alt Hacker NewsYou believe them. You believe the line "I'm not trying to be pro surveillance state", and then you take seriously the points they made which are completely reasonable things to ask, and you engage critically with them, and discuss how those points are compatible or incompatible with the overall stance. It is easy.
As a general rule: to engage charitably with someone you believe the things they say they believe, at face value and attempt to understand how they could come to believe those things.
But I do believe them. It's just that they points that they sincerely ( I did not doubt that) made are part of the same set of points that are made in favor of a surveillance state - there is a contradiction here. Instead of assuming, I asked a question.
Quite literally this:
> attempt to understand how they could come to believe those things.
Is it possible that you are not reading my comment charitably ?