> The fundamental objection with ME isn't that it's "proprietary" or "non-libre" or whatever other ideological objections, it's that it's an opaque embuggerance that makes any analysis or reasoning about the system's security/trustworthiness/reliability completely impossible and specious.

Erm, your fundamental objection is exactly the same objection as it being non-libre. You presented the same argument while trying to distance yourself from it. Maybe you don't like the words "non-libre" or "proprietary" but you certainly seem to be arguing for the same thing that they are arguing for.

> I don't care much about whether its source code is public or not, I care about the fact that I have no verifiable and irreversible way to disable that little implant's function.

Having source code is but a tool towards having the freedom to do what you want with your hardware. I can't see another tool that would also work and give the verifiability that you want.

Again, maybe you don't like the way people argue for it, but you're arguing for the same freedom that others want.