Picard is being written as a *gasp* human being who isn't a paragon of virtue but still trying to do the right thing just not always successfully. Humans are flawed, humans make mistakes and humans make poor choices. First Contact was the only other time we really got a glimpse of this.
But that’s just it: most 24th-century humans were supposed to be like Picard, trying their best to uphold the principles of the Federation but with just that occasional poor choice of the week (like the one made by Wesley in “The First Duty” or Riker in “Pegasus” or Picard in FC — the more serious and out of character, the better for drama). You didn’t expect them to become down and out desert hermits with an addiction problem like Musiker or even retire from a problem the way Picard did, even if he could no longer rely on Federation support (and how could the Federation stop with the rescue mission anyway, I thought only corrupt admirals interfered behind the scenes?). The hope was that while imperfect, 24th-century humans will have created a better society at its core, with far, far fewer problems of the sort we see today.
Seems more like they exploited a clause in the Charter to justify their existence, rather than being created by it. From the Memory Alpha page on Section 31: Both DSC and the Kelvinverse presumably retconned this, but IDGAF about either of them, so... EDIT: I got ninja'd.
But, how does one deal with those problems? Both Picard and Musiker faced problems and didn't handle it well so they did a very human thing-they ran away. The question is-how do they come back?
Most 24th century humans were striving to be like Picard: "We work to better ourselves ... and the rest of humanity."
It seems to me the main theme of the show is Picard pushing back against the current version of Starfleet that has lost it's way. It has it's dark aspects but so did DS9 and that's one of my favorites.
They never would’ve had problems that bad lasting 14 years, only during the odd episode that reveals a flaw in the character. It was a side effect of the controversial “Roddenberry box”, of course, but if you take it away is it still that 24th century? Most of them were like Picard, perhaps to a lesser degree but rarely extremely different. Does Keiko share most of Picard’s values? I’d think so. Does Leah Brahms? Of course. You’d see conflict, but it would mostly be philosophical, over matters of principle such as what should be done with Hugh.
Even when she was packing up after every little problem on DS9? Even the main characters on TNG needed a lecture from J-L every now and then--Riker, Data, LaForge, Worf, Crusher.
I don't follow the idea that this couldn't hapoen. No one would be allowed to simply drop out the way Raffi and Picard did? How would that be enforced?
? Keiko had a school and an arboretum on the Federation flagship. It’s not her fault that Miles couldn’t become a proper officer and get an interesting job on another starship at least. And still she opened a school on DS9, went head to head with soon-to-be Kai Winn and eventually joined a scientific expedition on Bajor. A lecture, yes, but fundamentally they were all on the same page. “Should we do our best to save the Romulan civilization? Yes, sir, absolutely sir.” I doubt even Worf would’ve disagreed despite the bigotry he showed in a couple of episodes. Yes, but one hidden from the average episode, to the point where you’d question the extent of their influence. They claimed to be the mechanism keeping the Roddenberry box going, but were they really, or were they simply an overly cynical fringe group? DS9 had us guessing. It wouldn’t have to be since they wouldn’t drop out that far. The Federation went through the Dominion War with only a thwarted attempt to take over the Earth, and yet synthetics devastating Mars could stop the Romulan evacuation from continuing?
Make sure everyone is checking the right boxes on applications is not the same thing as putting their values into practice. That's what Picard's lectures were about.
Well, noncommissioned officers were not really a thing on ST before O’Brien was retconned into one, hence the levity in my choice of words (no offense intended, sorry), but my point is that Keiko was hardly to blame. Not even Sisko was sure he’d accept command of DS9 during the pilot; he was also raising a child and said so.