Doug, WhiskeyX has a legitimate point. The Founders put “natural born citizen” and “citizen” in the same sentence so they clearly meant to differentiate between the two. Your point that the United States is no longer a patriarchy is incontestable, but irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is whether Obama is eligible for the Presidency under the Constitution as it currently stands.
You can make the point that the clause is obsolete and should be changed. Fine, the Constitution has an amendment process that can, and maybe even should, be used to do just that. However, until that happens, the Constitution as written remains the supreme law of the land.
We are in deep peril here. If any part of the Constitution can be considered a “dead letter”, the entire edifice becomes as shaky as a house of cards in a windstorm. If Obama’s “presidency” is illegitimate — and I believe it is — and yet is allowed to stand, we are definitely in the final days of the American Republic.
This is deadly serious.
The 9th and 10th amendments are "dead letters". Under contemporary commerce clause jurisprudence, there is precious little that the federal government cannot do because of the 9th and 10th amendments.
Ronin,
You don't by any chance suppose that this is exactly what Soros / Ayers / Pelosi / Stalin had in mind when they shoe-horned the pig-f***er(+) into office, do you?
(+) This is a quote taken from an urban legend about LBJ, who pushed through the civil-rights legislation in conjunction with REPUBLICANS (and Rev. MLK Jr. was a Republican too) -- OVER the objections of Democrats. Anyone attempting to use the race card on this will have it confiscated and destroyed.
Cheers!