Consistency

So to continue the story, many months ago I reestablished contact with a friend from college.  He is a very politically knowledgeable and intellectual person and is very involved in the Tea Party Movement.  He also wrote an email two days after 9-11 saying he would now be carrying a gun and looking for suspicious looking people and encouraged others to do the same. Soon after that he joined the Navy.  So when I asked him a question about an issue I had been pondering, i.e. the targeted killings of terrorist suspects by the US military in Pakistan by unmanned drones, I expected an intelligent, well-reasoned, response supporting the military's actions.  Instead what I got was an intelligent, well-reasoned response, opposing the killings as violations of the U.S. Constitution.  Immediately, I was shocked by the consistency. 
So often I see people base their political theory on their opinions.  They have a list of opinions -  pro or anti war, pro or anti abortion, pro or anti welfare, pro or anti gun, pro or anti big federal government - and they craft their political theory to support their opinions.  This often leads to a good deal of inconsistency.  For example, they don't like how the Federal government is trying to control education so they argue that the original intent of the Constitution does not give it that power, but then turn around and support a Federal bill regarding education if they do like its particular policy, rather than consistently sticking to the position that the Federal government should stay out of the matter all together. 
But what I heard in his answer was a consistent following of a political theory, that theory being that we should strictly adhere to the Constitution.  The theory was adopted, and then the issue, targeting killings in this case, was evaluated and an opinion was then formed based on that theory.  I was intrigued, not primarily by the theory itself, but by the consistency, the integrity of the opinion.