Still, at the end of the day, how does Rocky get to Davis County? Or, for that matter, from his house to the mayor's office?

Does he use mass transit exclusively? Or does he sometimes use his car because it's more convenient (and because he comes from the same fiercely independent I'll-drive-my-car-if-I-want-to Western stock as most of the rest of us)?

It's a tricky slope to negotiate when you're surrounded by roads (and using them) and protesting one more.

This sort of paradox was apparent even to the anarchist Abbey, whose biography recounts a hike he took into Utah's Pariah Canyon one summer. At the bottom of the canyon, he and his companions were compelled to free a cow that had gotten itself stuck. All the while, Abbey "complained vociferously about these 'hooved locusts' grazing everywhere on public lands" — until a companion "pointed out to the bemused Abbey his hypocrisy in ordering a steak the same night."

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Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.