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I was in the thick of those birther wars, and there were several different schools of thought. One was as you say, that place mattered. This was pushed by the group that viewed birth under US jurisdiction as a requirement of NBC. Another school of thought was transference by parentage alone, in which there were two subdivisions, the one-citizen-parent and the two-citizen-parent varieties.

I started out in the two-citizen parent AND must be born under US jurisdiction camp. Eventually I realized that the Founders and the case law were all reacting to a core distinction between natural versus artificial creation of citizenship status, and that this distinction rested on a principle of natural law, that one who is a citizen by any means has a natural right to pass that along to their child. I further realized that Vattel and the Founders and all the case law following could neither create nor destroy said right, but could do a better or a worse job recognizing it.

For example, we also say the right of self-defense is a natural right, such that no statute, nor even the mutilation of our Constitution by some radically leftist administration, could ever extinguish it, because natural rights are God-given, not man-made. If Hillary was president and tried to deny us our Second Amenment rights, and got the Constitution changed to make it stick, would we settle for that? Why not? It would be settled law. Like Dred Scott. Or Roe v Wade. Or Kelo. Or Obergfel.

But true conservatives don't accept as settled law any law that goes against natural law. At least that's what I think of as being conservative. We aren't conserving old law just because it's old. We conserve what we do because we believe it is right, and we work to change the law when it get's off track. We can do that because we are the inheritors of the Judeo-Christian tradition that informs our understanding that there is a law higher than man's, and it cannot be successfully or finally contradicted, but in the end will always prevail.

Which is why I don't understand all the FReeper debate on this topic. Of all people who should be lining up behind a natural rights understanding of citizenship, I would think conservatives, if for no other reason but to be consistent, would stand behind Cruz's claim to be qualified. Because even if US law botched it up for decades or centuries, the natural right to pass citizenship from parent to child, such that the Constitution could recognize that virtually any second generation American citizen could rise to be Commander in Chief, is the view most consistent with the natural law underpinnings of the American system, and so the most conservative view.

But as someone else was pointing out, folks have made commitments, and are deeply invested in their particular view of Obama's qualifications (or lack thereof), and probably feel
that to be consistent, they have to impose their view on Cruz. I believe that is an error. Cruz is unquestionably qualified to be president, and would be found so and rather quickly if anyone can be found who has standing to bring the challenge to SCOTUS.

Peace,

SR