Conflation has showed up in half a dozen posts today after having rarely heard it before in my life. Was that in Obama's talking point memo this morning?
"Conflation occurs when the identities of two or more individuals, concepts, or places, sharing some characteristics of one another, seem to be a single identity — the differences appear to become lost.[1] In logic, it is the practice of treating two distinct concepts as if they were one which does produce errors or misunderstandings, as a fusion of distinct subjects tends to obscure analysis of relationships which are emphasized by contrasts.[2] However, if the distinctions between the two concepts appear to be superficial, intentional conflation may be desirable for the sake of conciseness and recall."
Your claims of conflation sound strangely like projecting to me.
As far as my soulless existence, I draw a clear distinction between what I do and how I treat others and what I expect of other people and my government. I expect other people to care more about themselves than their fellow man. It is part of why I find pushing personal responsibility toward family and community off on government as a slow erosion of our society's morality.
Grandma needs help? Screw that, Uncle Sam will put her in a home somewhere. I don't want to deal with that. Brother is out of work, fend for yourself, you get two years unemployment. I don't need to work the food pantry, they can all get food stamps. Can't we just elect people to solve these problems so I don't have to deal with it?
I am all for a safety net and hand up from government. The more it can be allocated to state and local levels the better. Some programs are best served from a national level. Many more programs are best served from the community level. Guess which one each of us can have the most impact on?
