“Perhaps no institution of the modern world shows such vitality and tenacity as our Anglo-American legal tradition which we call the common law. Although it is essentially a mode of judicial and juristic thinking, a mode of treating legal problems rather than a fixed body of definite rules, it succeeds everywhere in molding rules, whatever their origin, into accord with its principles and in maintaining those principles in the face of formidable attempts to overthrow or to supersede them. In the United States it survives the huge mass of legislation that is placed annually upon our statute books and gives to it form and consistency. Nor is it less effective in competition with law of foreign origin. Louisiana alone of the states carved from the Louisiana purchase preserves the French Law. “

I feel like I can take both views and di-angulate on the best answer. Purity is noble, but people will never agree on a single standard to define it. So we form groups with purity of views, at least as close to purity as we can tolerate. The problem is when a group thinks itself morally superior, gains some power and inevitably tries to control all the other groups; forgetting the opposition there in the distance, waiting for us to weaken each other before they make the kill. … I think we’re better off with a lesser standard of purity in favor of strength against the real opposition. As the standard of purity goes up, so does the likelihood of corruption and infighting that makes us weaker. Yes, I’m inherently biased against extreme social conservatives, but its not because of views, its because, from every way I look at this thing it is the same answer, they are the ones who have gained some power and see themselves as morally superior, and indeed are trying to control everyone in the camp. The thing is, when they control the camp, we experience elections like 2006 and 2008.

The problem with your thinking is that there isn’t an unlimited pool of money and manpower in the GOP to elect candidates. That’s why you need to prioritize. You ignore a Loebsack simply because he’s not in your district and not a Republican in favor of a King when both are in the same House of Representatives. You can give all your high and eloquent reasonings for that, but it’s not going to do a darn thing unless you can change the makeup of the entire body so that our side is in the majority. You’re simply replacing one good conservative with a slightly better one. Net gain is zero. The Congress is a national body, you have to think nationally if you are ever going to advance the cause. And you have to think Statewide if you are ever going to control the Iowa legislature.

So you spend all this money to get King out while Loebsack goes unopposed. Which means your making the Democrats the majority forever because there’s not enough money and manpower for some other good GOP candidate that could have beaten Loebsack. Or if we do ever get back a majority, all the good conservatives like King are out, and the ones in the leadership are ones like McCain, Snowe, Collins, Voinovich because they have tenure and we spent all this time primarying good conservatives out of office. Same thing at the state level. Self-inflicted political defeat for conservatives once again.

You can say you care about strategy, but I don’t see it. What I see is you getting into personal pissing contests over purity. It seems ego-driven to me, trying to prove you’re more pure and take down a big fish like King. I think Bunce you’re more interested in being a player than accomplishing a goal. I’m not interested in your personal agendas.

“There are several very well know Constitutional experts in Iowa who would vehemently disagree with you, and I will chose to trust them until such time as I have a chance to research your claims.”

You all give Steve Deace FAR too much credit.

- Wow. Good grief. This has what Deace in the Afternoon has done to many Iowans.

The process of common law, where precedent holds weight dates back to midevil England, well before Darwain was even born.

The United States, being originally a British Colony borrowed heavily from the British courts, since British Courts are basically what existed in the US at the time of Independence.

The definition of what Common Law is or is not is not politically controversial or subject to interpretation. It’s simple fact, and what Common Law is can be found any dictionary or encyclopedia you want to choose as an authoritative source.

The only thing controversial is whether we should be using Common Law as opposed to some other legal system such as Civil Law. Like it or not, we currently use Common Law in the United States except for in Louisiana, where they use a mixture of Common Law and Civil Law, due to that states influence by both British and French legal systems.

I hold Congressman Boswell accountable for representing MY values, because he is My representative.  I am not going to call our Loebsack, the Democrat congressman from another district the same way I will Boswell, my congressman, or King, our Republican Poster Child.

I care about strategy.  I really do, but I can’t call for primarying Boswell or Loebsack can I?  I can’t debate the actions of Boswell or Loebsack on TheIowaRepublican can I?  How can I apply my standards to holding “the other side” accountable?