No, you’re just making all the unreasoned and illogical arguments of a modern liberal.
You said:
The argument I have been making, over and over again, in this thread is that there has never been a class of citizens who were (a) citizens from the moment of birth and (b) not natural-born citizens. That I am aware of, the only legal distinction that has ever been drawn between different types of citizens have been naturalized citizens and natural-born citizens. There has never been any sort of in-between, third type of citizen, as you seem to be suggesting Obama is.
LOL! The whole point of the use of the term “natural born citizen” in the Constitution is TO MAKE JUST SUCH A DISTINCTION!!!!
They did not say “naturalized” and “natural born” and intend to say the precise same thing. Quite the contrary. And indeed, the obvious point was to draw a distinction that applied SOLELY TO BEING QUALIFIED FOR PRESIDENT, and not for any other purpose was that distinction mentioned. And it does not mean “citizen”. It quite obviously means, citizens who have absolutely NO dilution of allegiance, having been born under American jurisdiction to people who are citizens.
It clearly means, if there is ANY possibility that the circumstances of birth could lead to being under anyone else’s jurisdiction, any other citizenship, any other loyalty, any other allegiance, then you’re not “natural born”. It meant that absolute allegiance, including having been born and raised American, even having a minimum number of years of having lived in the country, were to be required of the President.
This idea of applying this status to anyone who is a citizen by any means other than emmigration is just plain absurd.
No, the whole point of the term is to draw a distinction between "natural born" citizens and "naturalized" citizens.
They did not say “naturalized” and “natural born” and intend to say the precise same thing. Quite the contrary. And indeed, the obvious point was to draw a distinction that applied SOLELY TO BEING QUALIFIED FOR PRESIDENT, and not for any other purpose was that distinction mentioned. And it does not mean “citizen”. It quite obviously means, citizens who have absolutely NO dilution of allegiance, having been born under American jurisdiction to people who are citizens.
They said "naturalized" and "natural born" to mean two different things, correct. Naturalized citizens are citizens who were not citizens at birth, but subsequently became citizens through some act of legislation or other naturalization procedure (note that Congress was given the power to make rules of Naturalization). Natural born citizens, on the other hand, are citizens who were, as the plain language of the Constitution suggests, born as citizens of the United States. I have NEVER suggested that there is no distinction between naturalized citizens and natural born citizens; in fact, I have been saying all along that those two words represent the ONLY two classes of citizens that exist under the constitution - those who were born citizens, and those who became citizens after birth.
It clearly means, if there is ANY possibility that the circumstances of birth could lead to being under anyone else’s jurisdiction, any other citizenship, any other loyalty, any other allegiance, then you’re not “natural born”. It meant that absolute allegiance, including having been born and raised American, even having a minimum number of years of having lived in
This idea of applying this status to anyone who is a citizen by any means other than emmigration is just plain absurd.
That is a fair argument, but I simply do not see the historical or textual support for the proposition that "natural born citzenship" obviously MUST mean citizens born to two citizens. I also, once again, don't see any textual or historical support for the proposition that there has ever been a distinction drawn between citizens born in this country to citizen parents, citizens born in this country to non-citizen parents, and citizens born in this country to one parent who is a citizen, and one parent who is not a citizen (incidentally, what about single mothers - if we do not know the identity of the father, is the child a natural born citizen?). I see the logic of your argument, but I don't see the factual/legal/historical support for your argument.
One more point: We clearly disagree on the correct interpretation of "natural born citizen" (and, likely, the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth amendment). Although I believe that your reading is incorrect, I have repeatedly acknowledged that it is a reasonable interpretation, and I have been willing to engage it and explain my position. I would even go so far as to say that I would love to see the Supreme Court grant cert. in one of these cases, to settle what is a legitimate ambiguity in the Constitutional definition of citizen/natural-born citizen. I would ask, once again, that you refrain from resorting to name-calling ("liberal,") and calling my arguments absurd. We're supposed to be better than the libs, so I would hope that we can agree to disagree civilly.