Politically expedient devils still have rights

Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that.
More: Oh? And when the law was down -- and the Devil turned round on you -- where would you hide? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
from "A Man for All Seasons" Robert Bolt


This simple little snippet—to all but the most obtuse denizens of that rat warren of bureaucratic ineptitude, i.e. Fed Gov and the vast majority of its tri- quad- and penta-lettered subsidiaries (IRS, FEMA, BATFE, etc., etc., ad infinitum), and not excluding its increasingly unwitted ivory tower partners-in-propoganda—would seem to be so self-evidently, commonsensically, undeniably undeniable, that it should require nary a letter in the way of apologetics.
But where would the fun in that silence be?
So, in the interest of perspective, lets look at it from a slightly different point of view:

Bush: So....now you'd....give the.......terrorists (or insert any politically expedient “devil”) benefit of law....?

2nd-year Constitutional Law student: Uh…well, yes, Mr. President. Dude! In all due respect, what else can you do? Nuke the whole lot of them, and then bulldoze a 20-lane superhighway right through the Constitution, not only endangering but actually sealing the unhappy fate of hundreds of millions of Americans?..in order to do…what?...save a few thousand lives?...to protect ourselves from the politically expedient devil?

Bush: You kiddin’, missy, I’d nuke Europe to do that.

2nd-year Constitutional Law student: Ah, Dude!? Oop. Excuse me. Sir. In all due respect…sir. Seriously. Were you out fishing when they lectured about the Third Reich? Remember....brownshirts…the suspension of civil liberties? Gun confiscation? Kristalnacht? Yellow stars on little Jewish kids being smuggled out of Germany in order to save their lives? Piles of emaciated stinking corpses being tossed—by walking, stinking, emaciated, soon-to-be-corpses—into burning pits of stinking, emaciated corpses? Did you miss that day at Yale when they talked about how virtually every great statesman in our national history has warned us that our greatest challenge would be that of reigning in our own government, and the never-ending struggle to prevent it from becoming a fascist dictatorship?
And, Mr. President, when the Constitution has been rendered meaningless, when it's become nothing but a worthless pile of mutually exclusive phrases and powerless platitudes, and when your heroic "superhighway for public safety” has finally been paved (right over the top of our last constitutionally-recognized natural human right); then what will you do when that politically expedient devil, or someone very much like him, has somehow gained the upper hand and turned the tables on us? (and rest assured, he will) Where will our grandchildren hide…Mr. President?
Where will they run?
Yes, Mr. President, I would absolutely and graciously grant the devil benefit of law---for my own safety's sake. And for yours.

Bush: ???????? That’s not………………………………uh…………………………how it’s uh……………………supposed to…uh……………………the doers of evil………um……………and the Lord smiteth Israe—…… Ishmael ……………..