Fundamental Laws Russia Quotes

1832 as the first article of the Fundamental Laws of the Russian Empire (the first volume of the Digest that listed all laws still in effect): ‘The Emperor of all the Russians is a sovereign with autocratic and unlimited powers. To obey the commands not merely from fear but according to the dictates of one’s conscience is ordained by God himself.’ In short, the emperor’s powers were boundless and in theory the tsar could do as he wished because he alone was answerable to God. The tsar set policy, he established the laws of the land, and he was responsible for their enactment. By

The one who refused was Sergei Magnitsky, the accountant, at thirty-six the youngest of the group—which was how Browder explained his refusal to himself: “Sergei was from a generation who thought that Russia was changing. There was a new Russia, maybe an imperfect Russia, but a getting-better Russia. The basic fundamental principles of law and justice existed—that was his premise. He said, ‘This is not 1937. I’ve done nothing wrong and I know the law. There’s no legal means that they could come and arrest me.

The moment of euphoria at the end of the Cold War generated an illusion of harmony, which was soon revealed to be exactly that. The world became different in the early 1990s, but not necessarily more peaceful. Change was inevitable; progress was not. Similar illusions of harmony flourished, briefly, at the end of each of the twentieth century’s other major conflicts. World War I was the “war to end wars” and to make the world safe for democracy. World War II, as Franklin Roosevelt put it, would “end the system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, the balances of power, and all the other expedients that have been tried for centuries — and have always failed.” Instead we will have “a universal organization” of “peace-loving Nations” and the beginnings of a “permanent structure of peace.”7 World War I, however, generated communism, fascism, and the reversal of a century-old trend toward democracy. World War II produced a Cold War that was truly global. The illusion of harmony at the end of that Cold War was soon dissipated by the multiplication of ethnic conflicts and “ethnic cleansing,” the breakdown of law and order, the emergence of new patterns of alliance and conflict among states, the resurgence of neo-communist and neo-fascist movements, intensification of religious fundamentalism, the end of the “diplomacy of smiles” and “policy of yes” in Russia’s relations with the West, the inability of the United Nations and the United States to suppress bloody local conflicts, and the increasing assertiveness of a rising China.

In the United States, matters have not yet progressed this far, but we must remain vigilant. Some Muslims, such as Imam Rauf, who tried to erect the Ground Zero Mosque, argue that Sharia law is compatible with the U.S. Constitution.50 Make no mistake, he is not saying the Constitution and Sharia are similar; rather he wants to amend the Constitution, to fundamentally alter our government from one that allows freedom to flourish to one that squelches liberty in the name of Sharia. We cannot allow this. Andrew McCarthy, former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, says, What I think the imam means about this is that there are mechanisms within the Constitution [such as amendments] that can be exploited to completely change the Constitutional system. . . . If laws get enacted, or if litigation is brought in courts, the Sharia agenda can be advanced. So he sees in our Constitution the sort of loopholes and mechanisms that he can use to advance Sharia, in that sense it’s Sharia-compliant.51 The practice of advancing jihad by implementing Sharia is perhaps one of the most strategically coordinated and far-reaching politico-religious agendas in the world today, and Americans must recognize it in order to protect America from such laws. This chapter examines some fundamental principles of Sharia and then considers how American legal principles differ in significant ways.

The war we now face is a fundamental one. Democracy is a product of Western societal values that prize the individual and individual freedom. The very idea of a form of government in which power is vested in the people, who rule through their freely chosen representatives, is at odds with Middle Eastern and Islamic cultures in which the only sovereign is Allah. Because Allah alone is sovereign, man may not change Allah’s rules. There can be no room left for religious liberty or pluralism. Contrary man-made laws have no place in such a society. Accordingly, only one ruler is needed to enforce divine law, law that may not be questioned. Democracy, on the other hand, by its very nature gives people the room to enact new laws to meet with the changing needs—whether real or merely perceived—of a given society. Thus from the Islamic perspective, a democratic system of government is a direct affront to Allah’s supremacy.

The belief system based on the absolute authority of Allah and his law has been ingrained in Muslim societies for centuries. The very term Islam means “submission,”1 and the term Muslim means “one who submits.”2 Given that tradition, it is naïve to expect that democratic institutions would function as intended in fundamentally undemocratic cultures like Islamic countries. As with the election of Mohamed Morsi in Egypt and his subsequent Islamist foreign policy, a free vote may elect a leader, but leaders in such societies do not automatically reflect traditionally understood democratic principles. As dangerous as it is to assume that an elected leader will espouse democratic values, it’s equally dangerous to assume that Jeffersonian democracy can be imposed upon Muslim countries in the Middle East.

Article One of the Fundamental Laws of 1906 declared, ‘The Emperor of All Russia is an autocratic and unrestricted monarch. To obey his supreme authority, not only out of fear but out of conscience, God Himself commands.’18