I have in the past. This time, I just skimmed it to see whether or not he had anything new to say. He didn't as far as I could tell.
Worse, it's clear his post was not a specific response to my essay, and that it was written without reference to it.
However, the core of his argument is his interpretation of the interpretation of the 14th Amendment given in Wong Kim Ark, which my essay utterly demolishes (I crafted that text based in part of the claims made by Mr. Rogers, after all.) And that's why I challenged him with the following:
The 14th Amendment's citizenship clause defines both a) those born in the US and subject to its jurisdiction, and b) those naturalized in the US and subject to its jurisdiction, to be citizens of the US, and does so using a single sentence with a single phrase that is the subject of the sentence and a single phrase that is its predicate. The subject phrase is of the form "<A> and <B>", and the predicate phrase is "are citizens of the United States." That single predicate phrase, "are citizens of the United States," must intend to apply that exact same meaning of the word citizens to both noun phrases in the conjunctive phrase that is the subject of the sentence, since it's but one predicate phrase applied to but the one conjunctival phrase that is the subject of the sentence. Therefore, the semantics of the word citizens in the 14th Amendment must encompass both those born in the US (and subject to its jurisdiction) and those naturalized in the US and subject to its jurisdiction. That is flat-out impossible unless the intended semantics of the term citizen in the 14th Amendment is that of general citizenship, and is not intended to signify any other, more specialized meaning.
That's not in my essay. I'm saving certain points for later. That one I was specifically saving for Mr. Rogers :-) I have more....
Placemark.
Your response reminds me of just how well educated were the people in the past, and shows that they well understood the characteristics of the English language.
I once had an argument with a Freeper called “Sometimes Lurker” during which I pointed out that all of the promoters of the 14th amendment were aware of the term “natural born citizen”, if for no other reason than that they used it during the debates on the Amendment. That they were well aware of it and did not use it was not an accident. They INTENTIONALLY chose not to use that term. Two extra words would have cost them virtually nothing in terms of ink and paper, but the ramifications of it would have been substantial.
They considered it and decided against it, and that’s pretty much all anyone really needs to know about the 14th amendment’s impact on the Presidential Eligibility issue. The notion that it should somehow repeal the meaning of Article II “natural born citizen” is explicitly rejected by the evidence of the carefully chosen wording they used.
As for Mr. Rogers, I believe he is emotionally committed to his position, and appeals to reason will be continuously dismissed. That his ideas make no sense doesn’t matter to him. He has the faith of a zealot.