I have read through every comment here, and fail to see a lack of self-awareness in any of them. Perhaps you are seeing things from a perspective I have not considered...or you are boldly trolling from a throwaway account. If it is the former, please elaborate.
I suspect it has something to do with tptacek's very strongly pro-US-state political views and his dismissive attitude to people who don't share those views, as demonstrated in the above comment.
First of all, this site is like a study in the Fundamental Attribution Fallacy. When I read comments like this, I'm certain the person writing them has no idea what I believe, but has someone managed to develop an entitlement to that knowledge because we share a message board. Unable to discern what it is I actually believe, you instead try to interpolate it from random comments on HN. Spoiler: it's not working. I'm especially amused by how many different political villains I've managed to be cast as. Am I libertarian? Am I a statist? Am I a right-winger? Am I an SJW? Depends on the thread!
Stop doing that.
Second, the #1/#2 distinction has nothing to do with the US government. Overwhelmingly, the #1's I've interacted with have cast "criminals" in the "bad guy" role, not NSA. The point isn't who the adversary is, it's that they're animated solely by the idea that they're in a real struggle with some kind of adversary in the first place.
