Between articles titled “You’ll Never Believe What Happened After This Quadriplegic Six-Year-Old Gave This Homeless Person a Sandwich” and “Why Everyone Including the Taliban Needs More Beyoncé,” my Facebook newsfeed this summer displayed a disturbing trend of articles and rants comparing the Israel’s military operations to the tactics of Nazi Germany. This deliberate mischaracterization and mislabeling of Israel’s actions in the latest Gaza conflict continued outside of cyberspace as well, with pro-Palestinian protestors carrying signs reading “Israel=Genocide” and “Netanyahu=Hitler.”

Ah, yes, those neo-Nazi Israelis with their Arab affirmative action programs, their Arab Supreme Court judges, government-funded Islamic schools and courts, and elected Palestinian Arabs in the Knesset. Did you know that Arabic is one of Israeli’s official languages? I wonder if Hitler and the Nazi Party did the same for Yiddish and Hebrew. I suppose some Jews in Nazi Germany were lucky enough to be forcibly chosen by SS officers to help oversee the executions in some concentration camps. Talk about representation.

And yet, despite all these “genocidal” measures by the Israelis, the Palestinian population has continued to increase exponentially while the worldwide Jewish population is still recovering from the Holocaust.

The extreme misuse of the word “genocide” is just one example of the left’s War on Words, which has entered almost all aspects of our society. We’re all familiar with the term “micro-aggression,” the numerous examples of which make me wonder why they aren’t simply called “aggressions,” or “being a racist.” Progressives and ideologically driven academics have attached the word “micro” in order to create the illusion that we’re all constantly committing subtle acts of racism, sexism, and homophobia. Did you know, according to Professor Derald Sue of Columbia University, that when you ask someone about her mother and father, you are engaging in a heternormative micro-aggression? You monster.

When someone says, “You have nice hair, for a black girl,” we should not label this as a minor manifestation of innate racial bigotry in white people. Rather, we should scorn the individual and recognize that only a minority of whites are so crude.

Unfortunately, the bizarre post-modern obsession with language instead of action has permeated the highest office in our country. With tensions between the West and ISIS reaching all time highs, we’ve seen the Obama administration go to painful lengths to avoid the word “war” when talking about any military engagement against the Islamic extremists. The State Department tells us we’re engaged in “kinetic military action” while the more objective military commanders unequivocally affirm that we are indeed at war. For President Obama, labels are everything, and most importantly they’re the key to cementing his legacy as the Nobel Peace Prize-winning cool dude who likes to dance on talk shows and attend the weddings of MSNBC hosts.

In other areas, the War on Words comes with the best of intentions. We live in an age where many (but not enough) can live comfortably with their sexual orientation. Gender is no longer defined in the traditional sense, which for many allows a new sense of freedom with a minimal impact on social cohesion. However, some of the new identity categories border on the silly to the insane (a favorite in my research is the label Genderpunk, which describes “a gender experience which is punk in nature or intensity.” I identify as GenderPhilCollins). If you want to identify as a Multi-headed Dragonborn Neutrois, I won’t get the government to stop you. Just don’t get mad when I‘m not familiar with the exact label.

The pervasive emotional rhetoric of the left in recent years has caused words, rather than actions, to become the most important tools our society has to combat injustices. But, believe it or not, our economy cannot be willed back to health. Our border cannot be more secure through kinder labeling of illegal aliens. The threat of radical Islam cannot be quelled by avoiding the word “war” while dropping bombs on rural villages in Iraq. The left’s War on Words is unsustainable and unsubstantiated and only serves as a distraction from the pressing issues of the time. Perhaps that is the point.