> This is an extremely popular bit of apocrypha that's repeated ad nauseam across reddit.

This is so tiring of a lame excuse. I don't use reddit, so I don't know what that has to do with anything. As a high school kid, I volunteered with my congressman in his office and heard this directly from people working in the office. You can try to snipe anonymously from the internet, but it doesn't make me wrong.

I'm not sniping you, nor am I using it as an excuse — I'm just saying that what you've related is such common knowledge that it's become a political truism, apocryphal folklore you can find posted 15 times per day on Reddit and other social media. I didn't mean it as an attack on your reasoning or your personal experience, but it's too late to edit my comment to change it. I apologize.