Dear Yankel,
“The attitude of habad hasidim toward their rebbe exceeds by far , the attitude of other talmidim towards their rebbe , and even the attitude of other hasidim towards their rebbe.”
Completely untrue. Maybe you were born yesterday. Maybe you will be born again tomorrow.
That is the proper attitude of a talmid for a rebbe. Everything the rebbe says is unequivocally the Word of the Torah. (A wise student knows not to retain everything as is.) And it is only half of what was Reb Boruch Ber to Reb Chaim. The difference with Chabad is this. You can be in almost any yeshiva or chassidus and not be a talmid of the rebbe. In most places the people in the group that actually follow the leader are a minority. IN Chabad, you have to follow the rebbe. There is no being Chabad, without being a follower of the rebbe.