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If Jeff can't see the underlying reasoning behind the Jus Soli + Jus Sanguinis = NBC interpretation, and WHY the Framers would have insisted upon that high standard for occupancy of the US Presidency, then there's little point in engaging him on the topic.

I can see the underlying reasoning. Believe me, I have no problem either seeing it, or understanding it.

I don't know whether you're capable of reading and really paying attention to what I'm about to say, and admitting that it's correct. But if you can, you will learn a good deal.

It's just wrong, that's all. It's historically wrong. It's legally wrong. It is simply incorrect, untrue, not in accordance with either history or law.

And it's not an ambiguous situation. There's plenty of evidence, some of which I've presented. And I've looked at pretty much all of the "evidence" presented by birthers such as DiogenesLamp.

I didn't go into this with my mind made up one way or the other. I didn't go into this CARING one way or the other. I simply sifted through the evidence to see which made sense and which didn't.

The evidence that it NEVER took citizen parents for any person born on US soil to be a natural born citizen is solid. The "evidence" that it supposedly did is horse manure.

Here's where birthers went wrong. They started out not knowing anything about the intentions of our Founding Fathers.

So what did they do? Did they go and try and find out what those intentions were, by saying, "Hey, I don't know what the Founding Fathers intended. Let's go find out?"

No, that's not what they did. Instead, they sat down and they said:

Natural born citizen. Hmmm. That must come from natural law (an initial conclusion that turns out to be correct). Well, natural law must mean no law made by man (still pretty much correct, but starting, just barely, to wander from the truth). So that means the status of "natural born citizen" can't possibly be a status that is ever assigned to anybody by a legislative body (now we're getting into the historically and legally doubtful).

Hmmm. Our Founding Fathers wanted to protect us from foreign influence (largely correct, but missing quite a few nuances of what they were trying to achieve). So they must have wanted to ensure that anyone elected President could have no foreign influence at all (completely INcorrect, as shown by the fact that they only specified the President had to spend 14 years of his entire life in the United States, and as shown by the fact that 3 or our first 4 Presidents were also citizens of France while they were serving as US President). Hmmmm. Well, that means that the Founding Fathers would have wanted the "highest possible form of allegiance" with no possibility of any foreign influence. Therefore, "natural born citizen" means a person born on US soil with both parents US citizens.

So then they went out looking for evidence to support that conclusion, and ever since then, they have treated two bodies of evidence in a completely unequal fashion.

Any item of evidence that could POSSIBLY be taken, even if twisted or misinterpreted, to support their claim, they have latched onto and claimed as "proof" of the idea.

And any item of evidence that contradicts their claim, they have ignored, or quite deliberately set out to find a way to dismiss.

That's not what they should have done.

What they SHOULD have done is go out and FIND OUT what the Founding Fathers and early experts and every authority throughout history has said, analyze each bit carefully and impartially to see whether it supports one idea or the other, identify which bits are solid and which fall apart, and build their idea from their of what "natural born citizen" means.

If they had done that, then they would have ended up the exact same place that I and virtually every legitimate legal and historical authority in history has ended up at.

They should NEVER have asked the question, "What would the Founders have wanted?" That is a question that is answered by imagination, and the result, like as not, is fantasy.

Instead, they should have asked the question, "What DID the Founders want?"

That is a question that is answered by impartial research, and the result is an accurate understanding of history and law.