Hijack soapboxing is intellectually bankrupt.
“Soapboxing”, coming from the practice started at Speaker’s Corner where common citizens were allowed to speak their minds to gathered crowds, is most certainly not intellectually bankrupt. You are either ignorant of what it really means to “get up on a soap box” or ignorant of what it means for something to be intellectually bankrupt.
Oh yeah? You and what army?
I’m neither, but if you can’t see the use of the word ‘hijack’ in the beginning of the statement nor understand what I intended by it (I.E. that using a moderately tangential issue to spout political beliefs is morally bakrupt. Additional I.E. for the sake of explanation of the obvious: You using it as an opportunity to post your propaganda link is intellectually bakrupt) I can’t help you any further.
[QUOTE=FinnAgain]
XT:I am not making it up.
[/QUOTE]
I believed you even without the cite, Finn…I just had never heard it before is all.
They are Just Asking Questions™, Finn…you know that. 
-XT
:rolleyes:
You added that on edit.
And it seems that you also do not understand what a hijack is, as a direct response to the OP’s claims is not a hijack. The OP is wrong, metaphors for conflict, including but not limited to “attack”, “war” and “assault on” are all appropriate to describe the actions of some on the political right with regard to science.
You also don’t understand what “propaganda” is, and as I pointed out, you aer ignorant as to what it means to be “intellectually bankrupt”. And, as it happens, the only link I’ve posted is to substantiate the fact that I did not invent the phrase “Gorebal warming”.
And of course you can’t help me “further”, as that implies you had made a contribution, previously.
Defend your position as you like, I’ve said what I have to say.
Defending my position implies you’ve attacked it.
Claiming that a direct response to the OP’s claims is a hijack, and using a term whose definition you don’t know in order to handwave the facts I’ve presented is hardly attacking my position.
If someone actually feels like attacking the facts, I’ll be happy to defend them.
The idea that I don’t understand the definitions of certain words is based on your perception/interpretation of both what I mean and what the words themselves mean. It’s all very well for you to say that you regard my implications as incorrect as they apply to you, but let’s not pretend that you can reliably ascertain the veracity of opinions, nor question my usage of English. Third parties will or will not judge as they see fit.
… on the fact that you’re using a phrase which you obviously do not understand. Much like you do not understand that something which directly responds to a claim that OP makes, in the OP itself, is not a “hijack”, you seem to think that “intellectually bankrupt” means “something Semjaazah doesn’t like”. Pointing out the facts which show that significant national faction has indeed made an agenda of attacking science when it conflicts with their doctrines is not “intellectually bankrupt” by any conceivable accurate definition. As you are using a phrase in contradiction to any of its possible definitions, it’s clear you don’t actually know what it means. Just as if someone claimed that rocks were “psychedelic” and when questioned on that claim, argued “well, they’ve a very nice shade of brown.”
I’ll note that you still are producing mere babble as your argument and have yet to actually even attempt to show why I’m wrong other than editing the word “hijack” into a statement you made and trying to claim that a link to people using the term “Gorebal Warming” is “propaganda”. The facts of the matter are that there is a significant faction in the republican party which is attempting to silence climatology and a significant faction which wants to silence biology. These attacks on science can, indeed, be accurately described as a “war”.
I’m glad it’s obvious to you because it never will be to me.
As far as issues go, Global warming is entirely irrelevant to me. I won’t have to worry about it, nor will my children be directly injured by it. If true, it jeopardises the future of the Earth, but that’s no worry to me either way, since I wont be here. Hence I don’t care. I mention this predominantly because of the quote “something Semjaazah doesn’t like”, I have no such bias regarding the issue. I haven’t studied it and have no idea of whether it is happening or not.
The OP was talking about the use of the term “WAR” as a rhetorical device. He listed examples from both sides of the political spectrum. He wasn’t talking about global warming. I’ve explained why I don’t agree with the term.
You are again letting your ignorance get in your way.
