It doesn't matter what they've earned. If you're wrong, you're wrong. You can't mitigate your wrongness by saying you came by it honestly.

(That goes for me too, of course. Totally possible I'm wrong.)

You come off as overly authoritarian in your comments such that a chance for measured discussion is I think probably often quelled by your domineering attitude.

Since the last decade our civil liberties have only been eroding -- that is the trend, not the opposite of that or something. So a good amount of leeriness is probably healthy and very well warranted. It's great that you're reading the executive orders and getting down to things, but please don't go off on those who by default take the position of skepticism. There's a reason they are that way, and that reason is a pretty good one.

This attitude drives me nuts. It's a message board. What do you want from me? We're not settling public policy, we're discussing it. How does it help anyone for me to issue prolix disclaimers about how certain I am about things? How does that even matter? If you think I'm wrong, say I'm wrong, and preferably, why you think that. If I agree, I'll say so. I'll do the same.

I have no actual "authority" on HN.

Don't you know that HN is srsbusiness.

You're dodging the point. Being skeptical does not give you license to be ignorant. That is to say it's possible to believe that our civil liberties have been eroding for the last decade* and base it on actual evidence instead of knee-jerk reactions to any government action.

*) And I tend to agree with you. The history of the U.S. has been a waxing and waning of civil liberties, and I think we're in a waning point right now. That said, the long term trend has been towards more liberty.