That is an oversimplification, but strange as it seems, Yes. You may not be old enough to be aware of cognitive dissonance, but I have long since learned that perfectly reasonable people will often have some little cul-de-sac in their mind where they cease being reasonable.
I know an Aerospace/Electronics Engineer who is perfectly reasonable on every issue except for the legalization of drugs, and on that issue he is out there in the lunatic fringe. (He is a Libertarian) Conservatives who wish to argue that Obama is legitimate would seem to be of a similar mental discordance.
Another possibility is that Birthers are simply wrong and never get anywhere for the same reason Truthers never get anywhere. Which is, because they’re wrong.
But if this were true, it would have been easy to demonstrate this by pointing out that there are no examples during the Founding era that support the "birther" position. Unfortunately for your side, the facts are to the contrary. Indeed, there are few examples that support the jus soli interpretation until much later, and most of those are US Courts applying English "common law" in the absence of actual knowledge of American Law and principles regarding it.
But it makes them happy to think that they are among the select few who have figured things out. There is that.
Not at all. I regard it as terribly sad that so many Americans have lost the knowledge of their National Heritage, and as a result have done horrendous damage to our society and our freedoms. It would benefit us all to rekindle the Spirit of American Independence and the principles upon which this nation was founded. It is still currently the best in the world, but having lost many of it's important principles it will not long remain so.
