Dionysium Debate
Kevin Ludlow presenting his closing arguments at the Dionysium Debate (photo credit: Jad Davis)

Although not officially part of the campaign, the wonderful people at the Dionysium invited me to be one of the debaters for their September show. As one who loves formal debate and as one who loves the arts, I was thrilled to be a part of the show.

The September topic was to resolve that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun". I had the pleasure of defending the position. Pitted against me was Dionysium regular Jonathan Patschke.

And so for roughly 40 minutes Jonathan and I argued deeply philosophical points back and forth. The problem, I discovered, is that arguing that political power does indeed stem from the barrel of a gun is a wildly unpopular position. It is most certainly true, but it's not something that people want to hear. Be that as it is, the basis of my campaign is to show people that we can do better. We don't need the force of government dictating our every move.

I did get to field a question or two from the audience regarding my campaign platform. The response received a huge round of applause and once again confirmed my belief that the ideas of personal freedom are very popular in Austin.