Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
-- Aesop
The Wolf and the Lamb
WOLF, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay
violent hands on him, but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb
the Wolf's right to eat him.
He thus addressed him:"Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted
me."
"Indeed," bleated the Lamb in a mournful tone of voice, "I was not
then born."
Then said the Wolf, "You feed in my pasture."
"No, good sir," replied the Lamb, "I have not yet tasted
grass."
Again said the Wolf, "You drink of my well."
"No," exclaimed the Lamb, "I never yet drank water, for as yet my
mother's milk is both food and drink to me."
Upon which the Wolf seized him and ate him up, saying, "Well! I
won't remain supperless, even though you refute every one of my
imputations."
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.
http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?4&TheWolfandtheLamb