In these lines we see again the cycle of Separation-to-Union-to-Separation that Nostromo argues underlies all politics. Because we are in Part Two, which focuses on Separation, it is Union that gets the bad name here, with Decoud virtually equating it with "tyranny." In the novel's bleak political vision any form of rule is an oppression of the varied individual desires that make up a nation; therefore there is a sense in which Unity, being the imposition of a single political idea, is tyrannical by definition. But the opposite political extreme, anarchy, will soon be portrayed as just as bad when Sulaco degenerates into it. It is also worth pointing out that the "early Federalism" of which Decoud approves has also been described as "an epoch of civil wars," though that description came in Part One and hence through the lens of Unionism.