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I was very glad to see this thread; thanks for posting it. I have so much I'd like to add [not even having read all the posts] but time has been very scarce of late. I'll try to condense a thought I had, and see if I have time to make it intelligible.

The problem [in understanding what the Framers meant by NBC], in a nutshell, is the pervasiveness of the liberal mindset. According to modern liberalism, the cardinal sin is discrimination. Thus, to deny to an innocent baby the right to occupy the Oval Office just because his/her parents are [or were] not US citizens strikes at the very heart of liberalism. Liberals simply cannot conceive of this as being what the Framers intended, and so they begin from a premise of ‘anybody born on the soil is A-Okay’.

This goes to an even more fundamental problem of modern liberalism: the absolute, total and abject inability to think outside the liberal mindset. I.e.: they can think like liberals, but cannot see or comprehend any issue from any other POV.

This is not just my opinion. There was a major study done a few years back that proved it. Researchers gathered a large group of conservatives and an equal group of libs. They handed out a detailed questionnaire, and asked the libs to answer ea. question as a conservative would, and vice versa.

The conservatives ACED it. I.e.: conservatives not only understand their POV, but they also grasp the essence of modern liberalism, and if asked, can answer in that mindset.

The libs failed miserably. ALL, and I mean *ALL* they have in their liberal reference point. W’in that is a weird, phony over-the-top caricature of what conservatives are, believe and think, and this they hold as true and accurate. [Thus, when Bill Clinton accused conservatives of doing and believing almost the opposite of what we do and believe, he wasn't (in this lone case) so much lying as revealing his inability to grasp true conservatism. Ditto Obama. People say he sets up ‘strawmen’ and knocks them down. The problem being, he doesn't know they're strawmen. He actually believes they accurately represent the other side. Creepy but true.]

This is, as I said, the essence of the NBC issue. Liberalism has become so pervasive in its presuppositions that even some conservatives buy it. I.e.: they cannot conceive of the Framers as people who cared nothing for ‘diversity is our strength’, who did NOT believe that discrimination [even against innocent babies] is wrong, and who did prioritize above all the protection of the Republic. As such, the Framers did NOT want the spawn of America's foreign enemies to occupy the one office in which they could do the greatest damage. However, libs and even some conservatives simply cannot envision the Framers as so exclusionary, and hence the idea that any baby popped out on Am. soil is what the Framers had in mind as a future POTUS.

There is no arguing w these people. This is because they simply CANNOT reason from a non-liberal foundation. In their minds, the idea that the Framers would discriminate against a baby just because of who its parents were is inconceivable. All their arguments proceed, consciously or unconsciously, from that premise. They cannot, even for sixty seconds, entertain the idea that perhaps the Framers actively wished to protect the Republic from the likes of Obama [yes, he personifies their worst fears of divided loyalty and the foreign ‘enemy within’]. Liberally-oriented thinkers resort to the idea that a baby could have a foreign father but turn out to be a great US patriot, as if that is a rational a argument. It misses the point by light years, but don't try to tell them that; you'll just waste your breath.

Anyway, I have to run. I probably expressed the above sub-optimally, but I don't have time to massage it. Thanks again for the post; it was much appreciated.