It's not bizarre at all. You give up part of your position by simply conceding that there can be a debate about the subject. The thing is, your point is valid,

It's not bizarre at all. You give up part of your position by simply conceding that there can be a debate about the subject. The thing is, your point is valid, too. The whole purity thing itself is not a binary thing, but rather fuzzy. I think what's needed is both. We need credible, respected leaders who absolutely refuse any kind of blanket, surveillance-by-default architecture. We also need credible, respected leaders who say the other thing - though of course not too publicly. And those two groups had better not fight each other, but unite against the common enemy. Conservatives tend to be very good at this sort of thing, probably because conservatism is really tribalism at its core, and so conservatives understand instinctively that they should not attack each other. Defenders of civil rights are all about the individual, so unfortunately they are more prone to in-fighting, as this thread demonstrates ;)