Another gem from Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 694 (1898)
To hold that the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution excludes from citizenship the children, born in the United States, of citizens or subjects of other countries would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German, or other European parentage who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States.
The implication would be that the entire lineage would not be citizens because an ancestor, presumed to have been a citizen, was not. The court rejected the insane interpretation.
You are right in calling it an “insane” interpretation. Arguing with these people, unless it is just to see how low they will go intellectually, is pointless. It is like having a prolonged debate with a flat-Earther, or a sovereign citizen, about whether you need to get a license tag to drive.
No matter what you say, or what evidence you provide, they are not arguing in good faith, and they will never change their mind. Which, is not uncommon BUT, here the question is simply a legal one, and the WKA Court was very clear.
My BFF says that she has asked them before, why don’t you just admit that the current state of the law means that Obama was eligible, but that the law should be changed. That would be a defensible position, but she says that they would have none of it.
So yep, they are mentally ill people.
The states had various provisions to make legal residents into citizens. I recall seeing them. I'm thinking that after the civil war, this power was absorbed by the Federal government, but the behavior of all involved went on as before. People would come to be legal residents and would be regarded as citizens even if they went through no formal process.
But the elephant in the room is illegal aliens. These didn't exist in the time of Wong Kim Ark because there were no laws barring people from entering the country.
So your intention of applying that section from Wong Kim Ark to modern America doesn't really work. It's not quite honest about the difference between how things worked then, and how things work now.