Why do all the characters against the Star Fleet philosophy...

[Anwar]

Playing the opposition for comic relief or intellectual strawmen. If someone could give a coherent opposing argument (and not look like an idiot)--one that took more thought before dismissing it, where you could actually understand why someone could legitimately disagree--that would be better. The closest we got to that was the Maquis, but that was never really pushed anywhere near as far as it could have been.

No no no, I meant what exactly has the Federation done that's just so blatantly wrong to begin with?

 

[Navaros]

No no no, I meant what exactly has the Federation done that's just so blatantly wrong to begin with?

Many things, such as:

1. Committing genocide against the Founders - can't get much more evil than genocide, that pretty much takes the cake.

2. Claiming that their main law is non-interference in alien cultures, yet constantly breaking that law and interferring in alien cultures.

3. Expecting and manipulating aliens against their own interests to join the Federation (Borg-like) collective (i.e. Picard tells Sisko in Emissary that his job is to make Bajor ready to join the Federation whether they like it or not) and dictate to them the conditions for doing so (i.e. telling Bajorans they can't have a caste system.)

Seem to be portrayed as racist ,psychotic ,megalomaniac thugs?

That is a reflection of the megalomania of the writers. They expect everyone to have the exact same worldview as them because they think they/it are/is better, which is how they write all the Federation characters, and that is also why they represent anyone who doesn't share their worldview as monsters.

 

[Anwar]

The Founders were going to attack regardless of what the Feds did, and they've done far worse to solids who never did anything to them. You fell too easily for their sob-story about being hunted, WAY too many folks did.

The PD is for Starfleet to not go around creating dependent vassal states, not for them to leave aliens alone at all. If you're going to bring up "Homeward", there was more at stake there than just saving that world.

Bajor asked for the Feds to come and help them, the implication being clear that "We want to join you eventually". Can't blame Starfleet for helping folks who WANT their help, it's the blatantly evil folks like Winn who DIDN'T want that. And we saw that the extreme problems with the Caste system, which is ALSO why the Feds were right again.

And there's nothing Borg-like about the Feds, when they go around raping peoples' bodies and minds with forced mechanical surgery then you'll have a point.

 

[Arpy]

And there's nothing Borg-like about the Feds, when they go around raping peoples' bodies and minds with forced mechanical surgery then you'll have a point.

QFT.

Anyone who seriously likens the Federation to the Borg is making a specious or outright senseless argument.

"Oh look, I ate a defenseless apple. I'm no different than Hitler. We're all no different than the Nazis. Lets repent and prostrate and beg Bin Laden to show us the way."

It's a ridiculous argument. "The Borg are unstoppable because they're technologically advanced. The Federation is unstoppable because it's nice. Since both are unstoppable (and really because I don't like the UFP) that must mean they're both the same."

 

[stj]

The genocidal attack on the Founders was explicitly a Section 31 action, and some characters equally explicitly verbally condemned Section 31. On the other hand, Section 31 was given impossible powers of subversion. The justification of such regimes always starts with the implicit claim that if "we" do what is necessary, then "we" can be safe. The unspoken assumption that various sorts of villainy are needed, in the sense of really having the power to make us safe, is not only left unexamined. It is thrust upon the viewer by fictionally giving Section 31 the power it claims. Thus the only possible choice within this thought paralyzing assumption is, is it better to be a live villain or a pure dead man? That for most of us is a no brainer. It's a way of loading the (moral) question. Bad writing, and bad morality too.

No one knows what the Prime Directive really means. In Star Trek, it meant things like Patterns of Force were criminal, no matter how well intentioned they supposedly were. The interpretations advanced by some characters, sometimes, in modern Trek, don't even make it clear how it is possible to trade with or even talk to other aliens without accepting their professed values without any criticism. This is just stupidity.

The notion that the Federation cannot give conditions for membership is that same as saying that the Federation central government cannot pass laws binding upon the membership. This is equally stupid. The absurd implication that a caste system would be in Bajor's interest shows, I think, that some people's motive for denigrating the Federation is a general detestation of old fashioned notions of democracy and humanitarianism in general left over from Star Trek. The connection is clearest in the Voyager episode Unity, where a mental democracy is portrayed as the origin of the Borg.

But, rest happy: The rebooted movie series has no moral content whatsoever.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Playing the opposition for comic relief or intellectual strawmen. If someone could give a coherent opposing argument (and not look like an idiot)--one that took more thought before dismissing it, where you could actually understand why someone could legitimately disagree--that would be better. The closest we got to that was the Maquis, but that was never really pushed anywhere near as far as it could have been.

I actually think Quark comes pretty close to doing just that in the episode The Jem'Hadar. He tells Sisko that the Ferengi are uncomfortable reminders of what Humans don't want to be and so they dismiss them with ease and no real thought. But for all their faults (they are, after all, sexist pigs), they never have herded their own people into concentration camps like "primitive" Humans or engaged in interstellar wars like "enlightened" Humans.

It is a shame that observation comes from the show's comic relief, but it is a pretty accurate description of the Federation's hypocrisy.

 

[Arpy]

Right, they just pay others to fight for them, and let their illiterate children die in the streets. I love that speech, but its writers had a massive chip on their shoulder when it came to the Federation - mostly from their time writing on TNG, when they were forced to come up with sources of conflict instead of relying on common contemporary ones. Heck, they basically de-evolved the Federation on DS9 in order to make it easier to make it's members unlikable. Could you imagine Laforge being quiet after he was called a racist? No, because he wouldn't be. Sisko though is quiet because because at the time, he did find the Ferengi inferior.

I love how people say the Federation/TNG look down on the clownish Ferengi but it wasn't unil DS9 that they (purposely) became clowns, and TNG showed them to be just as smart as any other species - explicitly in that Crusher episode where a Ferengi scientist invents metaphasic shielding.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Playing the opposition for comic relief or intellectual strawmen. If someone could give a coherent opposing argument (and not look like an idiot)--one that took more thought before dismissing it, where you could actually understand why someone could legitimately disagree--that would be better. The closest we got to that was the Maquis, but that was never really pushed anywhere near as far as it could have been.

No no no, I meant what exactly has the Federation done that's just so blatantly wrong to begin with?

Technically nothing, but there are certain independent-minded people who might find them terribly inconvenient. Harry Mudd, for example, is just an simple crook trying to make a dishonest living when Starfleet--bunch of know-it-alls--swoop in on him and start quoting legalisms.

This point of view is hard to pull off from the protagonists' point of view, but it usually requires some sort of anti-hero with a sordid or undefined background. For example, Malcolm Reynolds, Han Solo, Zaphod Beeblebrox, to name a few. People with overtly selfish motives and a healthy disdain for authority; despite themselves, they still manage to do the right thing, and still come through the story without abandoning their (lack of) moral principles.