"Just make the punishments harsh so the people know they are dogs who must obey"

Explanation: Legalism is a long-enduring strain of Chinese political thought. It was dominant primarily during the Qin, the first dynasty of imperial China. Rather than an ideology simply of the rule of law, it is better thought of an ideology of state authority over aristocratic authority. While it did have legitimate draws to it compared to the protofeudal societies surrounding the Qin, the subject of the meme is one of the rather severe and self-defeating downsides - namely, that a core piece of Legalist thought at the time was that people were dissolute dogs who must be kept in line by terror of what will happen to them if they don’t obey The Rulers(tm), and that allowing people to make excuses or ‘extenuating circumstances’ up will simply lead to those crafty little shits doing it all the time.

… there are several incidents in Chinese history that have laws drawn up on Legalist thought which mandate execution for mistakes, and drive the people involved into a corner: obey the state and die horribly and painfully, or become a complete opponent of the state and only POSSIBLY die horribly and painfully.

Later Chinese dynasties would remain influenced by Legalism, but other strains of political thought would become dominant in its place.