Limits of Allegiance

Limits of Allegiance

Opening

(بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ - bismillahir-rahmanir-rahim)

Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim. Allahumma salli ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sallim wa tasliman kathira.

Introduction: The Context of Allegiance

Imam J taught political science at Rutgers, so you start them on allegiance to states and things like that. It's gonna be from Hegel to who knows. But Michael Krasny, I've been on his program a few times, and there's this light that goes on and off. It says, on the air, and there's a clock in there. It's the most amazing clock, because you feel it, like every second is like a minute on that thing.

And then you start, you have an hour, and before you know it, he said, well, that about wraps it up for today, and it's over. And I wish I had a voice that deep, because I would be a radio phenomenon as well. So it's a pleasure to have Michael Krasny here with us, really.

They say it's an oxymoron to have an intelligent radio host, but he is an intelligent radio host, one of the few, I think, real intellectuals on the air, and somebody very committed to the values of what should make this country extraordinary, and what often, unfortunately, because we fail to adhere to those values, makes it less so.

The Medieval Concept of Allegiance

The topic that we're looking at is allegiance. It's an interesting word, because allegiance is a medieval term, and they had what was called a liege lord, and the liege lord was somebody who the feudal serfs owed allegiance to.

You gave your allegiance to a liege lord, and then you had the sovereign, also who you had an allegiance to, but there was a reciprocal relationship that was understood, and the relationship was that the liege protected you, and as long as you were protected, you had allegiance to that liege lord. But if they no longer protected you, then that bond was no longer there.

America: A Radical Departure from the European Model

And so one of the things about the United States of America is it is a radical departure from the European model. This was called the New World. Europe was a model that said you were a subject. America was an attempt to change that model and say you were no longer a subject, you were a citizen, and that meant that the government served you, and you did not serve the government.

And in our foundational documents in this country, there is an argument for breaking the bonds of government, so they were very clear about the limits of allegiance in this revolutionary state that we've inherited. People forget that America was a revolutionary state. The founding fathers were revolutionaries. They were people that recognized the limits of allegiance when a government becomes so tyrannical and so unbearable, and because they were civil men and gentlemen, they actually wrote down their grievances, and they attempted several times to have them redressed by the king, but nobody listened over in Europe.

The Revolutionary Grievances

They had taxation without representation. Taxation without representation. One of the things that they complained about was that King George sends out his armies to eat up our wealth through taxes.

This revolution was started by the grandfather of somebody in the room tonight, so I'm just going to acknowledge Aisha Gray Henry, because Aisha Gray Henry is the eighth direct descendant of Patrick Henry, and she became a Muslim many, many years ago. Patrick Henry started the revolution by saying, give me liberty or give me death. It's a famous speech.

Islam and the Desire for Freedom

That started the revolution. Now, she doesn't find any problem with what her grandfather said and Islam. She doesn't find a problem with that, because although Islam is focused on spiritual freedom more than it is on political freedom, it also recognizes the importance of political freedom, because people yearn to be free.

The Afghanis yearn to be free. The Iraqis yearn to be free. Egyptians all across the board. Human beings desire freedom. And if a government becomes oppressive or tyrannical, according to Cromwell, that disobedience to tyrants is obedience to God. Disobedience to tyrants is obedience to God.

That started the great revolution in England. You see, so allegiance has limits, and when you are being tyrannized to such a degree, at a certain point there's breaking points. People break. People break.

The Financial Crisis and Corporate Malfeasance

When you have a country that has a financial mafia that is robbing this population blind and then rewarding that financial mafia by giving them billions of dollars, billions of dollars of our money and our children and our children's children's money. These people that robbed Goldman Sachs, they were the heads of these corporations, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, AIG.

Just look what happened. And then the very same people that robbed us blind, that are always talking about unregulated markets and free enterprise and don't mess with the markets, suddenly it becomes capitalism when it's profit, socialism when it's loss. But most of these people out here didn't get bailouts.

We have foreclosures all over the state of California. These people did not get bailouts. You see, so when Paulson, Henry Paulson can sell his stocks for 491 million dollars, tax-free, because President Bush said that, gee, we want people not having to pay taxes if they're going to serve the government when they sell off their interest that might have a conflict of interest.

The Question of Representation

Half a billion dollars tax-free and these are the type of people that are running the Secretary of Treasury and this is a representational government? Who are they representing? They're not representing people in East Oakland. They're not representing people in Harlem. They're not representing people in South Chicago.

Who are they representing? So this country is a country that has a history of dissent. Now, they used to call dissenters traitors and they used to hang them. But when I was a kid, we read an essay that was called Civil Disobedience, written by Henry David Thoreau.

The Call for Civil Disobedience

That's what I read when I was in high school. Civil Disobedience, which was about the conscionable fact that anyone with any moral compunction at a certain point has to say enough is enough. This is not right and I cannot do that.

Like Bartleby the Scrivener who said I prefer not to. I'm just not going to sign these documents for Wall Street anymore. This country needs civil disobedience. Really, we need civil disobedience.

Personal Heritage and American Identity

As a Muslim, I'm an American. You can't take that away from me. I'm a natural born American. I have four direct ancestors that fought in the Revolutionary War. Daniel Copeland, who's one of my grandfathers, was awarded in that war. He was an officer in the Continental Army. So that flows in my blood. Irish people that fought the British for a long time.

No, I come from a people that stand up for their rights. And that's supposedly what I was taught as a child what America was about. That's the America I want to live in.