Along with others, I have struggled to understand the nature of my relationship to the Federal Government. This ancient dialog between Confucius and one of his students illuminates the topic. What frame-of-mind is feasible toward a autocrat, and the high-handed murderous administration for which he is the “front man”? The autocrat’s party regards compromise as weakness. Almost every pronouncement is a bald-faced lie or a pleading of ignorance. It helps to understand this is nothing new. This old story was written down circa 221 BCE.

Yen Hui went to see Confucius, and asked leave to take his departure. ‘Where are you going to?’ asked the Master. ‘I will go to Wei’ was the reply. ‘And with what object?’ ‘I have heard that the ruler of Wei is young and vigorous, and consults none but himself as to his course.

He deals with his state as if it were a light matter,
and has no perception of his errors.
He thinks lightly of his people’s dying;
the dead are lying all over the country
as if no smaller space could contain them;
on the plains and about the marshes,
they are as thick as heaps of fuel.

The people know not where to turn to.
I have heard you, Master, say,
“Leave the state that is well governed;
go to the state where disorder prevails.”

At the door of a physician there are many who are ill.
I wish through what I have heard (from you)
to think out some methods (of dealing with Wei),
if peradventure the evils of the state may be cured.’

Confucius said, ‘Alas! The risk is that you will go
only to suffer in the punishment (of yourself)!

It is best not to mix things with the Tao.
With such admixture, the Tao becomes divided,
and leads to confusion.
Their multiplication will embarrass you.
where there are difficulties, solutions are not readily found.
However anxious you may be, you will not save (yourself).

The perfect men of old
first had (what they wanted to do) in themselves,
and afterwards they found (the response to it) in others.
If what they wanted in themselves was not fixed,
what leisure had they to go and interfere
with the proceedings of any tyrannous man?

‘Moreover, do you know how virtue is liable to be dissipated,
and how wisdom proceeds to display itself?
Virtue is dissipated in (the pursuit of) fame,
and wisdom seeks to display itself
in disputation.
Pursuing fame, men overthrow one another;
wisdom becomes a weapon of contention.
Both these things are instruments of evil,
and should not be allowed to have free course in one’s conduct.

Supposing one’s virtue to be great and his sincerity firm,
if he does not comprehend the mind of others (whom he wishes to influence);
and supposing he is free from the disposition to strive for reputation,
if he does not comprehend their minds;
when in such a case he forcibly insists
on benevolence and righteousness,
setting them forth in forceful language,
before the tyrant, then he,
hating (his reprover’s) possession of those excellencies,
will put him down as doing him harm.
He who injures others
is sure to be injured by them in return.

You indeed will hardly escape being injured by the man (to whom you go)!

Zhuangzi by Zhuang Zhou, trans. by James Legge, Hyun Hochmann, Yang Guorong, Transactions in the World of Men