What is your interest my friend ?

January 12, 2010

Thank you for your request, although while I am not sure exactly what your are looking for in terms of a response I will give this my best shot.

The simple answer to this request is that my main interest, passion if you will, is my family. My wonderful wife and four children are what give the greatest joy to my life. If I can borrow and paraphrase the late Sir Winston Churchill's comment concerning his feeling toward his wife, I can honestly say that I met and married my beautiful Bella and lived happily ever after! That about sums up my feelings for my better half.

As to other interests, my choices are broad and eclectic as can be seen from the range of topics that I write on for HubPages.

I have always enjoyed traveling and the experience of seeing new places and meeting new people. In fact I finally found time to write this response to your request while vacationing, during the break in teaching between semesters, on a Caribbean cruise with my wife.

We are enjoying ourselves on a beautiful ship, actually a seagoing resort, carrying over 2,000 passengers from North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia, and run by a captain and crew consisting of close to 1,000 of the nicest people in the world and recruited from practically every nation in the world.

The passengers are just as nice and we have met and enjoyed the company of a number of different people.

History is another favorite of mine. I was first introduced to history by my Father who was of the opinion that history is, at its heart, a story to be told and enjoyed. I have read and enjoyed history since my Father first fired my interest when I was a young child.

It is easy to tie history to travel because travel not only gives one a chance visit historic places they have read about but also exposes one to new places and a desire to learn its past.

Finance is not only a useful skill for managing and using money but can be a fascinating subject as well.

Of course it didn't hurt that my Father was a banker his whole career and he and my Mother had met while both were working at the same bank. One of my grandmothers had also worked in banking as had my grandfather (her husband) who had died shortly after my Mother was born. My other grandfather, who had also died before I was born, had been an investment and insurance salesman.

Of course, having all of these financial people in my family didn't mean we were rich – they handled other people's money but, like me, focused their passion and energy on their families rather than the acquisition of wealth which meant that I have had to work for a living as well.

In college I discovered economics and enjoyed it so much that I decided to major in it as well as in history.

Economic history, which I have learned to enjoy, is a bridge between the two but the real appeal of economics while in college, in addition to enjoying it, was that it offered better career prospects than history

Politics is another area of interest as can be seen in some of my Hubs.  Being closely related to both history and economics as well something that was frequently discussed and debated around the dinner table when I was growing up. 

Of course, while I have very strong political views, I have always tried to follow my Father's advice to never discuss politics or religion unless I am sure that the other person either shares my views or is like me and tolerant enough to allow others to hold different views even if those views are incorrect.

While I am a registered Republican, I no longer call myself a Republican, preferring instead to refer to my views as libertarian or conservative.  My passion, second only to my family, is freedom and, like Thomas Jefferson, I tend to view government as a necessary evil  which, while needed, is best kept as small and weak as possible.

I am opposed to big government because the excessive rules, most of which are designed to guaranty special privileges for special interest groups at the expense of the rest of us, and the high taxes which limit our ability to make our own decisions and provide for ourselves.

One cannot exercise political freedom without economic freedom.  This has been amply demonstrated in totalitarian states where the press retains the right to publish what they want but, with the government controlling the economy, newspapers that print stories unfavorable to the government soon find that they cannot buy newsprint.  The same is true for other things so that people soon learn that, in order to survive, they have to bend to the will of those in power.  Thus, without the freedoms provided by the free market, political freedom often exists in theory only.

As I have pointed out in some of my economic articles, removing the dead hand of government from the economy of a nation always results in economic progress and rising prosperity for all.

provided the information you were looking for when you made the request.

Below are links to some of my Hubs which, if you haven't read them, should give you more insight into my interests.