The OP explicitly objected to phrases like “the Republican war on science”. In fact, he linked to the book of the same name. That book touches on, you guessed it, global warming and the GOP’s reaction to it.
You seem ignorant of the function of examples, as well. If someone claims that it is inaccurate to use a phrase like “Republican war on science” and you can provide examples of how a faction in the GOP is indeed attacking science, that’s directly relevant. This is basic, and your lack of understanding is hamstringing your argument. As should be obvious, global warming is an example of one subject on which a faction in the GOP is attacking science. I notice you also didn’t talk about evolution, which I suppose is good since I can’t imagine you could pretzel your argument to the point where you could argue that factions in the GOP have not attacked biological science.
Offered without comment.
Believe as you wish. I’m not going to engage in endless debate about something that should be self evident. If a third party read this, I hope they also read previous posts within this thread and draw their own conclusion.
Well, as a third party I can just say that it seems a pretty silly semantic eye of the needle with a camel as angels dance on it’s head sort of ‘debate’ to me. Finn was right about the hijack thing…he wasn’t hijacking the thread there. You should have simply acknowledged that and moved on to whatever point you want to make concerning this fascinating exercise in hair splitting. He’s like a terrier on stuff like this,especially when he’s right.
FWIW and all that jazz.
-XT
I acknowledge your contribution, respect notwithstanding.
What about Drug Nabobs, Drug Neguses, or Drug First Citizens? 
It’s not a hijack. The OP specifically mentioned the “Republican war on science” as an example.
Doesn’t matter, though; I think the OP is right, at least as it pertains to nonviolent or noncoercive tactics. There wasn’t a literal war on black people in the Jim Crow South, but I don’t think anyone who used such a metaphor would have been accused of overstating the case.
Anyone know if the War on Poverty was the first example of this turn of phrase?
Perhaps the real problem is that the phrase is worn out by overuse. Sure, one could argue that any individual use of it as a metaphor is fully justified (for example, Finnagain’s defence of the “War on Science”). The problem is that if everyone uses the phrase as a rhetorical flourish, it loses its punch when it is justfied as a metaphor.
Disagreement isn’t an act of war, of course. However, if a group is making an organized attempt to defeat a particular position, or to reduce the power of a particular group, through actions in multiple arenas and on multiple related issues, “war” seems like a pretty good metaphor.
And it’s disanalogous to compare it to Hitler. A “Hitler thought that” post is always intended to be defamatory. “War on” is often used in a positive sense: we talk about the war on drugs, the war on poverty.
When we talk about the “war on” something positive, sure, we’re suggesting that the folks engaged in said war are engaged in a bad activity. But what’s wrong with that? It’s not predicated on a fallacy (“Hitler liked sausage, so if you like sausage, you want to kill the Jews!”), and it’s not a repellant appeal to emotions (“Hitler wanted to crush free speech, so if you want principals to be able to censor school newspapers, you’re just like Hitler!”). Rather, it’s a shorthand for describing a coordinated attempt to diminish a group or a position through simultaneous initiatives in multiple related areas. As such, it’s a very useful shorthand.
I recently read George Orwell’s famous essay Politics and the English Language, and I’ve become partial to his treatment of figures of speech. In his view, figures of speech in political writing are very often an attempt to get away with shoddy thinking; he advises against using common figures of speech at all.
In the current case, I think that the use of “war on _______” metaphors is often both a fallacy and an appeal to emotions. The appeal to emotions seems clear. A real war kills thousands or millions of people, injures others, wrecks nations and destroys live. To suggest that some garden-variety piece of legislation that shifts money around or rearranges priorities is a “war” is an attempt to attach our emotional opposition to massive carnage and destruction to something that doesn’t deserve such strong opposition.
In 99% of all cases it’s also a fallacy to claim that the group in question is waging a campaign against something, when there’s really no campaign. Holding that employers should be able to purchase the insurance they want is not a campaign against women; it is not an action against women at all. Demanding an environmental impact statement for a major project like the Keystone Pipeline is not part of a campaign against jobs; it’s does nothing against jobs at all.
Cite please.