Loved.

When you rule with fear, anything that makes them less afraid of you is harmful to your rule.  When you rule with love, the people will back you reagrdless of the political situation.

But seriously, it's better to be loved. If you are feared, somebody will eventually stand up to you, and even if they don't defeat you, the citizens become less afraid of you, plus everyone hates you, and wants you to die.

If you are loved, nobody has any reason to overthrow your rule. In fact, people DEFEND it.

i would rather be loved.

but i can see why some leaders prefer to be feared. if you're seen as powerful, nobody will mess with you. if you're seen as "soft", you'll be seen as an easy pushover.

i know, i don't get it either. ♥

I was trying to gain entry into a woman's house through her back door once. I tried the loving approach and was denied. I then tried a fearful approach and was allowed access.

Fearful it is.

Um totally love.

I think the answer becomes a lot clearer when you change the question from "Which would you like to be" to "Which would you like to live under?" I'd rather live with a kind and caring person ruling my land so I'd be the same way if I was doing the ruling.

Depends on your age. I was feared when I was a kid and it worked sublimely. I'm talking pre-14 years of age. At that age, kids' concept of popularity and reputation is still rather limited, especially from 4-12 or so. If you are seen as the bully, no one will mess with you easily (Mind you, I tended to bully those kids who were strong aswell, my direct rivals.) In time, I rather became a protector of those I considered nice (or weak) and a tormentor of those who I considered wrong.

After that, reputation, gossip and relationships are more well-defined and prevalent. It pays to be liked as you form friendships and indeed, being feared only makes you more and more shunned. It took me the rest of high-school to adjust to this (I had friends of course but our greap was really mid-level on the popular scale) but in university I learned that being recognized, if only for the class-clown or the guy with all the answers nets you most power.

I think I'm going to cheat on this one, and choose both equally.

Fear can inspire control, even if you do or do not believe in the illusion of control...
Love can be a lot of fun, especially in the sack...

Loved. Everybody on this earth has someone that can take them.

I think being feared would get lonely quickly since you would probably have 0 friends. So i choose loved.

i think if you can achieve both, as a leader, that is best. like my father, i love him very much and i know he loves me also, however i feared him out of a respect for his authority and knew if i miss behaved there would be consequences. it depends on the person doing the fearing or the loving. if you are doing things that are wrong or braking the law, you should have fear of the people in authority over you, that there will be consequences to your actions. however people who are doing nothing that is deserving of punishment/consequences should not have any reason to fear authority. when the innocent have cause to fear those in authority and the evil flourish, that is when you have problems.