Dion Quixote: A Eulogy
By Ayn Radcliffe

Is it possible to lose faith in democracy based on mere reason alone? More importantly, would such reason be justified? I ask this question in a very limited context – the death of Dion's political career. It was argued that Dion was not a man of conviction. He was portrayed by his critics as an indecisive and panicky man who was not fit to order from Baskin Robbins, let alone run a nation.

And yet here was a candidate who was willing to stand by the carbon tax, an unpopular proposition, throughout the entire election campaign. In doing so, he may have sacrificed any hope of furthering his political career. Perhaps Canada needed “indecisive,” given this example of adherence to what was, as will be demonstrated, a categorical imperative.

Dion was of a rare breed – I believe that he was, in fact, a knight of reason. A knight of reason is one who acts on maxims that he or she would wish to serve as a universal law. But are not all politicians knights of reason if such a person were to be based on this definition? I hold it that they are not. Rather, the likes of Layton and Harper fall into another category, one which stands in opposition to the knight of reason – the fool.

The fool preoccupies himself with accepting populist maxims in order to make personal gains. The knight of reason, on the other hand, faces the paradox of the windmill. That is, in order to create a more sustainable future, one must build windmills. And yet to do so, one must fight the populist giant, which is, in fact, a windmill.

How does one create that which it must destroy? Kantian logic would suggest that the paradox can only be solved by adherence to the categorical imperative – the carbon tax. It taxes pollution in order to allow for the construction of windmills, while it reduces income taxes simultaneously in order to pacify the fool, and thus vanquishes the windmills.

In Stephane Dion Canada had a candidate who was willing to create and destroy windmills in the name of the categorical imperative. He was a knight of reason, and Canadians rejected him in favour of yet another fool. While this may cause one to lose faith in the democratic process, Kantians must stand by it with fervor. After all, democracy is the only political system that one would desire to be universal. Thus, democracy is, like the carbon tax, a categorical imperative. The fact that one categorical imperative has annulled another is the paradox of the windmill that Canadians must examine in the wake of the death of Dion Quixote.

Throughout Dion's brief Liberal Party leadership role Canadians told him that he was delusional – the carbon tax was a bad idea. Perhaps in the next election, with Dion's perilous quest at an end, it will be time to tell him that he was right all along. Next election, I urge all Canadians to take a hard look at the leadership candidates and elect the knight of reason, whoever it may be. I, for one, have had enough of fools.