What purpose does it serve? Whose purpose does it serve?

And while I'm about it, would it be necessary if people took some time to understand other cultures instead of picking up the nearest hammer?

As I recall from the millions and millions of hours of US television, say for instance after the Tehran hostage crisis - there were probably less than a 1000 US citizens who could say what the 5 pillars of Islam were. I doubt if it is more than few thousand now, unless they are Islamic.

This failure to understand other cultures and other beliefs is at the very heart of US problems IMHO. It is a failure that starts at the top, spreads out through the media, and disinforms the citizenry such that when they come to vote, they don't understand the context in which they vote.

Some decent arguments to rebut these assertions would be most welcome. We Europeans may be wrong. But at least we understand that justice is only served when the prosecution is balanced by a defence. By all the facts. If we only ever listened to prosecutors, we would hang everybody. Draw and quarter them too, most likely.

But we don't. We try to make balanced judgements which are, admittedly, very difficult in the rapidly changing multi-cultural context of Europe. At least we try, and we are changing ourselves in the process. Defenders of the faiths. Plural.

You can't be me, I'm taken