The way Androids are treated disturbs me.

[dupersuper]

Picard...incessantly threatened to have Data completely disassembled for the same offense

Which episodes are you watching???

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Depends how annoying it is. Case in point this little bastard had it coming.

Can I just ask ONE question?

Spoiler

Would you like some toast?

 

[Oddish]

No, but you can cook up a Toaster Strudel for me.

 

[Takeru]

Once something is proven to be sentient treating it any way other than human is racist.

You treat pigs, cows, chicken etc. like humans?

 

[Draconarius King]

You treat pigs, cows, chicken etc. like humans?

And if I found out humans were delicious I wouldn’t rule them out either

 

[Takeru]

And if I found out humans were delicious I wouldn’t rule them out either

Only one way to find out.

 

[Oddish]

Fortunately, toaster strudel is definitely not sentient.

 

[Mojochi]

Not as much racist, but perhaps speciesist since Picard had never threatened to rip apart a person holding some bit of information, yet incessantly threatened to have Data completely disassembled for the same offense under the same if not sufficiently similar set of circumstances

Incessantly? IMHO, he never threatened him with it at all, let alone incessantly. In a singular instance, during Clues, he is pleading with Data, & points out that in the event of a court martial over his potentially endangering the crew, he might be "Stripped down to his wires" by Starfleet. He's not saying HE'D do that. He's saying that it might happen if he can't prevent it. I really hate how that one offhand remark gets twisted into Picard has no respect for android rights. He is literally the only champion of android rights in their entire universe.

 

[Unicron]

Haftel may have seemed a bit callous, but that's (at least partly) because we are all used to Data and seeing things from his POV. We're not accustomed to an outsider's perspective. Most viewers would instinctively claim that Data (because he's a main character) is always right and therefore, anyone who challenges him is wrong. Things are rarely that clear cut.

IMHO, Haftel was entirely correct in at least one thing: a starship like the Enterprise is a dangerous place. If something happened, both Data and Lal could have been lost.

Now don't get me wrong, I still agree that it was wrong to attempt to remove Lal from Data's custody, but I can understand why Haftel might have argued for it. He wasn't being racist or anything like that, just considering the bigger picture.

And you'll notice that when Lal begins to break down, Haftel not only offers to help Data repair her, but he is visibly disturbed by her passing. So Haftel is clearly not the emotionless martinet (or stereotypical "evil Admiral") many like to claim he is.

There's a version of the script where several scenes from the episode - mainly Haftel and Picard's discussion in the ready room and later in Data's lab - have some extra lines of dialogue which give the admiral more context for the possibility of removing Lal, and why he would be supported by Starfleet (apparently) in that case. Presumably these either were never filmed or were filmed but not included in the final cut, for time reasons.

During the discussion in the ready room, Haftel points out that the M-5 computer malfunctioned on a disastrous level and that Daystrom, being the quirky genius he was, also preferred doing all the work on it in practical isolation. The subject of Lore never comes up, interestingly, but Haftel - and by extension Starfleet - have a valid concern that Lal could malfunction, and that it could have dire consequences even if she's simply not in control. By the time it was remedied, it could cause severe damage to her and anyone around her.

In the extended lab scene, when Data mentions how Lal learned to use contractions while his own programming hasn't managed to do so, Picard defends them both by pointing out that the Enterprise crew have superior experience in observing how Data behaves.

 

[Laughing Dragon]

Incessantly? IMHO, he never threatened him with it at all, let alone incessantly. In a singular instance, during Clues, he is pleading with Data, & points out that in the event of a court martial over his potentially endangering the crew, he might be "Stripped down to his wires" by Starfleet. He's not saying HE'D do that. He's saying that it might happen if he can't prevent it. I really hate how that one offhand remark gets twisted into Picard has no respect for android rights. He is literally the only champion of android rights in their entire universe.

I also saw it as a warning and he was in a difficult spot as Captain. I'd say he cares about Data almost as much as Geordi usually.

As to all that other stuff, yeah him having to go to court to be declared sentient and get to possess rights like the rest of the crew was amazing. Anyway, who just finds something that obviously wasn't theirs (but Soongs) and says its theirs anyway? Then there is what happened to Lal. Now Lore I don't care much about, though I guess they could have kept him activated and just sent him to a high security prison.