The tyranny that oppresses human beings is assembled from the oldest predators, the leopard's cunning, the bear's crushing strength, the lion's devouring mouth. It gathers into one form every threat that has ever hunted us. The evil is ancient, not new. The predatory pattern our ancestors met at the edge of the firelight now wears a political shape and sits upon a throne.
Behind it stands the dragon, and that matters. Human tyranny does not invent its own authority. It borrows power from the deeper chaos, the serpent of pure disorder, and mistakes the loan for ownership. When a person or a state opens itself to that underlying darkness, the darkness lends its force, and terrible things become possible. The monster is strong. What it forgets is that its strength was handed to it, and can be withdrawn.