Religious Freedom and Banjo Pickin'

Dr. Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence in the Department 0f Politics at Princeton University, discusses his thoughts on international religious liberty.  As the former chair (and current vice-chair) of the US Commission on International Freedom (USCIRF) and a political philosopher, he is uniquely situated to reflect upon religious liberty as a concern for foreign policy and how it relates to the grand tradition of natural law.

We begin the interview with some personal reflections on how a first generation college student from Morgantown, West Virginia is able to earn several advanced degrees from Harvard and Oxford, and why Prof. George pursued political theory as a career path.  Robby explains how his parent’s concern over abortion set him upon a political path where he worked with the Democratic Party in the mid-1970s, eventually choosing a political trajectory in the 1980s.  He also explains how a political philosopher found his way into public service beginning in the early 1990s.