one of the more egregious,
if not one of the most egregious, public policy failures, our current broken
immigration system. I mean, they'vehad every opportunity, both all Democrat administrations,

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all Republican administrations, mixed administrations totry and get a solution and solve
this problem. I know, thepath to legal citizenship is a very significant
hurdle and challenge, and the wayour open border currently is, what's the
point if you're going to get intothe United States and get a court date
twelve years down the road, likelythat you won't show up when with no

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ramifications, there's no point in goingthrough the legal process to live here.
I agree, and you're right,that is another example of a public policy
failure. Now that is a hardchallenge, right, we are a prosperous
country. We set above region thatis riddled with hardship. The idea that

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we can just press a button andhave some elegant, efficient immigration system is
not going to happen. But wecould do so much better. And if
the debate, the debate didn't justdescend into both sides accusing the other of
things that aren't true and aren't happening, that would be a good place to
start. We really need to makeprogress, and sometimes challenges that are overwhelming,

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like the immigration system, we justneed to put one foot in front
of the other and make some progress, you know, start with some incremental
change, some incremental increases in therationality of the system, and then go
from there. But we're not evendoing that. Our politics are so broken
we're not even able to do thatwell. I regularly make the point the
fool is the one who's not lookingup for his or her own best interest.

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I think that's built into our geneticmakeup. Sadly, it appears that
if you are willing to and desirousof entering into politics, most of them
qualify for a DSM five, amalignant narcissism diagnosis, and they are in
it for themselves, which sort ofnegates the prospect that there's going to be
any willingness to reach across the aisleand try to come up with a solution

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that's good for everybody. Totally agree. And what we have today, we
have incredible rewards for narcissists to enterpublic life. We've got social media Instagram,
Twitter, you can build a veryvaluable platform by running for office.
So that tendency for people with egosto enter public life has always been there.

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Now the rewards for them are evergreater. Yeah, And you know,
I hear those words, and itjust I never have understood that,
sir, because I hate social media. I'm on radio. I mean,
my employer would love me to beon X and they'd love me to be
on Twitter and TikTok and all that. I just I can't abide because I
don't have it in my DNA toself promote. I mean, I detest

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narcissism on a level that I can'teven explain. So, I mean,
I'm on the lookout for type ofpeople like that all the time, and
it's like, that's the first warningflag for me is if you really have
a huge media presence or you're desirousof being that person who everyone recognizes at
the mall, then you've got areal psychological problem on your hands. I
agree. I'm old school too.I've never been big on social media and

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I love love radio, so no, but I hear you, And it's
the self selection process. It reallydoes attract people more focused on Okay,
what's my next tweet? Yeah,what's my next picture for Instagram? And
that's a big part of why thesehuge problems aren't being solved. I mean,
you need really serious people with lotsof influence casting their votes the right

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way, of building policies the rightway. If we're going to tackle these
problems like education, like immigration,it's just not happening the way it should.
Name of the bookcu America Works andWhat It Does in a brief Guide
to the US Political System by myguest today, William Cooper. Now,
I'm going to have to have ago with you on this one. I
am an owner of firearms. Ihad to actually use my concealed carry handgun

(10:07):
in defense of my person at onepoint. Thank god, it didn't have
to discharge the weapon, but someguy tried to murder me at one basically
boiling down the events of the day. So I was appreciative of the fact
that one there was no police officeraround, but two that I was in
a position with a great equalizer inhand to deal with the six foot four,
almost three hundred pound guy that wastrying to kill me. So you

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don't like the Second Amendment though,I noticed that you think that's one of
the worst provisions in the Constitution.Can you explain to my listeners your position
on that, considering our framers dealtwith an oppressive government and use those firearms
to fight them off. Yeah,well, I do say very clearly,
and that section of the book angerseverybody on both sides, which in some

(10:50):
ways means I got my point across. There you go. But what I
think about the second one. Thefirst thing is, and I say this,
it's a very valid constitutional provision,that there's a lot of people on
the left who want to interpret itso narrow that it has no force or
really just gut it without going throughthe actual constitutional amendment of process, and

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I say that that's not appropriate.You can't just pick and choose the constitutional
provisions you like, interpret them broadly, and then if you don't like something
you know, interpret it narrowly.So I say it's valid and it deserves
respect. What I also say isthat the consequences of our system, and
I think the Second Amendment has playeda huge role in this, are very

(11:35):
discouraging. This doesn't mean, andwhat I mean by discouraging is the number
of gun deaths per capita. TheUS has much higher gun deaths per capita
than other countries. That doesn't meaneliminate all guns. I'm not saying there
should be no guns. What Ithink there should be are additional regulations and

(11:58):
additional protections in place so that peoplelike you who want a gun and are
willing to register and approach it theright way, can have one. But
we don't just flood the marketplace acrossthe country with unbelievable numbers of guns,
because I think when you have thatmany, if you have a million extra

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guns on the streets, for example, if only one of them is used
for a bad purpose, that's areal problem. So don't have to eliminate
everything. But I think we coulddo a much better job of tightening up
our restrictions and our regulations so wedidn't have the consequences we see. Well,
we all know bad guys are theones that commit the crimes. You

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look at Chicago, one hundred andeight people got shot between the fourth and
the Sunday after the Independence Day holiday. Could it be then, looking back,
as your point is in the bookto the American people, that that
is a reflection the gun violence itselfis a reflection of the deterioration that someone
would be willing to so arbitrarily orcasually use a firearm like that is a

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reflection of a breakdown of I argueregularly the nuclear family, for example.
You know, we had rules,regulations, We had disciplined. My parents
raised me to you know, followthe rules, mind the rules. There
were consequences if you didn't. AndI think that that was that's what worked,
and that is a recipe for success. But so many people do not
have that in their lives, andthey go astray as young people. I

(13:28):
totally agree. I think the rootcause of a lot of the problems with
guns have nothing to do with gunsthemselves, but that's where we find ourselves,
and we have, you know,oversimplify it. You could have one
world like we have today, wherethere's just sort of an unlimited supply of
guns pouring into society with very littleregulation, and an alternative would be to

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have restrictions in place that limit thatflow and limit who gets them, who
has them in their hands. Ithink the latter is better. But in
either instance, you're exactly right.The root cause of a lot of our
problems aren't the guns themselves, they'rethe people. It's also mental health challenges.
I think there's actually a merit tothat argument. I think a lot

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of times people with mental health arecausing problems with guns, where the extract
same gun in the hands of somebodywho didn't have those problems wouldn't be an
issue. What I would like tosee is stop the incessant flood, the
incessant, high volume flood of guns. I think that would help the problem,
even though the root causes would stillbe there if that was the only

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change you made. And I'll justleave it out there. The rhetorical question,
can the government and any capacity workingfunctional or not deal with that root
cause, which again goes back tothe conduct of the American people and how
they live their lives independently. Myguest today William Cooper, the author of
the book we've been talking about thismorning, How America Works and why it
doesn't. Got a copy of thatbook and a link for folks to get

(14:58):
it your book on my blog pageKarsey dot com. Mister Cooper, I
encourage my listeners to do that andshare it with their friends. As I
always like to say, it's beengreat talking with you, Thanks for the
conversation. Likewise, really appreciate youhaving me on. You have a great
show, and I really appreciate theopportunity to be on today.