R&L: Please explore with us the way in which certain human virtues were compromised by the years of Communist rule in your country. Klaus: Basic human virtues such as thrift, honesty, and fidelity can grow and flourish only in an environment of individual freedom and self-responsibility. Communist totalitarianism deprived people of both of them, made them more passive, more cowardly, and more resigned than in countries with political pluralism, property rights, and market structures.
R&L: In the United States, monarchs are usually seen as either mere figureheads or as malevolent dictators. What is the role of a monarch in a free society?
R&L: You have led an incredibly productive and active life, from the early civil rights movement to now working to strengthen the black family. What motivates you?
R&L: What did you mean when you subtitled your 1989 book Against the Night, “Living in the New Dark Ages.” Have the last four years changed your views?
R&L: Alexis de Tocqueville observed that religion is the first political institution in America, an observation you have said is even more true today than it was in the nineteenth century. Would you explain?
R&L: What was it that caused you to have second thoughts about the role of the state in economic life and about the left-wing agenda of the 60’s of which you were so much a part?