I thought the ending was the point, though. Like a lot of Enterprise, you can see the team struggling with the idea of post-9/11 Star Trek; you can't just radically undermine a foreign culture, wash your hands clean and walk away. Pretending you can has horrific consequences.
I don't think it was in starfleet's best interest to keep having diplomatic relations with a society practicing such drastic apartheid against one of their sexes. Sooner or later, that kind of crap rubs off on you.
Should Starfleet have also not kept having diplomatic relations with the Klingons? If you want to have a positive influence on someone, it's a lot easier to do so if you can swallow your own pride and value systems long enough to at least be cordial first.
First rule of diplomacy: talking is better than fighting. Historically, cutting off diplomatic and cultural ties is often a precursor to war. This is exactly why the US is still in communication with Russia and Iran. As long as you keep (carefully) communicating, there is a chance of peace.
People are also known to speak up against some practices that they find revolting in other countries, sometimes it results in the breaking of formal relations, but it's better than watch the horror and pretend that nothing is wrong.
I disagree. It's the same thing, exactly. Any foreign country can tell you to piss off just as the Alien one would but that doesn't make it right to just shut your mouth and pretend that everything is hunky dory so you could benefit from commercial agreements with a world practicing a form of fascism. Where do you draw the line? What if the alien is having a pleasant conversation with you while someone is being tortured to death in the next room? Would you just keep talking as if you didn't notice anything, like the monster that you would have become. That's what I am referring to. Having dealings with fascists is more likely to make you a fascist (by inaction to begin with) than it is to make them humanists. Archer is a stupid sob in that episode and Trip is the good guy. Sure it backfired but the cogenitor wouldn't have been so quick to take her own life if that life was worth living. What it did is maybe show to the less demented of these monsters that what they are doing to their own kind is wrong. It's obvious that any attempt to change the horrible status quo in that culture is likely to be violent and cost lives but the situation as it is, is so horrible that it may be worth it.
I think the issue was more WHICH worlds they were conquering. The Original Series seems to suggest it's not altruism that motivates Federation concerns about Klingon activity on worlds within the Federation sphere of influence. Coon's scripts are just as cynical about the Federation, while Roddenberry's are jingoistic. I seem to recall the Federation being cool with the Klingons in Picard's era, where they were still subjugating worlds. Wasn't Mind's Eye set in orbit of a Klingon colony that was revolting? More than that, the Federation stayed neutral after the invasion of Cardassia, it was the Klingons who rescinded the peace.
Yep, but they were actively friendly with the Klingons at a point where the Empire had several policies that could be described as in contrast with Federation ideals. (Subjugation of entire worlds, refusal to let women sit on the High Council, etc.) The reality is that most governments have to remain diplomatic, even with nations that have "abhorrent" policies.
The question is: Would the federation grant a request for asylum from someone coming from the klingon empire? I remember an episode where Picard rejects such a request right of the bat. How does he even get that kind of authority?
No we don't know that. For example the Federation was unwilling to stop blocking trade and renounce disputed territory rather than go to war with the Klingons in Errand of Mercy. They were unwilling to simply surrender to the Dominion rather than go to war. War is hardly the last resort for the Federation, the Federation goes to war when it's in their best interests to do so.
But in both those instances who insticated hostile activites, or fired the first shot. If we for example look at WWII at the events leading upto the US entry would we say the USA started the war or Japan, sure Japan attacked in part because of trade restrictions imposed by the USA. Isn't the difference is that the UFP doesn't really start wars but will go to war if attacked?
I disagree, in many instances they work against their best interests. For example in the case of the changelings, as soon as they got wind that they were all dying of an incurable disease, at least no cure that the changelings were able to find. They should have let them die. They looked like they were close to the end at any rate. While simply biding their time behind the lines. Instead of throwing as they did everything against them and causing so much death among their own ranks. Once the changelings dead, the jemadar would have killed themselves as they did before and the vorta deprived of an army and of gods would have surrendered. The breen wouldn't have been much of a threat all by themselves, otherwise they would have attacked the federation a long time ago.
Or the Jem'hadar would have rampaged through the Alpha Quadrant. I wouldn't let one incident constitute a precedent, especially not given the difference in scale (one Founder versus all of them) and the consequences if you're wrong. The DS9 novels have already given us Jem'hadar who didn't perform as advertised, and while they may be non-canon, I see no reason to discard them solely on that basis.