I was recently talking about something similar relating to framing the international development arm of an NGO in the context of 'social justice.' That piece of semantic propaganda can cause a lot of trouble later on. The understanding of 'justice' that we nurture in our normal, functional societies is one that relies on one party having absolute power: A just ruler.
A Judge (or the legal system) has all the power. The defendant, only those powers given to him in the name of justice. In the context of this kind of society, unwavering commitment to 'justice' is extremely useful. People fall into line. It is harder to game the system by increasing barriers to justice. This all oils essential machinery like contracts, security & a fixed set of rules.
It is harmful taking this to a different context.
Once you leave that context, justice doesn't work so well. If you need the recipient of the sharper end of justice to agree to it, that's a problem. Who expected Omar Al-Bashir to show up voluntarily for his arrest? The reasoning was that asserting the International Court's in this context authority would be a step towards subjecting criminal rulers to the same justice as criminal citizens. But the power balance is all wrong.
Like the article rightly points out, making claims of ustice is no good if you are appealing to the party directly, via negotiations.
so why is everything framed as justice?
Partly it's habit. There are parallels between stealing cattle from a farm & stealing from the national treasury. But also, the proponents of 'justice' are often appealing to 'the public' as the judge. For example, the Israelis & Palestinians appeal to 'world opinion.' While perhaps strengthening their hands individually, that kind of appeal hurts their joint ability to negotiate with each other. IE, it gets them better terms in a less likely agreement.
One approach is to start with "Let's assume that I'm evil and you're good and discuss only what is correct/leads to better results." That makes many of the rhetorical games worthless.
And, if you play your cards right, you get to conclude with "Hmm, I'm the evil one but your approach ends up with {horror} while mine leads to {smiling bunnies}."
While I agreed with a lot of their positions, in retrospect the pro-Bush movement was bad for the level of discourse in this country. People became accustomed to dismissing their opponents as evil idiots, and this phenomenon is especially noticeable among my generation.
"Democrats are the party of hate. Republicans are the party of fear" - Penn Gillette
Once having the right opinions becomes a matter of justice, then you might as well end the discussion right there.
While I agreed with a lot of their positions, in retrospect the anti-Bush movement was bad for the level of discourse in this country. People became accustomed to dismissing their opponents as evil idiots, and this phenomenon is especially noticeable among my generation.
This relates to Paul Graham's "Small Identity" post. Having a small identity probably correlates with having a smaller domain where one invokes passionate moral outrage.