Hawks Fight Doves As America Transitions to a Global World
Americans elected a liberal president in 2008 to take the country forward in an era when challenges equaled those of the industrial revolution 150 years before and the Roosevelt era some 60 years later. Globalization was a fact. The information highway spread enlightenment and distortions with equal rapidity. With the election, America embraced the challenges while the losing conservatives rallied to preserve the old ways. The Oxford dictionary defines conservatives as averse to rapid change while liberals favored individual rights and moderate reform. "Rapid" and "moderate" are relative terms but two associated terms are not. Those are political hawks, who advocate an aggressive or warlike policy, especially in foreign affairs, and political doves, who advocate a peaceful policy. The term "hawk," by that source, also refers to a rapacious person. The hallmark of the 2008 US election was the choice to make radical changes to meet an unprecedented global ec...