Tao Te Ching 58

If a country is governed with tolerance, the people are comfortable and honest. If a country is governed with repression, the people are depressed and crafty.

When the will to power is in charge, the higher the ideals, the lower the results. Try to make people happy, and you lay the groundwork for misery. Try to make people moral, and you lay the groundwork for vice.
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Almost every spouse or parent knows that trying to make someone be something or do something or change something is likely to produce the opposite of what is desired. Pushing someone produces the energy of resistance; which leads to more pushing; which leads to more resistance.

The last sentence quoted above is difficult for a lot of people to accept, as is all paradoxical wisdom (perhaps all wisdom is paradoxical). Eventually we have to accept that the only thing we can do is live our life in the best way we can. In so doing, we emit the energy of our morality and it will be felt and absorbed by those around us. That’s not to say that they’ll necessarily change their gross behavior, but they will be changed subtly and over time that subtle change will work its way to the surface of their behavior.

We have the power to influence, not the power to control.

This is as true on the national level as on the personal level. Each level must be governed with tolerance and without repression. Of course no one actually believes that they’re employing something as nasty as repression in the governance of their life, family or nation. Only the “bad guys” employ repression. The debate around “tolerance” has been similarly polarized. It’s a mantra to the left and an epithet to the right; and the more left or right a person is, the less tolerant they are.

It takes a tremendous amount of strength and courage to be tolerant and to avoid repression. As we look for leadership in our country, we should look for such strength and courage. Hint: these essential qualities will not be found in the hearts and minds of those whose leadership is based on a fearful worldview. The fearful are intolerant and repressive.