I don’t think calling it a ledger is controversial, I’m saying we can try to be even more agnostic on economics and get more across. Explaining 1971 makes you look an  conspiracy theory if the person is not open to it.
I don’t get your fiat arguments. I’m saying the manifestation of Bitcoin or fiat is a database with transactions, that’s it, to first pass the hurdle of “non physical money” 
I’ve had 0 success explaining economic incentives of a hard money etc, because inevitably someone will think I’m not sharing the whole side of story. When I explain what it is, like I did, and how people are using, then people start asking questions.
“Fiat means by decree!1!1!1!!” is much more useless than it looks because everything is by decree. People are completely numb to the reach of government, it’s a dead end.