In America, pdq, people also wear what they are told to wear, say what they are expected to say and do what their society tells them to do.

They conform. They conform massively and predictably to the cultural messages they are given over their TV and mass media and in their schools. This is true of 99% of the population. People conform because their are afraid of what other people would think about them if they didn't!

And their conformity to American cultural values seems just as ridiculous to people in other cultures as the conformity of people in other cultures to their accustomed values seems to you.

But you don't see it in your own case, because you have taken it for granted all your life. The same is true of Muslims in Muslim countries.

One has to step outside the box of one's own culture to become a truly free human being who thinks independently. Few people ever do.

Your chauvinism toward Muslims (as a group) is matched by theirs toward you, and it seems to me like you are the mirror image of each other in that respect. If there is a war between such people, it is driven by chauvinism and ignorance of one another on both sides.

Barack Obama has attained a degree of wisdom, because he grew up in at least 2 cultures and 2 racial groups as a boy and he was exposed, therefore, to differing views of things, and in a peaceful way. That broadens a person's perspective, and a broader perspective is exactly what's needed in a head of state or a diplomat.

I don't care what religion Barack Obama belongs to either. It's irrelevant.