Editorial
Election Day, Veterans Day Represent Freedom

This edition of the Gazette is published the day after Election Day 2003 and almost a week before Veterans Day. We think there’s more than coincidence at work here.

Yesterday the voters of this city had, as they do every Election Day, an opportunity to have their say in the making of their government. The names of City Councilmembers, District Attorneys, Judges and Justices of the New York State Supreme Court were on ballots throughout the metropolitan area. Voters also could determine the way in which those officials are elected through a proposed amendment to the City Charter that would do away with partisan primary elections.

We hope all our readers who could vote did vote for many reasons, not the least of which is the federal holiday celebrated next Tuesday, Veterans Day. On this day, Nov.11, 1918 at 11 a.m. local time, the guns fell silent and the first truly global conflict of the 20th century was over.

As we well know, World War I, "The War to End All Wars," wasn’t the end of anything. Each war that followed seemed longer and bloodier than the one before. One fundamental truth held up through all the years and battles, though—America’s citizen-soldiers fought in those wars for many reasons, chief among them to preserve their right and that of their fellow citizens to determine their own government through the peaceful means of the ballot box.

The young men and women who even as you read this are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan still have as a major objective the preservation of the American system of representative democracy. By bringing some form of that system to countries which for centuries were governed by autocrats, many of whom cloaked their tyranny in the guise of a belief system that purportedly imbued them with divinely inspired power, we strengthen and preserve our own.

The soldiers of today are the veterans of tomorrow. We hope all our readers will accord those who return from the conflict in which this nation is presently engaged the respect and honor they so richly deserve. They are willing to fight—and die—not only to protect our freedom, but also to present this most precious gift to the rest of the world.

Next Tuesday at 11a.m., take a moment to remember those who fought for our freedom and so that other people in other countries around the world can savor it as well. For such an enormous sacrifice, one moment out of one day is the very least we can do.