You know maybe I’ll put forth a new theory here: the Midwestern Modesty one...
Roberts is from Indiana, right? My husband is from a small town in S. Illinois, and I’ve found it to be a real culture shock, being from Alaska myself.
His people are very very big on modesty, not being too big for your britches, never overstepping your role, etc. I don’t know if I can pinpoint exactly what I mean here - but I’ve found people from his part of the country to be overly concerned with what others think of them, in a way the gives them sort of this humble nature by force - as in “be humble or be castigated for being otherwise.”
Could Roberts be so utterly Midwestern that this helped turned him into a huge wimp in the face of all of the pressure?
Flame away if you are an audacious Midwesterner who begs to differ!
The reason this doesn’t work is that he had to stretch the law to call it a tax. This required overstepping.
His use of the phrase “may reasonably be characterized as a tax” arises from the premise that it is not actually a tax.
It’s not actually a tax, but it may reasonably be characterized as a tax.
Sort of like a straight line. It’s not a curved line, but it may reasonably be bent into a curved line.
lol.....I’m a MidWesterner, and I’d say you are totally off-base. We can be nice, but still hold to our principles. It’s something else.