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| Affiliation | Libertarian |
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| Name | Lawrence G.K. Duquesne |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
February 25, 1956
(69 years)
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| Contributor | eddy 9_99 |
| Last Modifed | Juan Croniqueur
Aug 08, 2024 03:20am |
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| Info | Our family has lived on the Island of Hawaii since 1997. We moved here from the Oregon Coast. Previously I have lived (as a Navy Brat) in Oregon, on Oahu (1969-1971), and in New England and in Washington State. My cumulative kama�aina tenure would now be about seven years.
I guess I was born a libertarian, but I didn�t know the word until adolescence. I developed an interest in politics at a fairly early age. My parents were split over Kennedy/Nixon, and my mother showed a great fondness for Barry Goldwater, so, by the time I was 12 years old, and Nixon and Humphrey were the anointed, I was Clean with Gene. It�s just as well that 16 year olds couldn�t vote in 1972, because at the time I believed that George McGovern was going to rescue America from the viper Nixon. I�ve since come to recant that position a bit, looking upon Richard Nixon as something of an unintentional national hero. His worse than useless price freeze of the same year was the final straw that led to the founding of the Libertarian Party, and his presidency in general has done more to inspire distrust in government than just about any other figure in recent history. Sadly, the lesson seems not to have stuck.
In 1975 I met Danell Aukerman, and in 1976 we were wed. She has since blessed me with two fine sons, Robert Isaac and Nathan Tav. Robert (�Z�) is presently an Astronomy major at UH in Hilo, and Nathan is pursuing his Master�s Degree in Mathematics at Oregon State University.
Later in 1976 I found myself a Jerry Brown Republican, arguing that America should return to the Gold Standard� and the Moon. I�m still working on both counts. During that same summer I�d read William F. Buckley�s Up From Liberalism and re-read Abbie Hoffman�s Revolution for the Hell of It. The two taken together set up a wicked turbulence in my mind that left me well poised for an epiphany.
Working security at the Ketchikan Spruce Mill one long Alaskan summer night I ran across some literature from the Roger MacBride campaign, and first saw the word libertarian spelled with a capital letter and in some other context than �civil�. I read it, read it again, and all that night read it over and over. Amazing! Here was an organized group of people who seemed to believe as I did, that governments are instituted among men, and that they derive their JUST powers from the consent of the governed, and that the government that governs best governs least, and every other battle cry of freedom that I could recall from my twenty years of life.
That was twenty-six years ago this summer, and I haven�t looked back. But I did go on. I spent four years in the Air Force, served as a Jet Mechanic for the Strategic Air Command and for the Pacific Air Forces, and was honorably discharged in 1981 with four stripes, a wife, and two sons. We returned to Corvallis to cash in my GI Bill where I studied Physics and Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State.
In addition to my formal course work at the University I began pursuing my political education in earnest, attending meetings of local Libertarians and arguing long into the night. It was then that I met Diane Graham. For the past twenty years she has remained a trusted advisor and a harsh critic. I made my first run for the House in 1982 as an otherwise unemployed full-time student. The party in Oregon didn't manage to secure ballot status that year, so we had to run write-in. I'm pretty sure we cracked double digits on that one.
In 1986 I was graduated from OSU with a pair of degrees and a fair amount of debt. I worked where I could and let politics take a back seat to my other interests. During this time Danell and I drifted from each other, gradually pushing each other away. Eventually we stayed pushed. In 1988, while playing Sherlock Holmes in a local amateur theatre production, I met Robyn Reck, who was working as a sound technician in the show. We resonated both on a political and moral level, but, more important, we laughed a lot together. We were married in 1989, and in 1991, our daughter, Autumn Selene Kara Zor-El Marybrock Duquesne was born. She is named after the cyber-hero of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Adam Selene, Supergirl (in the original Kryptonian) and the woman who was responsible for coaxing Robyn to work on the show that brought us together. Duquesne is the name we both adopted when we were married. My name is Knight, her name is Reck, and our name is Duquesne (from Doc Smith�s Skylark series � science fiction principles run strong through this family.)
By the time the political itch got strong enough to throw me back in to the fray, it was 1996. This time the Oregon party was on the ballot, and so we did much better, receiving, for myself at least, just under 2%.
Neither disappointed nor discouraged, having witnessed a progression of going from �Liber-what?� to actually being recognized, printed in the newspaper, and acknowledged on the air, I was not to be denied. I would run every chance I got. Politics, and campaigning, I had learned, were just too much fun and too satisfying to ever sit it out again. As steep as the odds appear, not trying is not acceptable.
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