“Political power derives from the ownership of an elder wand.” - Harry Potter probably (Maybe liberals would listen to this more so than the Mao quote. 😛 )

Also, reminds me of this older movie my Catholic family members tend to like because of the main character sticking to Catholic values and such, about the life of Thomas More, called A Man for All Seasons (1966 version). Thomas More spends most of the movie trying to prevent getting his head literally on the chopping block by avoiding being seen as legally opposing the king’s desire to re-marry, due to his lack of giving consent for it and his position of influence in the church. And there’s a scene where one character is talking about “cutting down every law in England to get after the devil” and Thomas More has this impassioned retort about how he gives the devil the benefit of the law for his own safety sake because once you’ve cut down every law in England and the devil turns round on you, what will you do in the winds that blow then.

But here’s the kicker. In the end, Thomas More gets sentenced to death anyway because Richard Rich, someone who has become a stooge of the status quo in the state apparatus, perjures himself; he lies that Thomas More said something he didn’t actually say, to manufacture legal consent about his supposed wrongdoing. So in spite of how that earlier scene is filmed and the rhetoric framed, if you put two and two together, the reality is that Thomas More was the one being foolish in it. Throughout the movie, he does everything he can to be the staunch goodie good law-abiding guy while sticking as best he can to his principles and still gets murdered by the state anyway.

If the current Trump administration (or as you say the German Nazi government) has shown anything, it’s that a piece of paper that says “you can’t do that” is completely worthless.