Just because it's bullshit doesn't mean it's not worth aspiring towards. Humans have self-serving tendencies, but there are moments when people try to be better.
Starships and warp drive require massive capital. People striving to be the best most altruistic beings won't result in starships and warp drive. And beings able to ascend like Wes Crusher gives two shits about starships and Federations.
One of the profs at my old uni gave a for-fun lecture about the various Star Trek series representing different ideas about US foreign policy, with TNG representing the most idealized/benign version. I'm not a big Trek head, but isn't the fun of it that there's the squeaky clean Picard crew but also the down and dirty Deep Space Nine?
Not that it's remembered so fondly (I think), but Enterprise was an intriguing diversion to shoot first, questions later. Possibly you could make some hazy links to George W's administration?
I don't think humans will evolve to some utopian ideal of not harming themselves and decimating whomever they're in competition with for resources, so while I agree with your sentiment, I still enjoy the naive idealism (nostalgia really) of the franchise.
The realistic Star Trek would be: Humans are chimps (naturally violent / coordinate aggression) that evolved to make better tools to harm.... other Alien species and other planets.
Most of the ugly stuff we want to deny about human nature just got projected onto all the other species and life-forms on that show. A way of wrestling through sublimation - because in actuality, we are Borg, or Ferengi, Vulcan, Klingon, etc...
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