Just how much is rational, enlightened government better than that based on superstition, ignorance and mental illness? It is difficult to find an apples-to-apples comparison, but I have stumbled upon one.

The world has known many mad despots, but perhaps none embodied irrational rule like François Duvalier. "Papa Doc" claimed to be a voodoo priest personally chosen to lead Haiti by Jesus Christ, and as if that wasn't benighted and irrational enough, he later went just plain insane, possibly as a result of brain damage following a heart attack. He became increasingly paranoid. The man's rule was so irrational that some of Haiti's intellectuals fled to Africa.

Perhaps the most rational ruler of all time was José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, known as Dr. Francia or "El Supremo" for short. After taking power of a newly independent Paraguay, he set about designing a government based on the best and most enlightened philiosophy of the time, especailly Rousseau's Social Contract. He was among the best-educated men in the entire country - only one other guy had a doctorate - and an enemy of the superstitious who seized all church possessions. He personally lived humbly, spending only a small part of his personal salary.

Papa Doc's most infamous act of irrationality came in 1963 when he had been informed that Clement Barbot, one of his political opponents, had transformed himself into a black dog. Duvalier ordered all black dogs in Haiti to be killed - an act not only absurdly paranoid and superstitious but also racist (targeting black dogs) and sexist (Barbot being a man would presumably transform into a male dog, yet the execution of bitches was ordered as well). It is difficult to imagine a less rational act of government.

Dr. Francia, on the other hand, being rational, enlightened, philosophical and fair ordered all dogs in all of Paraguay shot. The exact nature of his rational and enlightened reasoning behind that decree is a mystery - perhaps he was a cat person, as many intellectuals are. Regardless of what his righteous reasoning was, however, there's your apples-to-apples comparison.