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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   4314 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 23, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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If we retcon the shit out of history, we can't learn much from it.

I spent this whole thread writing primarily as someone who was an insurance-premium-paying adult and licensed attorney throughout Obama's presidency. I was giving you my first-hand testimony about how these things were being discussed at the time by the bulk of the informed people I knew. I don't remember having seen the Stephanopoulos interview at that time. Of course, there are always a lot of people talking about things, and not everything gets recorded. Memories are fickle, but "the record" has its own shortcomings, too. The interview you shared does seem to back me up, though--Obama himself was saying "not a tax," his administration argued "not a tax... unless..." and his opponents argued "not a tax." To say that, because an insignificant number of people were saying "yes it is a tax," it was a tax all along--that's the retcon.

Maybe I should get checked or something. Is there a test?

Oddly enough, I was just talking with some people about this.

I tried that fest and got a 49, pretty well below the bar. I got some points for not using a lot of movie or television quotes in my daily conversation, which I found odd. An online test at Clinical Partners was also pretty sure I'm not autistic. I wonder if it's simply my online persona: I do tend to care about details.

To me, though, details matter: in this case, the detail that

1, Yes, plenty of people claimed it was a tax from the get-go, and

B. Democrats swore up one wall and down the other it wasn't, and the President, ridiculed people for "making up words", then when shown the word in the dictionary ridiculed more instead of addressing the argument.

It was signature, huge legislation passed while wilfully deceiving the American public. I don't see it as an "autistic" or irrelevant detail at all.

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