IOWA CAUCUSES & FREEDOM.

The hustle and bustle of politicians and their supporters in Iowa will not mean much in places like Syria, Iran and North Korea, because the political systems there are not people oriented or even friendly, in relation to those who are governed.

They are dictatorships, whose backgrounds are not similar, but the basis of government is the same, except perhaps Syria and North Korea, where a son is made to succeed a father as the leader of a nation.

In these systems, the involvement of the people is not considered necessary, for the mere reason that they are using military force to tie down the citizens, and the least disruption by anyone being a dissident, will be crushed within minutes.

In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad is killing his people to stay in power, which has been handed down to him by his father, Hafez al-Assad, who has ruled the country for 29 years, using brutality to remain in power; the Hama massacre being an example.

His second son, Bashar, has been handed the reins of government on a silver platter, and therefore, the crackdown of fellow Syrians is just a cinch, for it has been demonstrated by his father and so it is easy for him to follow suit.

On the other side of the world, the ridiculous handing over of power to an untested, young Korean after his father's death, is being witnessed, as the people look on as sheep to slaughter and without a say.

Iran's religious leaders, the Ayatollahs, who have control of the real political power in that country, are flexing their muscles and provoking countries in the Western hemisphere, indicatively, the United States, with the closing of the Strait of Hormuz -- "the passageway for one-sixth of the world's oil supply.", and they (leaders) are having dreams of acquiring nuclear weapons to terrorize their neighbors and others.

All these actions are taken in these countries without the consent of the people, solely because the governments there are dictatorial systems.

However, in America, the people have more say in the affairs of the country through a Constitution that grants them the freedoms to express themselves in several divers ways. There is also the United States Congress that makes the laws, and all its members are elected through the ballot box, just as well as a president, who governed by virtue of having to negotiate a political process of an election to reach that goal.

What is presently going on in Iowa is the quintessential social illustration that the people are free to have a choice; they can express their views in dialogues that are pertaining to how they are governed; they have the right to vote, that can make those views factual; they have a system of government "of the people by the people for the people."

There is nothing else that can be fairer than that to any people, to have the responsibility in choosing a leader. They, as a result, have democracy; and they prefer it to any other form of government.

The noisy gatherings are named as "Iowa caucuses", but they mean more than that. They mean freedom.