We live in a world of labels; conservative, liberal, gay, straight, nature, nurture… It makes us feel more secure, leads us to believe that a person or perspective can be summed up so simply. The reality is that, upon the most basic examination, most people and their perspectives are a combination of multiple factors and life is too complex to boil down to a solitary verb. How many of us have had any success describing ourselves in one word?


I am a conservative often and a feminist always and examining the issue of the polygamy trial of the Mormon leaders in Bountiful through those paradigms brings up an interesting conundrum; what matters more, the protection of women or freedom from unnecessary laws? I think it is something most of us face more frequently than we care to acknowledge; the need to reconcile seemingly competing priorities. The figuring out of what’s more important, more worthy of activism, is the price and the prize of democracy.
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After 8 years of wondering how it’s possible that W got elected – twice! – I came to the unlikely realization that we owe the man a debt of gratitude. The obvious reason is that without an administration of such profound stupidity, Mr. Obama would have been unlikely to even make it onto the Democratic ticket, let alone get elected.

However, there is a less obvious side effect to the Bush years; he made us fall in love with our own country. For 8 years we thanked our lucky stars, patted ourselves on the back and basked in the warm glow of hearing liberal Americans, again and again, utter the statement “I’m moving to Canada”.
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